City Council - Regular Meeting

Hey, how are you?

My wife was complaining I was looking like a bum. She's going through like a 40-year crisis. She's got long hair. It's just not working. Everyone ready?

Go ahead and start.

We're going to go ahead and call the June 2nd, 2026 City Council meeting to order. Start with a roll call. We have Ward 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and at large all present. I'll ask Councilwoman Moynan to lead us in prayer.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Gracious God, we are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community. Guide us with wisdom and strength and clarity in our decisions. Bless this meeting and our city and our shared commitment to the common goal. Amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay, move on to the approval of the agenda. Are any agenda amendments needed?

No.

Okay. We'll move on to announcements. June 16th, 2026 will be our next city council meeting. We do have some guests here with us tonight. We'll start with the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers Association here for their summer conference.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Alex Palmer, president of the Mississippi Law Enforcement Association.

This is Eddie Addison, our executive board. Joey Hall, one of our vice presidents. We just wanted to come and tell you thank you. A, for letting us come up here last minute today and speak to y'all. But for hosting us, the generosity and everything y'all have shown. Andrew Osborne is a... He has helped us more than anywhere we've ever been. The barricade, the generator, the garbage cans, anything and everything we need. We just wanted to tell y'all we appreciate it and hope to be back here.

Hopefully y'all come here on the annual day.

Yeah, it's been great.

And thank you for your service.

Thank you. We've got a little plaque here we'd like to give the city. Thank you.

What are the competitions? Are they open to the public?

some of y'all who don't know what's going on this week if what went on last week this is a

very much a community wide event supported by other people in the community. So Bay William School District hosting us at their building, letting us use their building for active shooter and school clearing and building clearing. Hollywood hosting us or hosting them and this is a long time, how many agencies do you think you have right now?

Well we have 147 officers here registered all from Mississippi, some from Louisiana, some from Alabama.

So you have multiple states here, all this training all week. Jim McPhail is letting me shoot some of his buildings for the same thing, active shooter. The Bridges Golf Course, I think they're going to have a thing tonight. And if y'all, Hancock County Sheriff's Office, at their shooting range, they're doing shooting competition, canine, motorcycle, dispatch. They have some classroom stuff going on. This is a week of just a wealth of knowledge for law enforcement that we got to host. Last year, and they liked it so much here, they came back. We're kind of like a, it's a very nice community for all this. And if you've never been to this, what they call a motorcycle rodeo, you've got to go see it. I've never seen Harley-Davidson slung around like a bicycle. Because them guys are wild. Y'all got to go out there and watch.

Where is that?

It's at the Hollywood Casino. If you're pulling in, it's off to the right where that big parking lot is. To the left, huh?

If you're coming in from...

Last year it was to the right. No, it's across. It's across, okay. Last year we wasn't right. We had to clean it up. The parking lot's got to be kind of not bumpy. I mean, they do some wild things with their motorcycles.

When is that?

Thursday morning we'll have opening ceremony at 8 o'clock.

Yes, ma'am. Just go out there and watch it. Bring an umbrella tent that's hot, some water. Them guys get out there, and you can see what your law enforcement do on the motorcycle. The other stuff is shooting competitions in the K-9. We'll have some of the K-9 there. Different buildings are around. They've got some up towards the county, some here. But the motorcycle stuff, definitely go watch it.

And do we have people from Bay St. Louis competing? I know, I believe, two motorcycles.

We have two motorcycles competing, and we have four officers in the shooting competition doing training. Excited about that.

Nice. Thank y'all. Thank y'all. Appreciate it.

Thank y'all. Certainly appreciate that.

Hope to see you next year.

Glad you're here.

We do have a proclamation for the Friends of the Animal Shelter.

Pretty amazing on that motorbike, what they can do. Yeah. I don't know. Oh, okay. I worry about it. So tonight we're here to recognize the Friends of the Animal Shelter. So whereas the Friends of the Animal Shelter was formed in June 2001 by a group of dedicated citizens committed to reducing animal overpopulation and improving animal welfare in Hancock County. And whereas the organization established the no-cost spay and neuter program providing Hancock County pet owners with thousands of free spay and neuter services and rabies vaccinations for their pets. And whereas through 25 years of dedication and community, the rate at the local shelter has decreased from 70 to 80% to 25%. And whereas the Friends of the Animal Shelter continues to support its mission through community events and fundraisers, including Christmas tour of homes, pictures with Santa Paws, Paws on Parade, and pet festivals, and annual yard sales throughout our community. Now, therefore, I, Michael J. Ford, Mayor of the City of Bay St. Louis, along with our City Council, do hereby recognize and honor the Friends of the Animal Shelter for 25 years of outstanding service to Hancock County and commend the organization for its compassion, service, and commitment to the well-being of our animals and our community. We further encourage all citizens to support responsible pet ownership, volunteer, and animal welfare efforts throughout our community. Thank you all again.

Yeah, do one like that. Thank you all. Thank you all. Give them a moment to exit the room.

Okay, as far as public forum regarding agenda items, we do not have anyone signed up tonight. We will move on to our minutes approval. I'll call for a motion to approve the minutes of May 19th, 2026. Do I have a motion?

Motion.

Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Vote the motion.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Motion carries 6-0. Moving on to our consent agenda. Does anyone have anything they would like to remove or discuss?

Okay.

If not, I will call for a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Motion.

Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Vote the motion.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Motion carries 6-0. Thank you.

seven agenda item number seven project updates okay good evening everyone uh we don't have any particular action items tonight or discussion items but we did submit our report if you have any questions about any of the projects we'd be happy to address them

Did we hear back from, or did you reach out to Gulf Regional? Anything on that?

We did. So we can add the Subie, Pine Street, and Branch Street sidewalk projects into one. We basically would forfeit the funding for Felicity. On the lighting project, Old Spanish Trail, we can reallocate or request those funds to be reallocated, but it has to be to a project that is already approved or on the tip. So right now, the only projects that are on the TIP are the Felicity, Zuby, Pine Street, Ranch Sidewalk project. So if you wanted to include the Felicity Street Sidewalk project, you could move money from Old Spanish Trail Lighting to go to Felicity. Right now, those are the only five or six projects that we have on the TIP.

Jason, if we was to bid that out, can we bid it out to where alternate one, two, whatever, say...

For the sidewalks?

Yeah. And get a price to see are we under on what we're getting or do we need more money? That's why I didn't want to release some funds from the lights because I think we did that once already with another project we had. And the same thing, you know, I don't know if we need extra money on the... turning lanes on 603 if we gotta borrow from that again. I think we did at one time already.

Those projects are included on their TIP. TIP is the Transportation Improvement Plan, the GRP.

I guess my question would be if it's either we lose the funding or use it, it might not be a bad idea to add that.

felicity do that i mean we could do that or i kind of agree with what the mayor is saying is we should have approval for the highway 603 turning lane project um we try to estimate as best we can but the bidding climate is still getting kind of crazy right now again so If maybe we don't wanna release those Old Spanish Trail lighting funds until we have those bids, the sidewalk projects are gonna be a few months out. If we need to activate those, there's a lot of steps we have to go through to actually get to the design phase. But we're close on being able to get this six or three turning lane.

So Jason just and just out of respect for foul but she's not here, but I mean old the old Spanish lighting kind of Three and four I know Subi But is there anything right now with from what I hear nothing in Ward three because that would be part of hers I just out of respect to be would be three that's right it's on the east side of okay perfect okay because like i said with that being removed from the docket with those two wars as long as there's something that's being replaced and it would go towards so yeah thank you for my yeah felicity probably the least important

on that list.

So I don't think we have to make a decision tonight on Old Spanish Trail lighting. I think we would, I would recommend let's, we're anticipating that the authorization advertised that 603 turn lane, you know, any, hopefully this month. That's what we put in the report. So maybe next month we'll come back and have an update for you on the status of that. But then we'll know kind of what the funds are and if we need to move something around to cover it.

And to get the other three sidewalk projects going, we need to activate that?

We need to activate it. So the council gave you authorization to submit the letter to merge Suby, Pine, and Grant together. So we've turned that letter in. The next step would be to authorize the city, the administration, because the mayor is the LPA director, so he assigns all these letters. to activate those projects. So if we wanted to move forward with those, we could do that. At least that gets the ball rolling on those three projects as well.

Anything else from anybody?

Not on that topic, but if we're done, I just had one other question. Jason, I know we spoke last meeting about redoing some of the streets throughout the city. Have we gotten that, or Mike, the SMPDD report, have they gotten that?

I think they sent something grading the roads that we're looking at. They're not completely through with everything, putting it together. They went back in and did some more riding in some areas, looking at some streets. Okay. But they did send that.

I saw it on a council business, 11A. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it said that they were wrapping up the report, I believe.

Yeah, they're wrapping the whole thing up. But they listed a couple of... They listed the streets we're looking at.

And it was just for discussion.

And some of these, Mike, I know you mentioned last meeting, some of these, those are viewed on the preliminary of the grading and then also in conjunction with what Ronnie, some of the streets that didn't make it on the list as being a poor grade, we're looking at it needing some kind of repayment, right? Yeah. When are we looking, let's see, when are we looking at getting that going? The project?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It would tie in to the FEMA project we have now. Jason would know more on when we can implement it along with that. Do you know that time frame?

Yes. So that contractor is about 40% complete. He's pulled off. He's working on another job, I think a highway project over in Harrison County. Okay. He's got plenty of time left on this project to come back, and that actually helped us so we could work out the change order and the SMPDD final report. So we've got some time. Once we get the final report, we can compare that to the road that the administration found included in the change order, and then come back with a recommendation.

Okay, good. Great, that'll work. And we should have that report, but I think they said next week. Okay. And it was on the 28th, and I threw it in.

They got grades on this report, though, for now, I think. Yeah.

You know, one thing they didn't look at, like, 3rd Street, the asphalt, I think it's, I'm not sure, I don't have it in front of me, it's a 6 or a 7. Yeah. But that doesn't account for the dips in it. They don't grade that as part of it. Oh, that's right. Same thing, like, on Felicity and Dunbar, you know, north side of that intersection, same thing, a big dip there like it was on the other. They don't take that into grading the roads. It's just the condition of the asphalt on the road itself. And that's why that one is probably higher. I mean, the asphalt is good on it. It's just the dips where it's sinking and everything.

So the boardwalk? was supposed to have started yesterday?

Yes, ma'am. We had a notice to proceed for June 1st. We had a kickoff meeting, a pre-construction conference with the contractor, David Rush. So they're working on their staging areas. They're working on getting all their material. So they're looking to get started pretty quick.

And where will they start?

They're going to start at the Montlinson, at the ramp crossing the seawall at the Montlinson, work their way to the south or towards the harbor ramp. We do think we have some additional funds in that grant to continue to the north, maybe all the way to Carroll. But we wanted to get started in that section, that was the base bid, and see how things are going before we moved over to that. So they'll be starting next up.

Was the intention not to go to Ullman?

The intention is we've got another grant through Restore that should take us from Carroll to Alderman, but we're still waiting on grant agreements and all the approval for that.

And is the primary purpose of this boardwalk to have greater access to the beach and to, you know, to those points of getting down to the harbor and the beach?

Yes, ma'am. It's to provide ADA access to those points. You know, right now the scour pad, a lot of people use it for working out, riding bikes, but it's really not a true walkway. It doesn't meet any ADA slope requirement. So this will give a nice gathering space that will give an ADA – compliant walkway and we'll have ramps that tie in to the businesses that come down so that we'll have access to like Blonde Tiger and B&B but it's really just to clean up that area so we have better access so it'll go over the scour pad over the scour just about be nice if we had retail

It would be nice if we had retail shops.

Will we have ADA parking in that area?

Not as part of this project, but I know we've looked at some striping for some additional ADA parking downtown, but that's not included in the ADA. Okay.

All right.

We're looking at also adding some down at that Allman intersection, Allman and the Beach.

Right. Yeah, that'll be for that walkway. Another project that we're trying to finalize is an ADA beach access ramp by the fire pit at Almond. We already have a ramp going down the beach. We're going to build a low-level ramp or low-level pier around the fire pit close to the shoreline. We'll have some ADA parking in that area.

Excellent.

So that would be the ultimate goal is to tie this walkway all the way to Allman so you can have access all the way through to there.

Good, good.

Jason, what kind of, just with this being peak season down there, just to minimize any potential disruptions, what are we looking at in terms of that possibility? I mean, what is the disruption going to be down there?

Well, it's going to be a construction zone. They're going to start at DeMontlinson. They have access to the Secretary of State property, which the city has a tideland lease for, which is basically from the backside of the buildings where that rope fence is towards the seawall. So that will be the contractor's area. There are some business owners that we have to work with. There's some picnic tables and things like that that we have to work around. But that was one thing that we discussed with David yesterday, but try to limit his interruption. The parking was something that was mentioned. We really don't want him taking up a lot of the downtown parking areas for his workers. If we could eliminate that. Most of his equipment will be stored and his material will be stored near the seawall, but we're not going to take up any parking for any type of storage for them. They'll have to unload and offload stuff, but we've got the loading and unloading zones that they can utilize. So the site security and access is going to be his responsibility, but he is definitely aware of the time. I mean, no potential necessity to shut down a lane or any of that. There might be a temporary lane closure just to offload something, but nothing permanent. And once we get into it, we'll notify the city like we do on the other projects. They'll have a traffic control plan, and they can get a notice out to everybody. If we have to shut down a certain block, it'd be Boulevard for a couple hours.

We can notify everybody ahead of time. Because we originally kind of, we aimed for the fall, right, kind of after cruising, ideally, but it got pushed back, unfortunately, to the peak season.

I think we put bids in January or December on this project. Yeah. Here we go.

Thank you.

And then the main drain debris removal, number 19, that's the rocks going in and stuff like that?

That's the armoring, that's right. We're putting riprap, routing the riprap, cleaning out a lot of sediment. I think there's nine different locations throughout town.

And where have you stopped, Jason?

Well, right now they're primarily focusing on Highway 90 near the post office. That was the big area that they had to clean out. That's been their main focus right now.

Okay. We're going to be able to clean it all the way to the turn.

Washington by Drinkwater, too, right now.

Yeah, they're doing some work in there. The post office is one of the main ones where we're also replacing the culverts under the road, increasing capacity on Bush Log, along with capacity on Penn and Sheridan Lane, going through that. I believe that those are two bottlenecks that that really hurts us in that area. So while they're in here, we have to pay for it, but we've got a pretty good price on replacing those culverts.

Right there by the blue building on Bush Law. By the old church on Bush Law?

Yeah. We'll increase the size of that. And I think that's two concrete pipes going in, double barrel there, and then over on the other one will be a box culvert.

Oh, I can barely get all the way to turn it through that road or through that. person's yard, whatever it is.

Still working on some right of entry.

Yeah. You know what I'm talking about?

By 9th Street?

Yeah. I think they've been in there a little bit. Because if we don't get that cleaned out, everything else is useless.

And that's not bad.

You know, that's pretty good.

It's not bad. And they can go in there sometimes, you know, and drag something out by hand. But to get in there and try to get some of that brush cut down, you know, without disturbing the bank and all, that's what we're going to try to do in there.

Yeah, well, Ms. Jackie's been calling me every day.

So I know it says it's 25% complete by time, 45% complete by cost. Do we foresee running out of funds? Is that tracking well?

That's a good sign. It means they're ahead of schedule. We don't anticipate any overruns anywhere. They're just working a lot faster than what we anticipated.

Jason, while we're talking about blockages and removal, I know there's been a big project going on in Old Town with the relining of the drains and whatnot. Has there been an assessment done on capacity? Are the drains big enough to handle the new capacity with all the intensive building that's been going on? I'm getting a lot of phone calls and seeing a lot of water that's in places it's not supposed to be. primarily around the north side of Old Town, North Second Street, Ruella, you know, that whole area.

Are we talking stormwater capacity, drainage, or sewer capacity?

Stormwater.

So the lining is a sewer project. Right. So we're going in and lining the manholes and sewer lines throughout most of the city. The... The main drain improvements project is just to armor and protect certain main drains that are washing out or eroding. That's what NRCS is funding. Now, the city is paying for some culverts to go in, upside culverts, like the mayor mentioned, the culvert crossing on Boothall. The NRCS funds will not pay for new culverts or upside culverts. They only pay for sediment removal and riprap. So if there's certain drainage issues going on in those areas, that might be something else.

Ronnie knows about it and he's working on it. I didn't know if he has had the conversation with you.

He'll call us if he has a question about a culvert size or if there's a slope issue. We went through and surveyed all the main drain crossings in the city so we know what the culvert sizes are, the slope, and we can figure out exactly what needs to be done. It just needs priority and worst case scenario.

I think that area is looking at Bayview. Bayview, yeah. right there looking at possibility of replacing those covers got a box I think underneath down low but then you got another pipe way up here so I think they're looking at that being the possibility of a bottleneck in that Bayview Court and McDonnell Lane we've looked at yeah but yeah definitely I think they're looking at Bayview Court okay thank you anything else anybody else thank you thank you thank you

Okay, moving on to ordinances. There is none. We'll move on to city clerk's report. I'll call for a motion to approve the docket of claims 26-026, dated June 2nd, 2026, in the amount of $1,436,891.53. Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Going in seconds. Any discussion? Vote the motion. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Motion carries 6-0. Call for a motion to approve docket of claims 26-028 special dated June 2nd, 2026 and the amount of $345,000. Do I have a motion?

Motion.

Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second?

One and a second.

Any discussion? Do I have a motion?

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. motion carries 6-0 I'll call for a motion to approve the docket of claims 26-029 dated June 2nd 2026 and the amount of $12,000 do I have a motion motion motion by councilman Smith do I have a second second any discussion vote the motion aye aye motion carries 6-0 Mayor's agenda? Good, okay. Council business. We did briefly discuss the SMPDD change order road list. Did anyone else have anything else on that or any other discussion? I know we talked about it earlier.

Not really.

Okay, perfect. Anyone else? Anything else? Anyone want it? I'm good.

Just real quick, Mike. I know there's some blocks put on those lights at the sports box. Did we get those taken off, those lights?

He's taking the rest off tomorrow. He had one off field five. I think it was five and maybe a little, but they'll all come off tomorrow. Perfect. He might have taken them off this evening.

I got a call they were still there, but that's all I want to just check. The plan is still to get those off.

I know he took the one off. I think it's five, yeah. and then he'll take the rest off the ball and see how it goes. Perfect. All right. Thank you. You know, they just need to schedule it. When they have practice, they just need to schedule that so it's not a total cluster going out there. Yeah. You know, so just pass that word on to them. All right. Fair enough. Thank you.

I did have something. I'm sorry. I just looked at my notes. Back in March, we approved the Bravo broom sweeper. Uh-huh. And a month ago or a few weeks ago, I saw the poor man under his sweeper on Main Street. Obviously, it was broken or he needed to adjust something. Is it not working? I have not seen it lately.

Was this like when they first bought it?

Yeah.

It blowed a hole and they've got it fixed and used it since then.

Okay. Is there a schedule? Because I have not seen it.

I don't know. They usually stay on it pretty regularly. They've used the other one too. We've gotten the other one back as well. They used both of them both times. I'll find out.

They actually used it on Sunset and Vine, sweeping it. Made a little bit of a mess when they first swept it, but once it rained, it washed it. It actually looked nice after.

Mike, does the company, do they provide training or training courses on it? And we take advantage of it? We send our guys there that use it? They came here. They come here and do it? Yeah. Okay. And it was just a hose on it, blue.

Yeah. Nothing. I don't even know if they was on it 15 minutes. It was on, like, right at Main and Toomey. There you go.

Speaking of streeper, can we get them to do some of the turning bays on 603? There's a lot of glass and nails and just everything kind of accumulates in them turning bays up and down there. If they can maybe run out there.

See if we can get with PD and get them to escort them out there. Maybe use the old one for that to go out there.

It's just a lot of debris and stuff in them.

Either that or we can possibly just go get the fire and blow it off. Yeah. Thank you. That's it. We'll look at that and see.

Okay.

If nobody has anything else, we'll move on to public forum regarding nine agenda items. We do have someone signed up. Justin Thornton. If you don't mind coming to the podium, just a reminder, we do have three minutes.

How are y'all today?

Good, how are you?

I'm coming here because just out of clarification that is needed. The city of Bay St. Louis recently made a Facebook post in the past hour regarding signs about political candidates. Looking online, it says Chapter 42-4, General Standards for Signs, says that Political signs can be placed no later than six months before the election. However, the Facebook post from the city states that it's three months, which I just need a clarification for the 1,100 candidates that we have running. And just secondly, from that same Facebook post, comments were turned off, which cannot be a thing. You can't selectively turn off Facebook comments on public forum posts. They have to either all be off or they all have to be on.

An updated ordinance was— 2017 I think it was approved yes and it's in there and I think it's attached to that what ordinance to look at but it's three months If not, we get them to add that ordinance on there. The other one was 2003, I think, that somehow is still on there.

If I may say, this one did say it's up to date as of February 12 of 2026. So that's the one that this one says. It's online. If you go to the city, you can go to look at the municipal code. I'll have the thing if you want to look it up. So we just need clarification.

The one that's on there says 2026.

Yes, sir. It's on the municipal code or whatever it is, whatever service that the city uses to put these municipal codes out for us to look at. And the information is either incorrect or outdated, but it says it was updated as of February 2026. So I just want clarification on that.

And, Justin, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled just a couple years ago you can put any kind of sign in your yard as long as it's in your yard forever.

No. Yes.

That's not true. Yeah. The Supreme Court ruled that.

I'm telling you right now.

The Supreme Court ruled it.

Those are just the two items 42-4

And it's section, paragraph two, section D, political science.

And just to clarify, Justin, you're saying there's a Facebook post? Yes, sir.

Yeah, they just posted something about that, but I guess somebody called about it. Okay.

Yeah, I had a political candidate reach out probably last month. I reached out to Ricky, and... I want to say he said that there was two of them, so he had to provide clarification. I think he ended up. Yes. It was the three-month one. So, I mean, they were allowed at that.

Yeah, and that's what we had on our citywide. So what did they reference, 902-2E? 902-2E. Yes, sir, 42-4, then 2D. No, but in the Facebook post, what section? That's what they referenced?

That one quoted, that one was, the one that was in the Facebook post quoted a 2017. Yeah. And what number was it? I don't know that number.

902.2E. .2E. Yeah. That's the one.

I believe it would be the same one. So if it is the same one, then it's just like one date says three and one says six. The one that's online.

The one on 27 hadn't been adopted. I don't know why that's online.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, we're working on audiences now. All right, well.

It might actually be. ricky actually ricky told me because that wouldn't be three months wouldn't be within the november election isn't that when the election is november november yeah because he told me he because i told the candidate he can go ahead and put signs up i'd be six months what would be six months based on six months section 42-4 general stock a little besides it does say uh but that's a 2003 ordinance that's somehow still lingering around 17 overrides that audience okay

It just somehow didn't get updated in Munico for some whatever known reason.

There you go. Let me check, see if we can call that candidate and let them know, because we told them.

I think they did.

Yeah, because I know when I asked him, he called me, and I called Ricky, and he told me he was good. We'll get some clarification. Thank you for bringing that up. Appreciate it. Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

We do not have anyone else signed up. Move on to attorney's report. There is none. No need for executive session. So I will call for a motion to adjourn the meeting of June 2nd, 2026.

Motion.

Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Smith. Any discussion? Vote to motion.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries 6-0.