City Council - Regular Meeting

would please stand and remain standing we're going to have a prayer and then pledge of allegiance and silence your cell phones if you're able gracious god i give you thanks for this day and for for these proclamations for these young people and and their commitment that uh to make this world a better place and to uh And for everybody that is here, and also for history and Eloise Milam and the work that she did and so many other ladies, we lift this up to you. We ask that you bless this day. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Mayor, roll call, please. Please be seated.

Mayor West.

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Turner, absent. Council Member Durio. Here. Council Member Hilliard. Here. Council Member Williams. Here. And Council Member Sherwood and Crenshaw, absent.

All right, at the close of the meeting, City Council will recess into executive session to consider matters related to contemplated or pending litigation in accordance with Section 551.071 of the Government Code, Jacob Andrew Trahan. Consider matters related to discuss or deliberate economic development negotiations in accordance with Section 551.087 of the Government Code to which specifically Chapter 380 Grant Development Agreement, Belterre, belt air so we now we have five proclamations today and I ask that when we call your name if you will come forward to receive the proclamation then we'll also get a picture and then you'll have an opportunity to to address the council as well. And first, we're going to have a proclamation recognizing June 26, 2026 as Babe Saharia's Day. Accepting will be Ms. Paula Bouthier and Friends of Babe.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor.

Accepting will be Hester Bell, who's a member of the Board of Directors. IF YOU'LL STAY THERE, WE'LL GET A PICTURE QUICKLY.

I'm Hester Bell. Good morning.

I'm on the board of the Babe Zaharias Memorial.

And Our president is not here, so I'm doing this. I'm in lieu of him, and I just wanted to invite everybody to the celebration on June the 26th at the Jefferson Theater. There's going to be a wonderful movie, and there'll be organ playing, and it starts at 6 o'clock, so everybody mark your calendars for June the 26th, and thank you very much for this.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And next, we have a memorial proclamation recognizing Ms. Bonnie Louise Rush Milam, which is Melanie Maid's founder, and accepting will be Ms. Lainey Brown. From Congressman Brian Babin's office.

Yeah, that's right.

Stay right here. One, two, three.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. This is, for those of you that don't know, Eloise Milam was the founder of the Melody Maids, an organization founded by her in 1942. She had over a thousand young women that went through her program. They traveled all over the world entertaining our troops, visiting Military hospitals, many of the young men that they performed for or that they visited in the hospitals were very close to their own ages. And they received accolades from all over the world. and thanks for the work that they did. Congressman Babin is pursuing a Congressional Gold Medal for Mrs. Milam in recognition of her work for our military and our service members, and we're hopeful that that'll be completed by the end of the year. There will be a big celebration in her honor in July in Washington, D.C., and the showing of the Melody Maids that was done at Jefferson Theater here a couple of months ago will be shown at that time as well. I thank you for your thoughtful consideration for this. And I'd also like to publicly thank the Terrell Library for their hard work on this. They have archived much of her correspondence, and they have been wonderful in a lot of the research that we've needed to do and provided the history that we needed for that as well. And if we're successful, the Congressional Gold Medal will be... stored at the Terrell Library and will be available for all to see. So we're looking forward to that, and thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for the work of the Congress. And now we have a proclamation recognizing Bechtel Energy and their partnership with BISD. And all those that are a part of that, please come forward, and it shows that accepting will be Mr. Jason Malone. So but anybody else associated with it, please come forward.

OK, sorry, right here. Oh, we're going to need to slide. If this front row, if you'll slide a little bit. Let's see if I can get everybody.

All right, right here. And one, two, three.

Are you looking at me somehow, Sal? Make sure everybody's eyes are open. All right, let's see if I can get this one. OK. THANK YOU.

I JUST WANTED TO TAKE A MINUTE JUST TO SAY THANK YOU ON BEHALF OF BECHTEL AND PORT ARTHUR LNG. WE STARTED THIS COLLABORATION WITH BOWMAN ISD Last year, this is our second year going into it. Probably one of the most exciting things that we get to take part of in being in large construction is welcoming on that next generation of workers that are going to come on. And so I have a sincere appreciation for Beaumont ISD, for the parents that supported them, for the teachers that worked with them every single day. We will continue on that legacy of learning, and that's what we preach out there is that we want it to be lifelong learning, that they're continuing to learn, continuing to grow, and we will take care of you while you're out there. So I welcome you to the family. I'm out at the job site, and we'll go directly across the stage and onto the job site. So thank you all very much.

Thank you very much. And I have a proclamation for Juneteenth Day, June 19th, and it will be read at the Civic Center during the event. So I will be there. So come for that. And it is indoors. So regardless of the weather or the heat. And lastly, we have a proclamation recognizing the Beaumont Kappa League. Accepting will be David W. Dickerson, Kappa leaguer, and everyone else. Please come forward.

Congratulations.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Oh, in the next row, right behind. But make sure I can see you, okay.

One, two, three, right here. Great, now stay there for them.

GOOD MORNING, MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, AND LEADERSHIPS OF THE COMMUNITY, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS. MY NAME IS DAVID DICKERSON, JR., AND I'M STANDING HERE PROUD MEMBER OF CALPA LEAGUE, THE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM OF CALPA FSI. So first off, on behalf of Kappa Alpha Psi and our guide director, Dr. Landon Million, I want to thank you sincerely, because this means more to us than words can ever put into practice. For far too long, Stories of kids in cities like Beaumont have been of negative ones, and far too many people have associated us with crime statistics on newspapers, failures without a future, violence without validation, and limitations worth removing. But today, I stand here as a new story, a new chapter in life. We're young men that are going into college. We're young men learning STEM and entrepreneurship and learning how to keep ourselves off of everything that we really shouldn't. We're young men learning brotherhood through leadership, accountability, and integrity, not through the gangs and crimes that most people associate us with. Capital League has given us a place where we can join meetings and college campuses, where we can think more deeply and strategically about ourselves, and more importantly, the future that's to come. There's... Capital League has given us so much. So, so much. It is... We... Parts of our chapter have joined All Pass STEM to where they reach state level to sponsor, not sponsor, my bad, to represent our region. We joined at Cali Millies to help support seatbelt safety and help save lives. We've worked with Lamar University at Southeast Texas Homeless Corporation to help address the situation and make it better. Our CAPA members are all learning financial literacy. We're all joined in a PNC bank where each and every one of us have opened a savings and checkings account. In every meeting, we learn Financial literacy, of course. We learn how to be responsible. We learn about ethics and everything in between. And every time it comes from a man that will not let us settle for anything less than great. That's amazing. That's all we can wish for. And we've been to Lamar. We've been throughout helping in our community, we met professionals, we met faculty members wherever we went, and we met athletes, specifically at Lamar, that showed us what could happen in the future and what we can strive to become and get better at. Each and every experience that we had and are having in the future will show us how we should perceive the world around us and perceive ourselves, more importantly. But for me personally, it has helped me improve in my leadership, my confidence, and my future. Up until recently, I attended Legacy Christian Academy. And recently, I gained an honors college at Houston Tillerson. That's where I'm going to pursue veterinary medicine so I can one day return to kindness, return to a community where I can help them back as they helped me. But that's not what makes this right here so powerful, so profound. What it really does is it's understanding. understanding that I am not the only success story here. We have 19 other young men in this program. 19. That's a number. And each and every one of them have a dream, a purpose, and a talent that's worth the world. And nothing can replace that. So we should cherish that. We should, and we will. We always will. So yeah, there's every opportunity that was given to us can be given to anybody. We're just a small speck of it. Capital League is just an example of what can happen when a community as a whole invests into the younger generation. When a community as a whole cherishes and teaches the younger generation instead of putting them to the side or just letting them learn by themselves. We can't learn as a society by ourselves. Well, we can, but it won't amount to anything at all. We learn better when we're together. And Capital League has showed me that many times, many, many times. So here's one thing. Dr. Len Emelian has constantly said, leadership is about responsibility and accountability, accountable decision making. The responsibility to lead yourself and others into a better future. The responsibility to serve others with more than what's deserved. The responsibility to think critically and strategically about the future ahead and the past behind us. The responsibility to represent ourselves, our families, and our community with excellence. But to end it off, to end it good, Once again, Kappa League is a wonderful program. It's showed us what we can do for the generation to come and the generation that's coming ahead and the generation that's behind us. It's amazing. So Kappa League, If not anything else, if not anything else you take from this, put, first off, we thank you. But otherwise, continue putting into us and putting into the community as you do already and as you will continue doing. Because we sincerely thank you for it. There's nothing else that we can access.

Thank you all for coming. And now we're going to.