City Council - Regular Meeting

GOOD EVENING, EVERYBODY, COUNCIL. HOW IS EVERYBODY? GOOD. We do not have a study session items tonight, but we had a very long study session, six or so hours probably on Friday about the budget and department heads. So we don't have anything to study tonight, but I know at our next meeting we'll have some things that Dr. Haskin is going to want to discuss with us. With that being said, we'll get into presentations. AND I'M GOING TO TRANSITION DOWN TO THERE. WE HAVE CITIZENS ACADEMY GRADUATION RECOGNITION. You know, anybody who knows me and most of the people up here on City Council, being involved in our community is very near and dear to my heart and many of my colleagues that I sit up here with. And I believe, and Nicolette's not here tonight, but I want to brag on her. This was something that Nicolette thought of in 2018. And every... Every group that she has had come through has been engaged. We end up seeing some of those residents get involved in other committees and boards, and it's pretty amazing. So thank you to Nicolette for putting that together and doing a great job. Friends, tonight it's my pleasure to recognize the spring of 2026 graduates of our Citizens Academy. We started, this program was started in 2018. Thank you, Nicolette. To help our residents connect and get more involved with our city services. I'm extremely proud to have the graduates on staff, on our advisory boards and sitting with us on city council. Citizens willing to invest in their city is our greatest strength in Cape Girardeau. I know our staff enjoys hosting and we hope all of you graduating tonight with pride. I hope that you'll continue to get more involved in your city and continue being public service. Excuse me. Please join me up front as I call your name, face the audience for a photo, and I have a coin, a city coin that we will present you with. And I know Gail's here to take some pictures. I didn't see you up here. I was starting to worry about where you were at. Edward Farley. Barakura Cooper. Did Jonathan Dohan make it? Okay, yeah, Jonathan Dohan. DANIEL DOWLING.

FON KAZMARCZEK.

I GOT IT RIGHT, DIDN'T I? YES, YOU DID.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Demaria Pickens. Oh, she didn't make it. Paul Ponder. Gary Springer. And last but certainly not least, Brooklyn Stevens. This one makes me feel old. I went to college with her mom and dad.

I'm trying to avoid the podium, so I'm sorry. If you could just keep scooting on down, that would be wonderful.

Keep going.

while they're taking that picture, I'd just like to say congratulations to you all. Before I took my council seat, I thought I better go to this Citizens Academy to learn what the city is all about. I'd rather take a tour than read a book. So I did engage in that and I might tell you, if you wanna see your fire, your police, your public works, your waste management, your water treatment plants, everything the city does, this class covers. to include a good AM session with the city council and all the department heads. So it's a fantastic, that's not a long course, it's just like once a week, but it's fantastic and I encourage everybody, if you haven't done so, to do so, to know your city.

That was great. Thank you guys for attending and being in that group. COMMUNICATIONS AND REPORTS. I KNOW WE'VE HAD A BUSY TWO WEEKS. ANYONE?

I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE.

informational events

Yeah, I just had a cup of coffee, so I'm kind of talkative. I would just like to say summer is obviously here, not just because of the heat and the kids out of school, but if you're driving around town, if you're trying to fill up your gas tank, or if you're going to Sports Academy or Walmart, it's amazing on the weekends how many people you see that you don't know. And that result, ladies and gentlemen, is from Park and Rex, bringing all of these sports activities in. And initially, you might want to be a little frustrated when you're waiting just to get gas. But secondly, if you take a look around and you'll see all these children and these families together, uh it is an opportunity at that time when you're getting gassed maybe make a new friend or welcome them to cape if they say no we're from springfield conversation i had with a gentleman and and his kids were there in their baseball outfits so it's an opportunity to engage and that's why they come to cape girardeau it's not just for the sport it's because we're a very very friendly hospitable place to come and stay the weekend watch your kids play and then go out and have a good bite to eat and just be around good people. So take that opportunity if that if it if it arises for you and just welcome them. Thanks, Parker Rex. You guys are killing it.

I just wanted to make note. I know the mayor mentioned it earlier, but Friday we had the the opportunity to meet in a council retreat slash budget workshop for the day. And I wanted to thank Dr. Haskins and the mayor for putting that together. But just a quick note, as I was reflecting on it later that day, I just couldn't get over the fact of how top notch our leaders are on our city government. Like we have, a stellar team. I mean, and it was reflected in every single one of you and your presentation, your vision for the future, your grasp and understanding of the now and in the immediate future. And I just wanted to give major kudos to you guys. And I'm sure that that's reflected in the staffs that you guys have assembled below you and with you and your colleagues. So just kudos to you guys. We can't give you guys enough praise and we are blessed as a city to have such a top notch group. And then second note that I wanted to say was, I don't know, I just, I don't know if in recent memory, amount i just wanted to give major kudos to the area prep athletics as well as we have the university they won again what is it called the commissioner's cup the ovc the simo one um the the overall ovc title for all the sports but then it just seems like with the spring sports season wrapping up there's so many accolades that we're getting for our area high schools and um our athletes and i know some of some of the people up here are intimately involved with some of them and um in coaching them and so whether it's golf or track or baseball or softball, just all of the area schools, we have SEMO or Southeast Missouri is so well represented and I just wanted to give accolades to them. So, yeah.

Yeah. Well, since Councilman Thomas stole like half of my thunder, No, but you're exactly right. Thank you, Dr. Haskin and staff and Lisa and all your staff. We had a good long day. But what I loved the most, we had great discussion. And that sometimes can be difficult. But we had great discussion. I did want to say, you know, Brian Johnson, congrats. Coach Johnson, first time in probably 10 or 15 years that Cape Central had a state medalist in golf. And then with all the Notre Dame and Central athletes that medaled and stayed is pretty amazing. We're very fortunate. A couple of things that I got to see with my own eyes and be a part of. Kendra Booz has been in the... finance department here for the city of Cape Girardeau for 42 years, and she retired on Thursday, and we got to be a part of that. And when you look around, and I said it at the very first council meeting, I mean, it's pretty amazing when the people we're seeing are 35, 36 years, 42 years. So congratulations to her on a great career, and it was great seeing former city employees at that event. I did have a great meeting this last week with Old Town Cape, SEMO Ready, and Cape Chamber about our downtown inventory and some of our vacant buildings. And I know staff has been working diligently on some ideas for that. And I will say that those three groups are extremely excited to see what staff can come up with. Other than that, Duane, Mark.

I was just going to kind of echo with the sports and we all got a communication regards to Owen Blattle. He actually got one of Missouri's 14 most positive student athletes this year. I've had the fortune and my son went to school with Owen starting over at St. Mary's and finished out at Notre Dame. So just fantastic knowing that young gentleman and his family and what he's grown into.

Awesome. Mark, nothing, okay. All right, items for discussion, or do we have any appearances by advisory board applicants tonight? Okay, seeing none, we will ask for Dr. Haskins for the consent agenda review.

Thank you, Mayor. Council, we added D3 and D4 for your review. D3 basically is a request to execute a performance agreement with the Meyer Trust for certain improvements along the Baldwin Farm subdivision. We're excited about that. It's actually a really nice development out there. And of course, D4, finally, another request to execute an L&I agreement with the Broadway Theater for the Sidewall Cafe in front or adjacent to 805, which currently services bourbon and bitters. Mayor, that concludes the review.

Mr. Bliss? Here. Mr. Cantrell? Here. Mayor Garn?

Here.

Mr. Johnson?

Here.

Ms. Randall?

Here.

Mr. Schaaf?

Here.

Mr. Thomas?

Here.

Okay. I would ask for a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. Second. So moved by Cantrell, second by Randall. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. All right, public hearings. THERE IS A PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE PROPOSED OPERATING BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR END JUNE 30, 2027, ITEM NUMBER F1, BILL NUMBER 24-26-46. THIS PUBLIC HEARING IS NOW OPEN. Any residents wishing to speak on the budget? Seeing none, I will close that public hearing. C2 is an administrative public hearing, and since we've already had a public hearing on that, we do not need to do that. So I will ask Mr. Young. Mary, you'll need to do that hearing, and then you can take up the item. Oh, I'm sorry. I got that reversed, didn't I?

Yeah.

Sorry. It's okay. See to a public hearing to center the request of Zenith Enterprises LLC for a special use permit for the purposes of constructing, maintaining and operating a vehicle fueling station and convenience store with carryout fast food on property located at 2090 North Spring Street in the neighborhood commercial district. This public hearing is open. Is anyone here to speak on behalf or against that public hearing? Seeing none, I will close that public hearing. Mr. Young, the consent agenda is to you.

Bill 2643, an ordinance approving the record platter Presley's addition. Bill 2643, an ordinance approving the record platter Presley's addition. Bill 2645, a resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute a performance guarantee agreement with the Ryland R. Meyer Trust for certain improvements for Baldwin Farms subdivision in the City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Bill 2648, a resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute a license and identity agreement in Broadway Theater, LLC for a sidewalk cafe in the right of way adjacent to 805 Broadway in the City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

Council, you have the consent agenda before you. So moved. Second. First by Thomas, second by Bliss. Any discussion? I will mark my vote in abstention on 26-48 due to financial conflict of interest. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Item is removed from the consent agenda. E1 is the approval of what Planning and Zoning Commission had recommended. I would just entertain a motion to accept that.

So moved.

Second. I have a first by Bliss and a second by Schaaf. Any discussion? All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? New ordinances. An ordinance adopting the annual operating budget for the fiscal year and beginning July 1st, 2026. First reading. Mrs. Mills. As if you were not tired of talking to us about budget. Was that the first time you had not gotten through the whole presentation? That means there was great discussion.

The ordinance in front of us is to approve the annual operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026. As you stated, we did go through a lot of the budget attributes in our prior meeting. The 26-27 proposed operating budget is on the city website page, so it's available if someone wants to look at it. A couple things that I wanted to highlight for you this evening. One of them is for all of you and everyone else, the challenge this year with this budget was to successfully develop the budget such that we balance our expenditures with revenues that aren't really growing exponentially. They aren't growing at the same pace of inflation. Therefore, we went out early to our teams, and I will tell you that, to Nate's point earlier, the departments are great. We have a really good group to work with. We asked them to look for opportunities to maintain or reduce their level of expenditures, which they did. And we were successful at being able to bring home several of the initiatives that we really wanted to do when we first embarked on getting this budget done. The budget, it continues to be able to focus in public safety. We've invested in enhanced technology, both in fire and police. Notable things that happen and will happen again is that because we have gotten more efficient and worked with some redo in our pay structures for the police department, we were able to save some, some annual budgeted costs and we were we're going to budget an additional uh 350k expenditure this year for some additional police vehicles which need desperately to be replaced so we were also able to be able to implement a three percent pay plan increase across the city for all employees and i can tell you it took every department's effort to hold those expenditures down in order for us to be able to do that. So accolades to the team, they all did great work. We've increased in this budget, the service fees by 3% for the sewer department, 15% for water and 5% for solid waste. THESE INCREASES WILL HELP US MITIGATE THE IMPACT OF INFLATION ON OPERATIONAL EXPENDITURES IN THOSE ENTERPRISE FUNDS AND, OF COURSE, AS WE'RE ALL AWARE, THE 15% WATER INCREASE WILL FACILITATE FUNDING OF THE WATER SYSTEM AND PLANT IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS. some of the initiatives that were very very important to us in order to get this thing across home plate was to identify those high cost expenses and we continue to emphasize on reducing those we'll work through that as we work through budgets and expenditures through the year even after the approval of this budget we'll continue those efforts cost recovery cost recovery our initiatives to recover our cost has been instrumental in helping us balance this budget it it was part of the reason why we were able to achieve the three percent pay plan increase we planned proper planning is so important to be able to do this we have to review and take a look at all of our one-time expenditures and capital improvements And we have to think about how we budget those so that the appropriate revenues are available when we need them. So the planning was another big piece. The third piece I want to introduce a bit to that we didn't get to Friday is our project to optimize. We've just begun working with optimization of our system and our processes. We have a software system ERP called Tyler. We call it Munis. This is one of the, it's ranked number one as the market leader for state and local governments. It is something that we're very fortunate to have. It's robust and has a lot of capabilities. As we get better and better at utilizing those capabilities, we'll get better and better with our process improvements. I thought it was interesting that 25 out of 25 of the largest cities in the United States use this very same software. It's customizable for our city size and it's also very customizable for the way we use it and the way our departments and team leaders use it. We are pleased to have that. One of the key pieces to the optimization is called centralized data and it's a hub card. So what I'm showing you now is just a simple hub card that's been put together that all those little boxes of colors and different statistics are all customizable to the person that's sitting at that particular workstation to look at those things. The idea here is to be able to optimize all the data in one centralized location so that multiple departments who have to deal with a certain topic or a certain service or a certain need from a citizen is able to see all of the information associated with that from one easy drill down instead of calling four different departments, identifying four different departments' ways of looking at the data or tracking it. So it's much more productive, and this is just an example of a hub card, we call them hub cards, that we'll begin to use as we get this integrated down through our teams. Oops. I think I went too far there. So far, the progress, the hub cards, and the things that you're seeing this evening that have helped us with the optimization are being driven by Lindy Prindle. Lindy joined us last fall. She's a systems analyst for the city and is very good at utilizing these robust systems. Thus far, we've identified values of improvements of $299,000, $300,000, and That's just getting started. We've worked in licensing, community development, the finance department, public works, the water department. We've improved our inventory processes. We've just done multiple things since Lindy's arrival. Together with the department heads and all the team members, we'll begin mapping our processes. We've already done one mapping exercise last week actually, where we take a look at how we currently do things and then we look at all the ways with those teams input on how we can improve that to shorten that cycle to improve the shared information. And we're very pleased with the process we've got thus far. And I will tell you that optimization is the way we'll handle the budget challenges we have moving forward, better utilization of the staff and the resources that we have. And it'll be best for all the folks, all of us that have to do the jobs and all of those that are recipients of the services that we render. So having said that, the budget is up, the ordinance is up for vote. We will, oh, I was gonna, sorry, I was gonna talk to you a little bit about the water system improvements and that's included in here. There is a very, good web page, which we're a little technology challenged here this evening, which is why I'm here instead of over here. But there's a very good website that's now active on the city website that depicts our progress with the water system. And what we do there is we will show you a chart of where the revenues are, where the spend is, and where the reserves are. So again, I want to reiterate that the 15% water rate increase is associated with the reserves we'll be creating over the next several years. in order to fund the improvements in the water department. In addition to the status of the reserves and the expenditures that I'm showing you this slide here, there's also a good chart that looks much better than mine here that shows you where we're at on the projects. I wasn't able to pick that here tonight for you, but this pretty much does the same thing. It tells you that in 24-25, we did the filter gallery piping and the line system improvements. We're almost done with those. And it maps out for you where we're at in the processes and how much money those individual projects are projected to cost. So with that, I conclude.

Lisa, will you also talk about the street budget? And you brought that up. I thought it was $22 million.

Yes.

Will you bring that discussion topic that we had on Friday? Will you talk about that a little bit?

Yes, absolutely. So there are capital improvements budgeted in this budget that total 33 million and some change. Of that, 22 million is projects for streets. It's very important for everyone in the city to understand that we budget for these projects in lump sum at the beginning of the projects when they start. So we've got budgeted 22 million projects to start this year. They won't all finish. It takes multiple hits and multiple years in order to get them done. There's engineering and then there's the actual construction and building. But yes, of the 33 million in capital improvements that are budgeted, 22 are streets.

And then to that point, you brought up with the water system a couple weeks ago, we all know that with respect to street repair, Trevor Pooley had rolled out that. So now we have water and streets live on the city's website that will tell you where we are at with each of those projects, how much we are spending each budget year. Did I get most of that right, Lisa?

No, that is correct. They're very dynamic. And they will show you, in addition to the chart of the money, right, they're also gonna show you the progress on the projects. The development project for sites is really quite good if you wanna see the area, it's mapped out for you. I recommend everybody look at the city website. It's an excellent resource to see where we're at on all these projects.

Mayor, those projects are in real time. I mean, those are updated daily.

Yes.

That's amazing.

That's probably one of the attributes of data systems and the things that I should have mentioned. These hub cards and all we're trying to do for process improvements, thank you, Dr. Haskins, they're real-time data. They're not a report that you dump and three weeks later you have to update the report. What we're conveying here are improvements such that the data that we use to give you guys this information is real time.

And if not for the optimization and what Lenny was working on, we would not have been able to get a full 3% to our employees this year.

It would have been a challenge. Yeah, it would have been a challenge. We're going to see, and we're just beginning to see the benefits of this.

I would just like to say, I think our citizens can be confident. They always want to know where the money's going, what it's being spent on. And I believe this is probably the most transparent that city government has been, maybe in its history. So, and I tell you, you can go online and there's a lot of information out there. And I encourage everybody out there to do that. I think it's great. You know, taxpayers want to know how their money is being spent. And through these systems, we can tell them that. And we are telling them that.

Absolutely. Great point, Mark.

It's so much easier with real-time data. Yeah. It's so much easier with real-time data.

Would anybody else like to chime in? More discussion, no matter.

I really would, just for a minute. And Lisa has heard me here. She's heard me say this so many times. I've heard you several times in the last two years talking about this budget and what you're doing. And it's always, you just really do amaze me. And I'm not just saying this for fluff. You have a job, but your commitment is so far beyond the job. You and Bridget and now Lindy, you guys run this checkbook like my mom used to run the house checkbook. I mean, you're personally involved and engaged like it totally affects you, which it does. But I just want everyone to know that how hard you all work. The job that you have now, especially with technology, everybody knows technology. is so expensive and so you have to you have to find your your cost savings what are you going to do to afford this and it's harder and harder because it changes so rapidly and uh i wouldn't want your job but i tell you what you're just amazing at it and bridget amazing it takes a whole team is that lindy that is lindy lindy joined us tonight so glad to have you lindy yeah

Without the teams that help us, our information and things we put together is largely driven by the input from the department heads and their teams. So it takes a village. It's a whole big group of people that do an awful lot of good work in order to get these things put together.

Anything else? Great discussion and thank you so much, Lisa. I think that on Friday you could see, and I do want to mention before I forget, and this is all audited. Beeson Canroe does an audit every year. Over my 10 years of knowledge and even going back further, they're looking at the processes, they're looking at the accounts, they are making sure that the taxes and the special revenues that we have have all matched up exactly with what the taxpayer voted on. And so I have extreme confidence in that process.

And the budget, too, is on the website, as well as the audit.

It is. So with that being said, is anyone here to speak in favor or in opposition of the budget? Please state your name and address.

Yes, sir.

Citizens Academy graduate. Yes, sir. He's getting involved quick, guys.

Good evening. My name is Edward Barley, and I live at 3916 Hopper Road. So I spent eight weeks going through the Citizen Academy, going through each department. I do not envy your job at all. Because the people that did these tours with us, these two-hour little seminars, they were so informative of not only what they're doing, but what it takes to make their departments run. And it is a major undertaking that I don't think I grasped fully when I got in there. But after it was all done, I don't envy any of them. So what I'm about to say, don't take this the wrong way. I look at your budget and what you told us when we were in there and all about the buckets and the flat tax, et cetera, et cetera. So again, I don't envy what you had to go through because you're giving what you're giving. With that said, it seems to me that with this 15%, this is the reason why I'm up here. You're asking the citizens of Cape Girardeau to continue to prop up the people that you give all the tax incentives to. Those people don't live in Cape. They're not from Missouri. They're not from Cape. They're probably not even from Jackson. But yet you seem to give them everything that they want. whenever they want it because, well, they bring jobs in and they do this and they do that. Well, you give them all the tax breaks, but yet we're asked to continue to foot the bill for them. Don't you think it's about time you're the new mayor? Don't you think it's about time that everybody pay their fair share for this town? If you're going to come into Cape, and I hate to use this expression, if you're going to come into Cape, you need to pay to be in Cape. You need to pay to bring in your business here. You want our business? You want to make money? You want to do hand over fist? Great. You need to pay us. And we're not getting paid. But you're asking the citizens to pay. And after a while, it gets really, really old. I don't envy what you guys have to do. I really don't. But there has to come a time when you're here to support the citizens of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, not the businesses that are not from here. I get why they're here.

Please help us. Thank you, Edward. Appreciate that. Appreciate that impassioned piece. Appreciate it. All right. If no one else is here to speak in favor or in opposition of Bill number 2646, I would entertain a motion. moved second i have a first and a second by cantrell and johnson all those in favor signify by stating aye aye opposed all right bill number 26-47 an ordinance establishing utility rates for the city of cape girardeau missouri by amending chapter 29 relating to sewer and water rates first reading lisa mills again

No slides this time. No slides, very straightforward, isn't it? Very straightforward. So the ordinance sets the rates in accordance with what I just told you was included in the budget with regard to the increases. The 15% increase is to residential and commercial water rates. And the fees are reserved in order to affect the and get the improvements done to the infrastructure and water systems that we so desperately need.

And Mayor, just so you know, these increases reflect the voters' intent when they passed this back in August of last year.

Thank you, Dr. Askin. Is anyone here to speak in favor and opposition of bill number 26-47? Thank you. All right, we have 26-47. I would entertain a motion. So moved. I have a first by Cantrell, a second by Bliss. Any discussion?

I just want to say, to echo what Dr. Haskins said, is this is what the voters passed for us to do. As we all are going to, or all of us that reside in the city limits of Cape or receive the city water, as we receive that increase bill for the first time, I want to once again direct us back to that resource that we now have on our website. What they have pulled together, Trevor Pooley and his team and the entire team, big fiscal conservative but that will show you okay we have raised this money here is how much we've raised here is directly what's being done right now with that money and how it's being directed and this is an enterprise fund so it is you you pay your water bill and it only goes to the water treatment facility and to the water supply to the city So, and that is where in that enterprise fund of the water, we pay for water and we receive water. We get water cleaned and then we receive it. That is across the board. There is no special rates or incentives or anything given to any businesses. They are having a hike to their bill as well. So we are all paying for this increased or improved water system to the future of our water system, and that is what everybody voted on. And so when we all receive that bill, please remind your neighbors, your relatives, whoever you can, to go to that website, because that is our accountability, our transparency of what we were doing with that money, because believe me, none of us that were on the council at that time took that lightly at all, that ballot initiative, because it's a big lift, but we were in dire desperate need as a city because we have forewent, foregone so many rate increases in the past that we needed to make up the ground that we had not, that compounding ground that we would have had if we would have been raising it at a steady rate. And instead we held it still, and then now we gotta have a big jump to make up for lost time. It's not going to be easy, but that's why we want to give all the information that we can to you through that website and the transparency.

And I would echo that, Nate. I mean, I look back to 10 years ago when we was quite 10 when we opened up our new water treatment sewer system and we went numerous years with a brand new facility. um not getting epa fines anymore we were constantly getting epa fines and to not get those fines and to not increase rates five percent each year for numerous numerous years and um so i i And I would also say for my personal sentiment, and Edward made the comment, as the new mayor, it's not my intent and hope that every year we're coming back and doing a 15% raise or increase every year. I mean, obviously the intent of Dr. Haskin and us is to not do that every year, but to be able to do a $50 million project or $53 million project over the next 10 years, it's gotta come from somewhere. So that's, anyone else, go ahead.

Just want to clarify, we will do this for five years. There will be a rate. It's a formality. Voters voted on it, approved it. We can't rescind it. It's been approved, and every year, whatever that rate structure was, that's what we'll be voting on. So I don't want them to, I don't want anyone to think that we're, you know, just because we're going to raise it again next year, that that's not, that's just something we came up with. That was what was voted on. And that was part of the budget and about a language.

Anyone else? If you kind of look at it as an investment and an investment in your health. So if you think about how much you're paying is to live a healthier life for your family, your children and your grandchildren. CERTAIN THINGS YOU DO, YOU KNOW, AS A COLLECTIVE GROUP, WHICH IS NOT JUST THE CITY MANAGER, THE MAYOR, OR THE COUNCIL, THIS WAS VOTED ON BY THE PEOPLE, AND THINK OF IT AS INVESTMENT FOR YOUR LIFE AND YOUR HEALTH. AND SO IF YOU THINK OF IT THAT WAY, YOU MAY SAY THAT'S A FRACTION OF THE ENJOYMENT I CAN HAVE IN OUR COMMUNITY AND WHEN PEOPLE VISIT AND BUSINESSES AND TOURISM. SO IF YOU HAVE THAT ASPECT OF IT, KIND OF LIGHTENS THE LOAD A LITTLE BIT.

All right, now all those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. We have some appointments tonight, council. The first one would be, it looks like we have for planning and zoning, we have Larry Patterson. I would entertain a motion to accept Larry Patterson as a new planning and zoning commission member. So moved. Second. First and second down here with Cantrell and Thomas. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. Okay, Board of Appeals, we have Bruce Baker. I would entertain a motion to approve Bruce Baker. So moved. We have a first by Bliss. Second. Second by Thomas. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. Okay, other business. Looks like appearances regarding items not listed on the agenda. We have Cindy Mayer tonight. I would just remind everyone that we are given three minutes, and we'll go from there. Ms. Cindy, how are you?

Good, good. My name is Cindy Mayer. I live at 633 Highland Drive, and I've been hearing rumors of a data center coming to Scott County where the Amazon Distribution Center is, and that the Cape Girardeau facilities, utilities like water, electric, will be used to, good, I'm glad to see some curious, like what? faces that will be used to power that i think it sounds far-fetched but i thought i would check it out so i contacted the mayor's office on may 23rd and mr guard promptly got back with me and said it's not true i really appreciate how prompt you were on a holiday weekend getting back to me. I then asked if the data center were to be considered, would the citizens in this area be involved in the decision-making process? And Mr. Gard, you said the city would be notified. Again, I keep hearing these rumors. My friends are like, but it's on Facebook. But I don't have Facebook. I don't have Facebook, so I thought I would come right to the meeting and I would ask questions. So I would appreciate an answer. I know that you probably can't do that tonight, but I would appreciate some answers on this. Are there behind the scenes plans in the works right now for a data center in Cape Girardeau? Number one. Number two, if there ever is a plan for a data center in this area, will the citizens of Cape Girardeau be notified and involved in the process? And third, I am glad to see you were also positive about the voters voting for the water issue because that's my third question. Would the final decision to have a data center in this area be put on a ballot for Cape Girardeau citizens to decide? So those are my questions and thank you for your time.

Cindy, I'd be glad to talk to you after council meeting, and I would love to talk to you one-on-one about those.

Okay.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. We also now have Jay Goodert.

How's everybody doing?

Good. How are we doing, Jay? Pretty good.

I got my count wrong, so there's a couple of yawns. My name is Jay Goodhart. I live at 5,899 Langholm. I've recently missed a meeting, so I became the vice president of the homeowners association for Dalhousie. So I kind of won by default. But we had a lot of talk in our HOA meeting about the condition of our streets coming into the Dalhousie neighborhood. And I've been a resident there for now almost six years. And it seems like every year the road people come in and they do kind of a half-assed job at repairing the streets. And every year it gets a little bit worse, a little bit worse, and a little bit worse. Putting asphalt on top of concrete. The streets are as you'll see by those photos. And that's all in about a 300 yard stretch. The rest of the neighborhood's just fine. So it's not from building material or anything like that. It was just, it appears that part of the road was built wrong because there's been constant deterioration in it. And you're speaking to things like water and budgets and all that kind of stuff. Well, if you fix it right the first time, you don't have to go back and do it again. I mean, a prime example of that's MDOT on the bridge on Bloomfield. It was shut down last year, it's shut down again this year because they didn't do the job right. Can we please have somebody come in, fill that with concrete, fix the job right, and keep the roads good for the next 10 years as opposed to putting band-aids on this and it deteriorates further. And it's like driving up a gravel road, which is no big deal if that's what you signed up for. But we're getting a lot of feedback from our residents in there. Like I said, I missed the meeting, so I'm now here as their proxy.

No, thank you, Jay. And I want to say, I mean, obviously with $22 million in the budget, I mean, we're tackling a lot. Cindy Brunke, or Cindy Brunke. Casey Brunke can attest to that. Now, it doesn't happen overnight, obviously. What I would ask you is to look at our website, see if Dalhousie, some of those portions are on the list for repair coming up in the future. And if not, reach out to me or David Cantrell or your board member and let us have a discussion about when that can get on the list. I mean, that's essentially what we're talking about is when is it going to get on the list? Right. Is that fair?

No, absolutely. It's just, you know... That'll work. I'd just like to see it done sooner than later so we don't have those road trucks out there three or four times a year because it's almost, you can almost schedule it by the season change. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for your time. Thank you, Jay.

All right. Seeing nothing else, council, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. First and second. All those in favor, signify by stating aye.

Aye.

We are adjourned.