Council - Regular Meeting

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Good evening, everyone. Welcome to City Hall at the City of Columbia. We're so glad you're here and we're so glad to see the average age of our attendees is lower tonight thanks to some special visitors that we have. We're proud to have you here this evening. We're going to jump into our meeting. We do not have any public hearings scheduled for tonight, so we'll begin the regular meeting of the August 13, 2026 City of Columbia City Council meeting. To all of you who have tuned in online, welcome. To all of you who are here, if this is your first time at City Hall, we say welcome to you. We hope it's not your last time. We're excited for what will be a very productive meeting this evening. Mr. Jablonski, I would now ask for you to please take the role.

Mr. Uppen, Ms. Sechrist, Mr. Marshall, Mr. McKelvey, Mayor McBroom, Mayor Mulder.

Here, let the record reflect, all members of council are present. Now I would like to call on Brandon Abbott of the Church at West End to please come forward for tonight's invocation. And as he's coming forward, I would like to ask all of you who are able to stand, please stand and remove your hats. And please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led tonight by Vice Mayor Randy McBroom.

Let's pray. Father, tonight we come to you as a grateful people. For those standing in front of me who we have asked to lead us, I pray for knowledge and discernment, for understanding and compassion. For those who are standing behind me who have come tonight, many in celebration, some seeking guidance, some perhaps seeking approval, I pray the same. Lord, would you be with us tonight as collectively we seek your wisdom as we seek to govern ourselves for the betterment of our city and the building of your kingdom. And it's in Christ's name we pray it. Amen.

Thank you, everyone. Please be seated. And thank you, Brandon, for that invocation. All right. We'll move now to section four of the agenda, approval of the agenda. Entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Mayor, beforehand. Yes, sir.

I'd like to ask council to remove item 7-11 on the consent agenda tonight. We still have a few issues to get ironed out on the agenda before we bring it to you. All right. So we can approve the agenda without being removed.

All right, so 7-11 will be removed from the agenda for notice purposes. And with that said, we'll now entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended, which includes the removal of item 7-11 from the consent agenda. Motion's been made and properly seconded. Any discussion on that motion? Hearing none, Mr. Jablonski.

Mr. McClellan, Mr. Huffman, Ms. Sechrist, Mr. Marshall, Mr. McKelvey, Vice Mayor McBroom, Mayor Mulberry.

Aye, that item is approved. We'll now move to Section 5, Presentations, beginning with Item 5.1, Quarterly Presentation by Will Evans, President of Murray County Chamber and Economic Alliance. Mr. Evans is here. Come on up, Will, and we look forward to your report this evening.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

Glad to see I brought another big crowd with me this evening. No, I'll be brief because I don't know that they want to listen to a whole lot of what I have to say. But you do have a copy of our quarterly presentation in your packet, which the first page there has our most recent August economic development dashboard. So you'll see at the top our current project pipeline. We have 13 active projects which are currently working, and you'll see the breakdown over to the right. of the various sectors of which those are included. This number is a little lower than we've seen over the last few cycles, but I'll talk a little bit about that and just the environment of what we're kind of seeing just across the board. Unemployment rate, June, the most recent numbers that they have from Murray County have come back down into that 4% range. When I was last year, we were at 6%, one of the highest in the states. And we talked about some of the impacts with General Motors and things that were going on. And I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute as well. And then I'll point out just the labor force participation rate at the bottom that continues to exceed the state and U.S. averages. for those that are actively seeking employment or employed. We want to obviously see that number continue to grow in order to make sure that we have the workforce in order to support our existing industries and recruit new ideal industries to the community. If you go on to the next page to speak a little bit more about our pipeline and just kind of what we're seeing, why those numbers are down. What you see here is the last 10 years of RFI activity or lead activity. Excuse me. So again, what a lead is, is when we receive a project that is looking to either expand or relocate to a community. Those come to us in a numerous different ways. The State Department of Economic and Community Development, TVA, direct outreach from companies. Oftentimes it's TVA and the Economic Development Department with the state. 2026 to date, we've received 44 leads. Now these are... not what we're going to respond to 100%. This is just our opportunity of which we have to respond. So not sharing this as a negative, this is just the facts of what's going on. This would be experienced by every community across the state because the state is reaching out to every community, not just Murray County. Just wanted to add a little more color where that is. The good news is we have done a great job over the last many years kind of building things up. So as we see these cycles, they aren't gonna hurt as bad. But if you go on to the next slide, what you're seeing there is then what leads have we responded to or sent in an RFI. responded to a request for information. To date, we've only responded to 17 of those 44 leads. That's about 42% response, and that tracks with where we were the last year and kind of over the few years. I will point out, 2021, we had a very high response rate. In 2022 on, we saw that jump down. And if you remember, for those of you who were on the council, we did a little bit of recalibration, went through our strike zone exercise, and got much more selective on the types of projects that we were even responding to. Even if we might be a good fit for the community, we wanted to make sure those projects were a good fit for the community as well. And then the next slide is the next step of the project. So once we've submitted a response, then hopefully the project will come and visit the community and put us on a list for consideration. So year to date, we've had 14. That number is actually up compared to the last few years. Our pond from which we're fishing from is not quite as large, but we're still fishing and being as successful as we can. And also keeping in mind that the project that we're recruiting are diversifying the industry, providing higher wage opportunities and are good stewards of the community's resources.

All right.

A little bit of project development update. So on the next slide, these are just showing layouts. This is the Tennessee, Columbia, Tennessee rail site. If you'll recall, we've been working with TVA to relocate some of their power lines across the remaining 50 acre parcel that is in that site. So just wanted to let you guys see that and then also talk through that we are anticipating the actual construction phase of that project to begin here in the next month or so, which will provide us with a great site there at the And then finally, we'll end with some good news. Just a few announcements. The next slide. Our most recent announcement a few weeks ago was Medacta. Now, while this wasn't the city of Columbia, this is a very big win for Murray County. They're a Swiss-based medical device manufacturer. So they design, develop, and produce innovative orthopedic implants, surgical technologies, and robotics that are used in joint replacement. So think of what our friends at TOA are using on a daily basis. They are manufacturing that. This is a family, a founded and family led company. They will locate their facility in Spring Hill, which will have both the headquarters for their U.S. operations and their production facility. So this is what we call manufacturing 4.0, where you will see manufacturers locate their headquarters, their R&D, and their manufacturing to be more efficient. And then it'll also allow them to bring in people from across the world to see their product. going to be a great opportunity. They're going to invest $85 million, create just over 200 jobs, and it will be across or close to Jim Warren Parkway east of Isaac. The next announcement is specific to Columbia, so DocuMotion Research, who announced several years ago their original location, did announce an expansion. They're adding about 40,000 square feet to their current facility. And just as a reminder, they produce the point-of-sale stickers that you would see if you go to Chick-fil-A and ask for no pickles in that sticker. They make those here in Columbia, Tennessee. And then finally, to talk a little bit about the General Motors, we talked about just some good news out of them over the last month or so. They did announce a $275 million new investment to their facility. This is not new jobs, but just new investment to add a fifth facility a fifth vehicle which is the cadillac xp6 another gas engine and that will be in addition to the blazer so they will have three gas engines and two electric excuse me three gas vehicles and two electric vehicles that they're producing there so this helps solidify what we've seen and what we anticipated with them temporarily scaling back so they could retool and be more productive in the future have much more products

With that, I'll stop and take any questions y'all may have.

I have a question. On those two plants that's coming in, where would the local...

people apply where would they apply for jobs sure so for medacta that's going to be a little ways off they aren't they're going to start construction in september so there'll be a year or so lag before they're ramping up um but with documotion that may be a little earlier the best thing would be to direct them to our office we can put them in contact with the right people if

Well, on the on the leads, y'all are choosing which lead to respond to based upon really a combination of conversations that you've had with the county commission and with the respective city commissions and boards and councils. And then also just based upon what you think our availability is relative to infrastructure opportunities and or restrictions that we might have.

Absolutely. Our job is to make sure projects are successful in Murray County, and we are not going to work to actively recruit projects that would not be successful here, whether that's based on utilities or other... And is there any, I mean, relative to the leads that we're getting, is there a sector that... that we're seeing them come from or is it is a diverse array of different industries it's pretty diverse right now i can't speak to all the details i don't have that information with me this evening but overall it's pretty it's not all auto related for example it's it's a diverse right okay if you go back to our dashboard you'll see of the active projects the 13 kind of the make down there only two of those are automotive

Okay, good, good information. Thank you for a positive report. It's good to see the unemployment rate and the direction that that's heading. And the Murray Alliance is a constant and just a really solid proponent for our community in good times and bad times and all the times in between. So thanks for your good work, your organization, Will, and thanks for providing the report. Any other questions for Mr. Evans this evening? If not, all right, Will, thank you. Appreciate your support. Appreciate you. Thank you very much. All right, that takes us to the next item on the agenda, which happens to be a presentation of a proclamation to the Columbia Little League 8U. Is anybody here for that presentation tonight? All right. Well, I'm going to invite the team and the coaches to come to the front of the room, please. And the city council is going to meet you down there for a little presentation that we have for you all this evening. And you all come on up and let's do this. OK.

You know what, when I was years old,

So I brought it out . We're so excited to honor you tonight . wanted bringing here tonight, all the world getting to watch Before we do that, tell me your name, and we know how old, what, where, where are you gonna, oh. He's older than his jacket.

There's a video out, really, really.

My name's Blake, all of it. in Hawaii, same race baseball.

It really got nervous.

Well, as a team, overall in being known, you know, well, I have All right. Here's Rose. Here's. Family. Along with. Do here. Friday, August. tomorrow, all day. But we're just really excited .

Before we do that,

Oh, hey, what's, I had to, I got some, all right. We were up 64, I don't know what the, what's the hardest, get that out, first, get that, another, get another, first, second, Passes in, all gets popped up. And right here. Oh my goodness. Bit down to his knee, bit like this. What happened? All hissed. No, you might've thought he was just down. Little dribbler got hit, ran up, grabbed it, threw it around. Smart enough to have it on the bag, we win the game. Dad got us. It really did. I saw that. I saw that. But one thing I do say about this, don't warm up very well. Right, Coach? Right, right. It's a tag. But, yeah, it's a tag. But, I mean, they do come through. But guys remember, not always. It's the last day. Everybody in here should try this.

Right here. How about that?

Should we hold the water?

All right. All right. Put our hands in. What did we say? Ballers? Ballers. That was our alien. Okay. All right. All right. So who's going to count it out for us? Oh. Okay. On three. Come on. We're all part of this team. Y'all just want to do Columbia? Do Columbia on three.

Columbia on me. One, two, three.

Columbia. All right. Uh, yeah.

What I'm impressed is that he still wears a jacket.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, everybody, thank you for your indulgence on that. It's always fun to be able to recognize the good work that's being done in our community by young people, and so thank you for allowing us to have a little fun there. All right, we'll move now into organizational business. Item 6.1, approve the minutes of the July 9, 2026 City Council meeting. Motion's been made. Properly seconded. Any discussion on that item? Hearing none, Mr. Jablonski.

Carl McCullen. Aye. Mr. Huffman.

Aye.

Ms. Seacrest. Mr. Marshall. Aye. Mr. McKelvey. Aye. Vice Mayor McBroom. Aye. Mayor Mulder.

Aye. That item is approved. We'll now move to the consent agenda. These items are deemed non-controversial, requiring no additional debate or discussion. I'll read through them collectively and we'll vote on them collectively. And as a reminder, as the agenda has been modified this evening, we will not entertain item 711. Item 7.1, approve disbursements for the month of June 2026 in the amount of $12,160,873.02. Item 7.2, approve and authorize the disposal of surplus equipment. Item 7.3, approve annual renewal of property insurance with TML public entity partners. Item 7.4, approve the annual renewal of workers' compensation insurance with TML public entity partners. Item 7.5, approve payment to Murray County to provide funding for the Murray County City of Columbia Animal Services facility for the third and fourth quarters of fiscal year 2026 in the amount of $121,000. Item 7.6, approve and authorize the mayor to execute Amendment No. 2 to the contract with Tennessee Property Management, LLC, in the amount of $450 per month. Item 7.7, approve and authorize the mayor to sign a contract between the City of Columbia and Journal Communications in the amount of $11,070 for advertising in the 2027 Nashville Visitor Guide. Item 7.8, approve and authorize the mayor to sign a contract between the City of Columbia and Juliana and David Hollins content creators in the amount of $4,500 for a Visit Columbia America in 250 travel campaign on social media. Item 7.9, approve and authorize the mayor to sign a contract between the city of Columbia and Chelsea. Guide us, content creator, in the amount of $1,800 for a visit Columbia fall travel campaign on social media. Item 7.10, approve and authorize the mayor to sign a contract between the city of Columbia and Cumulus Media in the amount of $500 for advertising and promotion of the 2027 Fruit Tea Festival. Item 7.12, approve the purchase of a commercial front load. Mayor, if you would call, we will remove 7. Right. I was thinking that I passed by 711 and went to 712. My mistake. All right. Item 712 approved the purchase of a commercial front load garbage truck in the amount of $396,761.20 using source will contract number 11-0223-LEG. Item 713 approved the bid award to Temple Inc. in the amount of $76,514 for the purchase of 60 conflict monitors and software license. Item 714, approve bid award to Utilicom Supply Associates LLC in the amount of $133,500 for the purchase of 20 Axis CCTV intersection cameras. Item 715, approve and authorize the mayor to sign the non-exclusive use and occupancy permit between the City of Columbia and Columbia Youth Athletic Association for their 2026 football season. Item 716, approve and authorize the mayor to sign the non-exclusive use and occupancy permit to the City of Columbia and Columbia State Community College for their 2026 season. Item 717, approve and authorize the mayor to sign a non-exclusive use and occupancy permit to the City of Columbia and Murray County School Board of Education. Item 718, approve the purchase from Allen J. Fleet Sales, the amount of $47,693 for a 2026 Toyota Tundra four-wheel drive using statewide contract number 209 for the City of Columbia, Tennessee. Item 719, approve the purchase from Allen J. Fleet sales amount of $112,604.50 for two 2026 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 crew cab pickup four-wheel drive 2.7 turbo 5.5 foot bed using statewide contract 209. Item 720, approve and authorize the 2627 renewal between Locality Media Inc. DBA First Due and the City of Columbia for software applications and support services in the amount of $50,925. Item 721, approve and authorize the mayor to sign an agreement for the services with Civil and Environmental Consultants Inc. for stormwater program services in an amount not to exceed $135,925. Item 722, approve and authorize Approve and authorize the mayor to sign a contract between the City of Columbia and Roof Systems Inc. utilizing tips cooperative purchasing to remove and replace the existing roof for the wastewater administrative building in the amount of $50,260. Item 723, approve and authorize the mayor to sign the long-term flow monitoring agreement between the City of Columbia in CSL in the amount of $107,485. Item 724, approve the purchase of desktops, towers, tablets, and accessories from Dell Technologies in the amount of $145,147, utilizing the Omnia National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance and state contracts. 725, ratify approval of the 8x8 renewal agreement for phone and fax services in the amount of $4,951.30 per month. Item 726, approve and authorize the mayor to sign a lease agreement with five-star vending for the rental of three water service units for the police department at a weekly rental fee of $13 and a semi-annual filter replacement fee of $99.50 per filter. And item 727, approve the purchase from Columbia Chrysler Jeep Ram Fiat in the amount of $65,901 for one 2027 Jeep Grand Wagoneer using statewide contract number 209. That is the consent agenda and it's as amended because we've taken out 7-11. I am going to request that we take out 723 so that I can, I'm sorry, not 723, item 722, 7.22. If we can remove that item so that I can refuse on item 7.22. So just to recap, this is the consent agenda that will include all items except 711, which has been removed. and accept 722, which is being removed so it can be voted on separately under an abstention on my part. I'll make the motion to approve the consent agenda as amended. Properly seconded. Any discussion on that?

Mr. Jablonski. Mr. McCullen. Mr. Huffman. Ms. Sechrest. Mr. Marshall. Mr. McKelvey. Vice Mayor McBroom. Mayor Mulder.

Aye. The consent agenda is approved. Now we'll go back to item 722. Hand it over to the Vice Mayor. Do I need to read 722 again?

That doesn't hurt. Okay. Approve and authorize the Mayor to sign a contract between the State of Columbia and RSI Roofing System, utilizing . For purchase to remove and replace existing proof of the wastewater administrative building in the amount of $50,200. Second to approve, have a second.

I'll abstain. All right. Thank you, Council, for hanging with us on that consent agenda. We'll now move to Section 9. There being no items under Section 8, Administration. Section 9, Resolutions. Item 9.1, Resolution number 2654, Tax Corrections. been moved and properly seconded. Any discussion on item 9.1? Hearing none, Mr. Jablonski.

Mr. McClellan. Aye. Mr. Huffman. Ms. Seacrest. Mr. Marshall. Mr. McKelvey. Vice Mayor McBroom. Aye. Mayor Mulder.

Aye. That item is approved. Next item, 9.2, resolution number 2655, a resolution to accept the ownership and maintenance of sewer improvements serving Marlins Creek 1A, 1B, and Pump Station. Motion's been made and properly seconded 9.2. Any discussion on that item? Hearing none, Mr. Jablonski.

Mr. McCullen. Aye. Mr. Huffman. Aye. Ms. Sechrist. Aye. Mr. Marshall. Aye. Mr. McKelvey. Aye. Vice Mayor McBroom. Aye. Mayor Mulder.

Aye. That item is approved. Next item 9.3, resolution number 2656, a resolution to accept the ownership and maintenance of sewer improvements serving Marlins Creek Phase 2A. Motion's been made. Properly seconded. Any discussion on that item? Hearing none, Mr. Jabonski.

Mr. McKellen. Aye. Mr. Huffman. Ms. Sechrist. Mr. Marshall. Mr. McKelvey. Aye. Vice Mayor McBroom. Aye.

Aye. That item is approved. Final item under Section 9, 9.4, Resolution No. 2657, a resolution accepting a donation by Sutton Circus Canine Academy of a training service valued at $4,270 for an emotional support animal to firefighters at Columbia Fire and Rescue. Columbia Fire and Rescue will contribute up to $500 to purchase equipment required by the trainer to conduct the canine training. Item 9.4. Motion's been made and properly seconded. Any discussion on that item? Mr. Councilman McCollum.

Yes, thank you. Chief, could you come forward and explain this agenda item?

Good evening, Chief. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council. What this is for, this is for the newest dog that we have for emotional support animal. This is for a service to train dogs I explained at the study session that we had lost our other motion support animal, so this is its replacement. The person that kind of heads up this program, we definitely wanted to get it into a program to a lot of obedience training, personalized training. So they reached out to several companies, and this company here, once they heard what they were doing it for, They wanted to offer their service at free cost. So what this is, we do have to buy a little bit of equipment. She will actually go to Fayetteville to his facility for seven weeks. He will personally work with her one-on-one and all the obedience training, housebreaking, all that type. And also going to expand a little bit, we're going to try to use this dog in some of our public education events. So he's going to try to teach her stop, drop, and roll, or she'll stop, drop, and roll over, help teach the kids and stuff. So this is what this item is about. It's his donation of his training and service.

What is the dog's name? Blaze. Blaze. That's right. Pardon the pun. Well, I think it's, I mean, this is an opportunity to talk about the fact this is so important because it provides an opportunity for the men and women at the department to have this resource, but also for it to be expanded to be a community resource and to bring and promote some positivity, which can also be an educational opportunity for the community. So I really appreciate this.

Yes, sir. It's a good program. You know, nationwide, we're having a problem in the fire service with mental health.

issues and this is not a replacement for all the other programs it's just another piece to plug in to help our people out well when when blaze gets the training and can show off the uh stop drop and roll we'd love to have a an exhibit here at city council we'll do it all right thank you any other questions for chief all right uh hearing none I think we've had a motion and a proper second. Any other discussion? Hearing none, Mr. Jablonski. Mr. McCullen.

Aye.

Mr. Huffman.

Aye.

Ms. Sechrist. Aye. Mr. Marshall.

Aye.

Mr. McKelvey. Aye. Vice Mayor McCroom. Aye. Mayor Mullin.

Aye. That item is approved. There being no items under ordinances, we'll now move to section 11, public comments. We have one individual who signed up to speak this evening, Joshua Moore. Mr. Moore, if you'll come up to the podium, you'll have the floor for three minutes. If you'll state your name and provide your address, the floor will be yours for three minutes.

Thank you. Joshua Moore, 360 Coleman Court. I am a resident of the city of Columbia and a customer of Columbia Power and Water Systems. Since the new water rates went into effect in March, my water bills have increased substantially. My March bill was 55% higher year over year. In April, it was 79% higher year over year. In May, 62% higher year over year. Because of these substantial increases, I made significant efforts to conserve water and reduce my usage. In June, I reduced my water consumption by 25% compared with June of last year. Despite using 25% less water, my bill was still 58% higher than it was the year before. So I made an even greater effort to conserve water. In July, I reduced my water usage by 73% compared with July of last year. Despite using 73% less water, my bill was still 30% higher than it was one year ago. I have responded to these rate increases the way residents are often encouraged to respond to higher utility costs by conserving. But even dramatic reductions in my water consumption have not prevented substantial increases in my bill. These water rate increases are causing me undue hardship, and I am requesting that my water rates be reverted to the rates that were in effect one year ago. The City Council approved these rate increases, not CPWS, so I am asking the City Council as the body that approved them to address my request. Thank you.

All right. That is the only item we had under public comment this evening. So any member of council have any other business that they wish to address or discuss? All right. Hearing none, Mr. City Attorney, no need for executive session this evening. Is that correct?

Correct.

All right. Anyone want to make the motion to adjourn? That's the next item on the agenda. Motion has been made. Properly seconded. Any discussion on that motion? Hearing none, Mr. Jablonski.

Mr. McCullen. Mr. Huffman. Ms. Segrist. Mr. Marshall. Mr. McKelvey. Vice Mayor McBroom.