City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

5.30, I will now call the Cookville City Council meeting to order for Thursday, September 17th. May I have a roll call, please? Councilman Baji?

Councilman England?

Here.

Mayor Gilbert. Here. Vice Mayor Eldridge. Here. Councilman Parkinson.

Here.

Four present.

Thank you. I would like to ask everyone to stand for the invocation given by Patrick Josh Houghton. And I'm standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Father, thank you for the say you've given us. Thank you for life, health, and the blessings that you pour out into us. Lord, I ask that you just help us to always lift up your name in all that we say or do. Allow these leaders, these servants, Lord, to have wisdom, knowledge as they direct the city. Help them to progress and to always stay in the will that you have for our lives. God, give us integrity and give us courage to take a stand for right. And help us always be pleasing in your eyes. We'll give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

of those related to the flag that the United States will bear. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Holden. I would like to start before we get too far going. This is this council's second meeting, and we couldn't be more excited to have the engagement it looks like we're going to have tonight. I would like, though, to make a special request that we want to hear from folks. But if you would, respect the decorum of the meeting. We're not going to clap. We're not going to holler out. If in the event we have podium remarks and they become repetitive after two or three of them and they're saying the same thing over, we may decline to let that go on. But again, just ask your respect for the decorum of the meeting. All right. Item three, consider approval of the agenda as presented. Any changes? No changes, Mayor. All right. Having no changes, we have a motion. So moved. Second. Second. A motion by Vice Mayor Eldridge, second by Councilman England. Any discussion from public or council? All vote.

All votes correct. Four yes, motion carries.

Item 5A, under old business, consider approval of minutes. Council meeting held on September 3rd. Is there a motion? So motion. I have a motion by, I have a motion by Councilman England, second by Councilman Parkerson. Any discussion from the public or council? All vote.

Why can't we see the votes?

Ma'am, they're right there. They're right there.

They're right there. Kelly Barker from Luke Eldridge.

Ma'am, we've already spoken to this. We're not gonna holler out like that, okay?

Am I speaking to her or not?

Ma'am, we're not, we're going to keep control of this meeting. Please don't speak out, all right?

All votes correct? Or yes, motion carries.

Item 6A, or let's go on the consent agenda. Item 6A, consider approval for a three-year renewal of the City of Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, along with approval of the first annual payment under this agreement. Consider approval for item 6B, consider approval for year three, payment of five-year contract with Axon for in-car body-worn camera systems and redaction assistance. Consider item 6C, consider approval for year two, payment of a four-year contract with Axon for auto-tagging licenses related to the in-car and body-worn camera systems. Item 6D, consider declaring a surplus 1994 E1 Freightliner firetruck. Item 6E, consider awarding bids for inventory items to the Water Control Department. Is there a motion on the consent agenda? So moved. I have a motion from Vice Mayor Eldridge.

Second.

Second from Councilman Parkinson. Any discussion from the public? Yes, ma'am. Please state your name and address and there'll be, there's three minutes and we'll have a time.

Okay. So first and foremost, my name is Jasmine. I will not be giving you my address. Some very weird things have been happening to me lately. Some very weird things have been happening to all these beautiful people in this room today. Do just want to point out, you are not showing the votes on the screen of who is voting what. Okay, odd. I keep seeing a name that pops up over and over again in capital letters, Axon, Axon. Does anyone on that podium know who Axon is? You do?

Yeah? This is not a back and forth question and answer session.

Why are you telling me to calm down? when I'm asking questions.

I'm just defining the exchange here. It is your opportunity to speak.

I am speaking.

We do not exchange.

I am speaking. We will exchange. We will exchange and we will have hard conversations with each other.

We can do that after the meeting if you would like to talk with us.

I would not like that. I'm here at this meeting for the people because they are scared as well. We can't afford our water bill. We can't afford our electricity bill. We can't afford food on our table. Is there no rebuttal?

It's not question and answer. This is your opportunity to speak.

Okay. I can't afford to go to work every day and pay all my bills. And when I count the hours and I multiply the numbers, my paychecks aren't adding up. That is my piece.

Thank you.

And if you have any questions, you can ask me. How are we on time? You said I had three minutes?

Yes, ma'am.

So can I keep going?

Yes, ma'am, until the timer.

OK. So these people here also have something to say. I would like to invite these people, whoever feels comfortable, whoever is not scared, whoever wants an actual change in this world to happen, this is your time. This is your time. This is not about me, myself, and I. This is about we, we, we. We, we, we. So you all are talking a lot to each other, but not enough to me and not enough to these people.

I think a lot of us are going to speak when it comes down to just one thing.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. What was that? A lot of you are going to speak when? No, no, no, no. No, look, again, you try to tell people who they are when they know what they aren't. A lot of us are scared. I've seen it. I've seen it in my peers, in the people I love dearly. I've seen it in myself. It's made me loathe myself. It's made me feel like I wasn't good enough. And if that is a truth that you are reckoning with, you cannot run forever. Mental health matters. Absolutely.

Is there any other one from the public who'd like to speak on a consent agenda item? Yes, ma'am.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Joanne Keichel and I reside in Putnam County and I'm here tonight to urge you to vote against the, I believe it's now called Axon cameras. I will be referring it to flock. I have concerns about my personal safety when I learn more about how flock cameras can be hacked into and how my personal information, my movements in the community, my behaviors, my patterns, and my routines will be recorded and potentially used in a crime against against me by bad actors out there. Flock sounds nice, but look deeper under the lens. In this day and age when hacking has become common due to hacking technology and many supposedly secure institutions have been hacked into, is it not possible that bad actors can hack into Flock? Recent investigation by Wired and 404 Media detailed how a hacking group called Stanigram, I believe it's called, mentioned today on the national news, physically removed a flock camera and bypassed its own device encryption. Now I'm going to quote this is what I read. The hackers recovered encryption keys directly from the device hardware and gained access to over a million images. This proved that bad actors who physically tamper with the cameras can reverse engineer and to harvest sensitive local data. Now, how am I or any other concerned citizen supposed to be safe when that information is available to us knowing that hacking is possible and getting our personal information? Who can guarantee this will not happen? What if information which is stored in Flock and used by bad actors will actually be causing more opportunities for crime to occur since they'll have information on all of us? Who can guarantee this won't happen? I've been reading more about how Flock has been hacked into and how much information has actually been stored. How do I know this hacked information would not be shared online? How am I supposed to feel safer when I know my personal actions are being recorded and possibly could be used against me? Who will guarantee that I will be safe and anyone else? Flock must go so that we can be safe again. I'd like to thank you all for your time and for your public service.

We've already spoken to that. We're not going to clap. This is probably the last time I'm going to ask you to, or we may have to ask you to move on. Does anyone else who'd like to speak in public on this matter, on any agenda, or consent agenda? Excuse me.

I will admit that my knowledge on the subject isn't very thorough. Oh, sorry. My name is Cody Tidwell. I currently reside in Tennessee Tech. I will acknowledge that my knowledge is spotty at best, but I have heard tell that Axon's business plans are to keep cameras hidden and hard for the citizens to know where they are. And I believe that the expansion of Axon, even body cameras, which are warned by police, would erode public trust and cause citizens to be more shut in and less involved within cook phil itself um as of course they would not want their public data or the personal data to be recorded collected and known by a company um and especially on police too we're already in a pretty bad time where nobody really trusts police so i think having them have hidden cameras on themselves well good for their protection would be bad for the image and trust that people will have in them in a way that obvious, like, visible cameras would not have in sight. That is all I have to say. Thank you for your time.

I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

Thank you for your time. All of you. I really needed that. We're allowed to celebrate each other. We're allowed to uplift each other. It doesn't always have to be silent.

Is there anyone else who'd like to speak on a consent attempt? Yes.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is John Dotson and I live in Cookville. Before I begin the message that I prepared for tonight, I would like to ask you directly, do any of you plan to respond to the email that I sent to you last month on August 29th that was also published in the Herald Citizen? And if not, why not?

It's not a back and forth.

Again, that email was August 29th with no response. All right, I'll continue. I spent the last several months talking to people all over Cookville. One of the things that keeps coming up is safety. So today I'm excited to announce that I'll be starting a new company called Guardian the Guardians. Our mission will be simple. Keep government officials safe and their loved ones safe. We'll be launching drones all over the city of Cookville every day. With the help of artificial intelligence, we'll monitor where government officials go, where they stop, who they meet with, and when they return home. We've already started collecting data and building profiles on your vehicles, your spouse's vehicles, and your children's vehicles. We'll combine that information with all publicly available data, including Bluetooth signals, advertising ideas, vehicle information, and commercial data sources, so our authorized users can replay the movements of every government official and their loved ones anytime they want, all without their permission and, of course, without a warrant. There's really no difference between our program and flock safety program or other automated license plate reading systems. Everything will be stored securely and only authorized users will have access. Local businesses will be invited to join our network so government officials can continue being protected while shopping, eating and traveling throughout the city. Now, some of you may think this sounds invasive, or you may worry about abuse, or you may be concerned about unauthorized access or the tracking of innocent people. We here at Guarding the Guardians understand these concerns. After all, these concerns are the exact same concerns of your constituents in Cookville. Now, Council, that little scenario I just laid out was a bit of a spoof, and it was plagiarized with material from Jacob Petroski as he was speaking to his city council in Casa Grande, Arizona. But before I leave this podium tonight, I'm asking the city council to commit to removing all automated license plate readers from the city of Cookville no later than October 31st. We the people did not vote to have plot cameras or any other mass surveillance cameras installed in our city. And they're in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of these United States. I'm asking this council to listen to the people, do their will, and remove them before there is yet another lawsuit filed involving flock cameras, potentially costing the city and its taxpayers tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Will you do that?

Anyone else who'd like to speak on that agenda? Yes, sir. Please come up. Please state your name and address. So

Two, maybe three points. Flock cameras do help in solving crimes. I'd invite all of you to look at the jewelry heist in Denver, where multiple illegal aliens, who were also very dangerous, did an amazing crime and robbed a jewelry store and a mall. Flock cameras did help stop that.

Please.

So plot cameras do, excuse me, they do help to solve crimes. There's no way, you cannot argue against that. However, they also have all the information from your cell phone data. Who in here has your cell phone in your pocket? You all do, except for maybe me. Your cell phone data gives precise location for everybody, not only your car, everybody. The use of the modern technology is very useful. It's extremely useful. Nobody wants to give up their mobile phones. And the cell phone carriers make money on selling all of your data. That's just how it is. Nobody can argue that. So it is easy to argue against flat cameras. In fact, until a few days ago, I did too in my heart. Then I thought about it, I read many things, and it doesn't really matter. This may assist the police chief, the police department in solving crimes, that they probably already have access to location data with the cell phones. But what this gives them, it's just a picture of the car. The AI, an amazing technology to look at all of the dirt, the scuffs, the bumper stickers, and match everybody's location. And then you can correlate that with the latitude and longitude you get from the mobile phones to know everybody that's in the car and the car. So it's a very interesting situation. This is a more complicated, more nuanced thing than just no-fault cameras. Although I agree with you in many ways, I don't want it. I would invite you to also think about all the Ring cameras that are in Cookville. Or who was the newscaster whose mother was kidnapped a few months ago and I believe killed? It's a terrible situation. They were able to... Get much footage from the Ring Doorbell. So in all your neighborhoods, I guarantee there's Ring Doorbells. They can listen to your conversations. The technology is everywhere. Thank you. See, I can't stop you from taking my picture either, can I? So this is... It is lightweight to argue against no-fly cameras. This is not realistic. If you want to really gain civil liberties, spend your time in asking government to, or asking somebody to highlight the The location tracking. I would like for you to just... Certainly. Thank you. Thank you for your time.

I think we've heard of... If someone has something new to add here... Gentlemen. No, sir. And I would ask you respectfully, please don't do that. No one did that to you on the podium. This is not your opportunity to speak. I'm asking you not to do that. If someone has something new to say on agenda item, we're ready to hear it. If it's more of the same, I would respectfully ask we move on.

I have a possibility that I'm expected to arrive a little late, but I don't know if it's been run over.

Okay, come to the podium, but if it's more of the same, I'm going to cut you off.

My main concern, I mean, obviously, similar. Micah Matthews. Where are you from? Cookville. So my concern with this is from a public health standpoint. I'm a nurse. Clearly, I was hurried over here, got here late. But there has been several things that have been shared widely online. Of course, you know, you can't trust everything you see on the internet. However, a lot of these flock cameras are installed in roadways. that they don't follow the the city ordinances in a lot of cases for distance from the road for breakaway functionality a lot of these are installed with concrete into the ground so if a car were to swerve off the road and hit one of them it would not break away like a telephone pole or like a guardrail would and so it One of my concerns with these is just from a public safety perspective. We have a lot of car accidents. A lot of people run off the road here. A lot of our roads wind here in Putnam County. You're out in the country, and you take a turn a little bit too sharply, and it's raining, and you could run off the road. And if you were to hit one of these, it could result in somebody having major trauma and having to undergo surgery. It might change their life forever. So that's just one of the concerns that I have with these cameras, in addition to the privacy concerns that I'm sure have already been brought up thoroughly. Thank you.

Anyone else? All right. Yes, sir.

We had a lot of discussion about block cameras. We're not even to the block camera agenda item. This is about the accident. I mean, you'll have plenty of time to talk about block cameras when we actually get to that aisle.

Excellent.

This is all about the body-worn cameras that are placed off during their vehicle cameras. If you want to speak on that.

Yeah.

But I can't have them come up on the agenda yet. So I just, you'll have plenty of time to speak on that.

Those are two different companies. That was my clear page. All right. So is there a motion on the consent agenda? We've already got our motions.

We're ready to vote. It's been a minute. Yes. Okay. So moved again. All right. Any discussion from the council? You know, I know there's a lot of discussion on it. I know there's concerns about... security breaches and all that. And then one gentleman or the one individual came up here to talk about the hospital and I guess you work at the hospital. You know, I've had my stuff given out at the hospital. Unfortunately, at that one breach we had, I got two letters in the mail saying my kid's information was breached. Unfortunately, this is where we live now. This is the community. This is the world we live in. I had to deal with that. They respectively gave me my letters for that. So, you know, it doesn't matter if it's flaw. It doesn't matter if it's tax on. It doesn't matter if it's the hospital and they have my private information too it's been given out and i had to deal with that uh so i just want to say that it's not just about this stuff is just going to happen our cell phones are doing the same thing so just want to let you know but that's all i'm going to say

All votes correct. 4 yes, motion carries.

Item 7A, under new business, hold a public hearing and consider on first reading ordinance 2608-14, rezoning property located within the Dodson Branch Road annexation from RS-20 single-family residential to RMA multifamily residential and RMHP residential mobile home park. Mr. Ward.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. This is the general location of this area. On June 15, 2026, the annexation of the Dotson Branch area was made official. This area was annexed into the city limits through a referendum that was held in May. A total of 55 parcels containing just over 250 acres was brought into the corporate limits. Zoning for the annexed properties was not established at the time of annexation. The zoning code under 203.6 currently states all territory that may hereafter be annexed to the City of Cougville shall be considered by the Planning Commission and assigned an appropriate zoning classification based on existing land use and long-range plans of the municipality. If a zoning classification is not assigned to a territory at the time of annexation, such territory shall be considered to be in the RS-20 single-family residential district until otherwise classified. So under the referendum process, zoning was not established during that process, and this is the step to establish that zoning. The properties all currently zoned RS-20. The Planning Division conducted an existing land use analysis and reviewed our future land use plans for the subject properties to determine the appropriate zoning for these newly annexed properties. Planning staff submitted two rezoning maps to the Planning Commission at their June meeting. The existing land use analysis depicts the area as containing single-family and multi-family residential dwellings, as well as a mobile home park and vacant tracks. The Planning Commission has recommended to establish the zoning as depicted on the plan here that would rezone properties from RS-20 to RM-8 and residential mobile home park. This was unanimously approved by the Planning Commission as recommended by the Planning Division. I'm happy to answer any questions from the Council, but I recommend your approval.

Thank you. This is a public hearing, so we'll open the public hearing section of the meeting for this agenda item. Anyone has any comment? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and close the public meeting. Is there a motion? Motion by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Second by Councilman England. Any discussion from the public on the motion? Any discussion from council? All vote.

All votes correct.

Four yes, motion carries.

Thank you.

Item 7B, consider resolution 2609.18 authorizing the city manager to acquire by donation, negotiation, or eminent domain certain land rights relating to the construction of a northbound left turn lane on South Willow Avenue, State Route 135 at Lee Seminary Road. Mr. Mills.

Mayor and council members, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has agreed to construct the northbound left turn lane on South Willow at Lee Seminary Road. As some people might know, the northbound traffic cues at Lee Seminary Road have become an issue on South Willow Avenue, especially with the opening of the Parkview Elementary School further west of Lee Seminary Road. While our major street plan identifies, and we do have plans to widen South Willow Avenue to five lanes, from where it currently is five lanes south of Gould down to south of Lee Seminary Road, This project will occur for several years, so the addition of this turn line will, I believe, greatly improve traffic flow until the full widening can be completed. Construction plans have been completed. Did it not forward in time? The map was omitted for a moment. Oh, it was? Okay. All right. Sorry. We did have a map. Construction plans have been completed, and they will require us to acquire a small amount of property for lightweight and easements. TDOT has indicated they will complete the construction provided the city obtains the necessary property, and that's a pretty good deal if you ask me. The resolution before the council authorizes the city manager to acquire by donation, negotiation, or in the domain the property necessary for the construction of the turn lane. John Ward, our assistant city manager, has been in contact with the owners of the two properties, of the parcels, and We believe and we're hopeful the acquisition will be completed in the next few weeks, so construction could then begin this fall or winter. And I recommend and request your approval of Resolution 26918. Thank you, Commissioner Mills.

Do I have a motion?

Motion.

Motion by Councilman Eldridge. Second. Second by Councilman Parkerson. Any discussion from the public? Any discussion from Council? All vote. All votes correct. Board yes, motion carries. Item 7C, consider abandoning declaring as surplus property and authorizing the sale and disposition of parcel located on West Steven Street, tax plan parcel 53I, good to be parcel 20.02. Mr. Mills.

I'm going to ask that you postpone consideration of declaring this property as surplus until I've done some more research on the potential use of the property. And my recommendation is if you postpone consideration of the declaration of surplus until our next meeting. Do I have a motion on postponing?

I have a motion to postpone by Councilman Thielen.

Second.

Second by Councilman Parkeson. Any discussion from the public? Discussion from Council? Although it's correct. Or yes, motion carries. Item 7D, consider approval for the city manager to enter a two-year contract with flock safety for 10 automatic license plate readers. Chief Whitman.

Baron Counsel, currently we have two separate contracts with Flock for a total of 10 ALPR cameras. We are requesting authorization for the city manager to enter into a two-year contract with Flock Safety that would combine these into one contract. The lease is for $3,000 per camera for a total of $30,000 for the first year. It's the same as it is. Flock Safety is a sole source provider and the total cost of the two-year contract is $60,000. We are not adding any more cameras, only consolidating the contracts for the cameras that we currently have. Now, obviously, you know, I understand that ALPRs, these LPRs, have become controversial, and I'd like to address a few issues regarding that and the Cooper Police Department and the policies that we currently have. So understand that the Copeland Police Department is a policy-driven department, okay? One of the first points in our general order dealing with LPRs is, quote, the use of LPR systems is restricted to public safety-related missions of the Copeland Police Department. Misuse of this equipment and associated databases or data may be subject to sanctions and or disciplinary action. Operation of an LPR system shall only be conducted by trained sworn police officers We also conduct routine audits of the officers that have used the system and the searches that it made. Any perceived policy violation or other misuse of the system will result in further investigation and appropriate disciplinary action if warranted. All LPR reads are the property of the city of Cookville, the Cookville Police Department. By state law, TCA 5510302, those reads can only be stored for a maximum of 90 days unless the data is retained or stored as part of an ongoing investigation. However, our default is that the reads will roll off every 30 days. Our cameras only take still pictures of a vehicle and the license plate. There is no video that's taken by these cameras and we do not take pictures of people. The only time a person might be in a camera is if they just happen to be right next to the roadway when a car happens to drive by. But we don't take the front of the vehicle. There have been several local cases where LPRs have been used to find a kidnapped woman. She was located in Blount County. Of course, all those that live here remember Trooper Cochran who was shot out on the interstate, the highway patrol officer. LPRs were used to assist and find the people, one of the people that did that. Also organized crime, organized theft rings around the country. We use them to locate people with those. Just yesterday in Monterey, they located a 17-year-old who had run away from Missouri, stole his grandmother's car, stole her credit card. He drives all the way from Missouri, gets off at Monterey. The flock camera picks him up. And all he did, he got off to basically to rest and it alerted and they apprehended it. Mayor and Council, this is a budgeted item. I'd be glad to answer any questions that you may have, but I request your approval.

Thank you. We have a motion. Motion by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Second by Councilman England. Any discussion from the public? And again, I want to remind everyone we're going to be respectful of people's time. If it becomes repetitive, we're going to stop. You may go first.

I'll be quick. I just wanted to make another comment. Why, if flat cameras were so good, if they do so much good, why wasn't there a town council, a town hall council for you to get everybody together, answer questions, explain what's going on, and, you know... get the get the survey of the people if they want the flock cameras because you know why you didn't do that because you knew it wouldn't pass because it's a violation of the fourth amendment to the united states constitution thank you no no we're not gonna plan we're not gonna do that uh you can act go ahead please set your name and where you're from my name is ryan moore 2109 foster circle

Good evening, Mayor. Actually, you know what? I'm not going to read the whole thing. And there's a lot of people that want to speak, so I'm going to give some time back. We've talked about the Fourth Amendment. A lot of us here believe that it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment. We believe that in our hearts. We also believe it's a violation of the Ninth Amendment. August 20th, 28th, I believe, 20th, you guys stood in front of us. You swore an oath to the Constitution, State Constitution, and Charter of Cookville. And we hope that you guys take that seriously.

Now, I did want to talk about some of the policy things that were brought up.

I'm sure you've seen my email. I sent it to you guys on the 29th and 31st. I did an audit of the Cookville Police Department. So these are publicly available audits. When they do a search into a different jurisdiction, it writes that into their search history. And then when a Freedom of Information Act is done, we can pick those up and we can see those searches. So I just wanna look at some of the searches that were done. So of the 8,789 searches that are publicly available, only 106 of them had case numbers associated with them. Prior to December 29th, 2025, the majority of search justifications only had abbreviations such as INV, F, or even just the letter E. there was no clear policy showing what these people were actually, what the officers were actually searching for. After December 29th, there was a change. There was a change of policy. You can see that there's actually a structured policy of how they put in their search that they're doing. But before that, there's no telling. I don't know how they can say they did an audit when you just have INV and no case number. The department's highest volume flock user, the patrol officer, conducted 1,525 searches over a two-year period. Of those, 1,479, or 97%, were documented with some variation of the term INV. So we talked about the Fourth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment. We want to talk about policy. There hasn't been a policy. I've sent you the audit files. I do data analysis for work. I stand behind what I said. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Megan Flanagan, I live off 111 in Cookville. I'm not planning on speaking. I have background degrees in forensic psychology, criminal justice, did some social work stuff. And I was mayor of my hometown, served a four-year term where I learned all about the government. And I'm also a survivor of police misconduct. And it does happen. And I just want to say I've heard about the whole cell phone thing. The cell phone is a choice. You can put it in a Faraday bag. The ring camera is a choice. You cannot have one. And we could focus. Now I'm currently a nutritional therapy practitioner. What we focus on is root cause things. And so more cameras isn't really fixing the problem of crime prevention or crime. per se, and I lived in Miami, Florida in 2020, where we were getting fined for wearing a mask from going from the car to a building or on the beach. It was absolutely ridiculous, and I can't imagine if that were to happen again, and there'd be cameras and maybe you all have good intentions, but possibly people down the road who get voted in do not have good intentions. You may have good policies now, but down the road, someone may change those policies. They may change the definition of what is wrong and what they're looking for. So those are some things that I would like for you to consider. And when I was mayor, um, I always had to do what was right, what I felt was the right thing. But what superseded that was what the people wanted. And I think that's really important. I voted for almost all of you, by the way. And if worse comes to worse, maybe put it on the ballot and have the people choose. And then that takes the blame away from you guys. And you can say, hey, well, you guys voted for this. That's all I got. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Hi, my name is Hunter Collar. I live at 234 Garrett Avenue right down the street. Even if you don't think that police are going to misuse them, and there's always people who will abuse anything, but even if you don't think of the police as a whole abusing it, the flock bureaucracy is a private company that we're inserting into a bunch of public information with no accountability to the public. it only works with network effects. So like the more flock cameras there are, the better they're able to sell that product to other places. But meanwhile, It's if you just Google like flock problems, there's tons of false positives. There was a woman who was pulled over and her family taken out of their car at gunpoint because of a false positive. And then the same thing happened to the same woman two weeks later. They didn't even fix it because there's no accountability. So, yeah, it's. It doesn't seem worthwhile. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, even if you assume that we're actually getting something out of it, which I don't really think we are. It's an imperfect panopticon that's not even what it promises. It's just this Kafkaesque. If you've seen the movie Brazil, it's kind of exactly like that, where if somebody gets the... the wrong typo or it uses vision, machine vision, and if that gets it wrong, you could get pulled over for having stolen car when you don't. So that seems like a problem.

Thanks.

I have some citations to distribute my approach. Yes.

Hey, Austin Fye, Cookville, Tennessee resident. Mayor and Council, thank you for your time. Tonight you are considering a two-year contract with Flock Safety for 10 automatic license plate readers. I ask that you reject it. This is not an argument that police should have no investigative tools, and it's not an argument over whether existing surveillance justifies additional surveillance. It is an argument about whether Cookville should entrust another large collection of sensitive location data to a private surveillance company with a documented record of mishandling that data. Boston, their pilot contract said sharing would be disabled. Within three days, outside agencies could access its vehicle information. Boston blamed Flock and rejected the company going forward. Mountain View, California found that Flock enabled nationwide search without permission. Federal agencies accessed city camera data and broader in-state access was enabled. The city called it a system failure on Flock's part. Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Officials said Flock offered years of city camera data to another department without police knowledge or consent. The council unanimously terminated the contract. Hell, White County, Tennessee has rescinded their authorization. Different cities, same problem. Local rules on paper. Refrain from profanity. It's not profanity. Local rules on paper, vendor control in practice. Data went farther than officials authorized. Settings did not match local rules, and cities learned only after audits or public scrutiny. Additional, misuse is not hypothetical. The Washington Post identified at least 69 police officials accused, charged, or convicted of unauthorized misuse of license plate reader systems. This month, San Jose's police chief said an officer was fired for using Flock to obtain a domestic violence victim's location and send it to his cousin, her alleged abuser. Release search logs show how casually this extraordinary power has been used. An EFF analysis found reasons including LOL, IDK, sexy, and random keyboard mashing. One Indiana deputy searched a plate across more than 19,000 cameras in 1,558 cities and towns and entered LMAO as the reason. I won't use profanity. This matters because flock searches do not require a judge's warrant. Officers can search the system by entering a plate number. The company's historically left the decision about search rules largely to individual agencies. I am not accusing Cookville officers of misconduct, but a stated reason search requirement that accepts LMAO is not a meaningful safeguard. It is theater. Flock says these LPRs collect vehicle data, not faces or demographic information, and do not identify race, gender, or ethnicity. But those assurances describe the cameras in this contract, not the broader surveillance platform Flock is building around them. Flock's own patent describes searchable video that classifies people by race or sex, clothing, height, and weight. Its freeform product already lets users search enabled video for descriptions such as man in blue shirt and cowboy hat, and view those results alongside LPR evidence. Wired reported that Flock is testing OS Investigate, a system designed to connect plate and camera data with police files, dispatch logs, and commercial identity databases. This is the broader surveillance ecosystem Flock is building, and every plate reader adds another source of location data to it. There's a fundamental difference between investigating a specific crime and building a searchable record of everyone who passes a camera. The first is targeted policing. The second is suspicionless surveillance. Once that database exists, good intentions are not enough. Who can access it? What can connect to it? What changes after the vote? A contract in the last two years, software can change in two weeks. The question is not simply whether Flock can help solve crimes. It is whether Cookville will hand a private surveillance company the power to turn ordinary people's routine movements into a searchable record. That is not another police tool. It's an invasive, intrusive surveillance system. It does not belong in Cookville. I ask you to reject the contract. Thank you.

Yep. Yes, sir.

Hi, my name is Cyril Fote, resident of Cokeville as well. I am a former instructor of computer science at Tennessee Tech. I have taught classes discussing topics like this, including a broad section on digital surveillance. So when I say that, that is to say that it is my professional opinion that the omnipresent watching of AI-enabled surveillance from video surveillance systems like Flock and Axon, data surveillance by Palantir, and yes, this also includes cell phone geofencing as a problem, are the single greatest threat to and degradation of our civil liberties in the digital era. Flock and Axon advertise their services as automated license plate readers, which is about as appropriate a name as Swiss Army knives, typically equipped as well with scissors, nail files, screwdrivers, tweezers, and toothpicks. These systems are designed to track as much information about as many individuals as can be collected, including... very simply facial recognition. We have data that suggests Flock and Axon cameras are used for far more frequently for unaccountable abuses of power and misconduct by company employees, local police departments, and unauthorized third parties than they are for their advertised purpose of investigating crimes. This is still not even to mention the reported error rate of 40% in false positive detection, placing innocent people in dangerous situations as suspects of violent crime. Even assuming Cookville police are using these systems responsibly, that still hardly addresses the reasonable concerns behind these systems. And based on the factual inaccuracies from our police chief, I frankly doubt Don't trust that to be the case either. In the words of a dear friend of mine who's worked previously in international military intelligence, it is a problem that redacted country that he was working in, government, gives so few rights and protections to its citizens. But damn, it sure makes my job easier right now. I'm sorry. Sure. This may be the world that we live in, but that is not inevitable, and we do not have to actively facilitate a dystopian future entering our hometown of Cookville.

All right. So the next one that bursts from the podium is going to be asked to leave. The next one in the class is going to be asked to leave. Now, we have covered hacking, bad actors. Abuse, collection of data. Does anyone have anything new to add? Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. You're in front. You go first.

Good evening. My name is Jen Zimmerman. I live on Mason Way here in Cookville. I'm a United States Navy veteran. I swore an oath to the Constitution. All those points that have been pointed out were in my whole speech here. I just really want to encourage you to consider the pace of technology, what is being collected now, It's going to change within a year, six months, 10 years, five years. People in the future will be able to collect all of the data points that are being collected with flock cameras and use that against all of us in our daily lives. I want to be able to go to the grocery store, enjoy my friends, get a coffee without being accused of God knows what. So I just want you to take into consideration what the future holds for this technology. Our neighbors in White County have rescinded their contract and they are in the process of removing them from public property. I would encourage this council to do that with our city. I feel like Big Brother's watching and it's uncomfortable and I don't like it. And I just, let me get my other notes out here. I just want us to be safe. I want us to leave a community safer for our children. Mr. Eldridge stated that this is the world we live in, where we get letters saying that, oh, sorry, your information's been hacked. I don't want that for my kids. I want them to be able to travel to and from school without... any kind of data breaches i don't want them to come knocking on my door being like your kid looks like this kid in that car so um please make it better for our community well thank you yes sir my name is kevin i'm from here and uh i'll be quick

He said something about the officer said, just one picture, just one picture. But when you got 50 cameras, it's pretty much a video, you know, because you're getting tracked everywhere you go. They know where your kids are going to school. They know what religion you are. They know. It's just sad. It's sad. And I don't know who said it, but give your freedom for a little bit of security, and you don't deserve either one of them, really. So just think about that.

Okay. How's it going?

I'm Luke. I'm from here in Cookville. I am a disabled veteran and I'm very saddened by the direction this country's headed. But I also thought that we had a little bit of safety here in rural Tennessee where we respect the Constitution. These cameras are an invasion of our Fourth Amendment rights. And the retort often is you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public. But the Supreme Court from the 80s, I've forgotten the court case, but the phrase we get that from, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public. It also said, they foresaw back then, they said, this is not talking about a dragnet surveillance system. This was talking about, I believe, a police officer who ran the license plate of a vehicle that hadn't created an infraction and found that they had a warrant or something like that. So they already knew that this is not talking about a spider web, which this literally is a web of surveillance to follow you. Another thing I wanted to bring up was the error rate of flock cameras. They say that they have a 5% misread rate per person. per digit letter or number, which means it has a 28% error rate per tag. And so there's going to be a ton of false positives. And then a city of Roseville in California did an audit on over 1,400 flags it got for stolen vehicles and missing vehicles over a two-year period. And the percentage of those that were incorrect was 71%. Now, when you have a system that's auto-dispatching police officers, you know, for a missing child or something like that, and someone gets pulled over for a felony stop, I've seen, you know, cops going the wrong way on the interstate to catch up, you Flock said that there's a missing child's vehicle just flagged on the interstate. It creates a lot of danger. And from 28% chance of being wrong to possibly 71%, this is unacceptable, not counting the percentage or the Fourth Amendment issues. So I would ask you all to remove these. Don't be funding this stuff. Last thing I'll say is, you know, we think about, oh, we've got we like our police. We like our city council. We feel pretty good and comfortable that we're not going to have tyrants doing things with this. But if you think about, you know, in 2020, you had people being arrested. or having church services outside in parking lots. If that's not unconstitutional, I don't know what is. But if they had these systems just a few years prior, they could track you home afterwards. They could get everybody that broke the law, broke the law. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

My name is Monica Case and I'm from Cookville. I'm just curious about what about the cameras that are already here? How are they being utilized? How are they being, where are they and how are they being utilized? Where are they? How are they going to be used? What about those? And White County, like they've said, White County's got rid of theirs. And there was a case where there was a child that a deputy was... It made the news. A child was kidnapped or trafficked. Everyone saw it. The cameras did not... You know, the neighbors called about that child, the little girl. I mean, I'm poor, a police officer, having all the resources that they can have. But what about, you know, what's already here? What about the ones that are in use here? You know, how... What about that? How are we going to use those? And it's very expensive. It's very expensive. Why not use what we have?

Oh, sorry. That's right. Dylan Romero. I live in Crossville. I'd like to apologize for my clothes today. I think it should matter, but just got off work. So first things I like to start off with is a quote from one of our founding fathers, a very important guy, Benjamin Franklin. And that's, those who are willing to give up essential liberty for perceived safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Safety is a dangerous word. You can always tell someone that it will help safety, and it does not. What I wanted to bring up today is the patent that Flock has filed under, not under, but for their company, Flock Group Incorporated. This was filed May 1st of 2018, and actually accepted October 6 of 2020. The patent number is 10795933. I encourage everyone here to look these patents up and understand what these actually are. But the label for this specific patent is system and method for object-based query of video, and I underlined video, content captured by a dynamic surveillance network. I don't know about you, but that scares me. Those words scare me, especially when today we have all been told they only take photos. They only take photos. That's what the police department gets. The servers that Flock owns are completely different. They have complete access and control over those cameras. If they wanted to switch anything to video, well, they're already there. Their patent states that. So these cameras are not what we have been told or led to understand what they are. They are very dangerous to, as us citizens, our civil liberties, both the Fourth Amendment and our state constitution, Section 1. You've already heard all the Fourth Amendments. Is there anything new that you can add to this? Could you give me a second? I said the Fourth Amendment, yes. I was also bringing up the state constitution that says in Article 1, Section 7, that specifically states where even a general warrant is dangerous to our liberty. Thank you very much.

Anyone else? Yes, sir.

Hi, my name is Ryan. I live in Cookville. I go to Tennessee Tech. First of all, just thank you all for coming. Thank you all for speaking. Thank you for listening to us. I have a couple points to make. I hope I'm not being redundant. If I am, I can move on. First one, data breaches. I know it's been addressed, but I just want to make another point about how Data breaches happen. When they happen, you know, credit card companies, all your information gets out. There's fraud there.

Sir, we've already covered the risk of abuse. So if you have something to make for us.

I just want to say that this is just because they happen, it doesn't make it right. And I don't think we can be I don't think we should be contributing to the likelihood of it happening. The other point I wanted to make was when I was younger, I I lived in Chicago and I Something my dad always told me was nothing ever happens until it happens. We lived a little bit outside of downtown. It was a safer area. But as I was growing older, the crime started to move out of the inner city and into the suburbs. And all of a sudden, I mean, we never heard of any crimes happening in our area. And all of a sudden, we were hearing about... All these things going on. And I just want to say down here, you know, things haven't happened yet, as far as we know. Abuses to the... cameras haven't happened yet. Our liberties haven't been violated yet, but nothing ever happens until it happens. And leaving these up increases the likelihood, excuse me, the likelihood of it happening dramatically. Thank you very much.

I think we've reached the topic limit of 30 minutes, which is the prevailing governance of one single topic. I'll listen to one more. He's already there. That gentleman back there patiently raised his hand. I'll leave my time. We'll do you, and then we'll do him.

Thank you, Mayor. Billy George, Putnam County, Cookville resident my entire life. I got here late and I apologize in regards to that, but I did hear a few different things that had me concerned in regards to, yes, there is a time limit. No matter what, these are constituents, so if they are to repeat themselves, I ask you all to listen because that means that there is something that needs to be said. I recognize that we want to move on to a new topic or get to a different point that's being made by a constituency that are here within Putnam County and Cookville. But I think that if there is repetitiveness, then there is necessity in order to hear it. So please be respectful of those who've come. I recognize clapping and all that. I've watched that whenever I was watching online. I saw somebody being removed and such. But in regards to what's before you, my understanding is that it's to combine two contracts that we currently have into one. I ask that that not take place in regards to actually continuing the contracts. I ask that it is looked at to remove the flock cameras for many of the issues that have been addressed already. But in regards to combining the contracts as is in the way that it's written, I ask that you do not do that. So thank you very much. Yes, sir.

It was for him.

Yeah. They're still pointing over there. The guy in the purple.

Yeah.

Thank you. Jake Gentry, South Cutville. I'm going to touch on the psychological impacts. I wanted to rebut the argument of privacy being a lost cause in general, and then I wanted to touch on some more effective methods that could be used instead of flock cameras. So now you know I'm not, I think I'm not touching on anything old. So certain surveillance can be very beneficial, very effective, especially when we're talking about in-home surveillance, like the homeowners themselves wanting to know what's going on in their own house. That's great. We all get a little bit antsy when a neighbor has their camera turned toward your window. It's a little bit weird. There's also... You know, a lot of employees in a place of work might feel safer if there are cameras watching the entrances, typically not so safe when they're being monitored by cameras. So in those cases, I do agree that some surveillance technology can be beneficial in certain ways. As far as widespread, you know, dragnet stuff, somebody else mentioned, I'm not a huge fan. There is a national psychological organization that I forgot the name of, but we can look it up if we need to, who has reported that in the past few years there's been an increase in reports of surveillance-related anxiety disorders, or at least that this increased prevalence of surveillance is a big factor in those. um and so sort of we have to bear in mind what are we doing to the way that people are perceiving the place where they live um you know uh moving on to the the whole lost cause argument i'm very sorry that that happened to you it's never a good thing when anything bad happens to anybody um but you know the the idea that Well, they can get you if they want to anyway. That doesn't mean that we have to make it easy for them or that we have to set up the infrastructure that's going to enable whoever is a bad actor to come in later. It just, it doesn't seem right to me that, you know, because of we experienced a few bad things in our lives that we think it's okay for that to happen to everybody else. Like if we just roll over, this seems like it's neither the land of the free nor the home of the brave. And then as far as the effectiveness, some people have touched on how ineffective flock cameras are. Some people have touched on how they are effective in certain cases. What I will say is if you only have a certain budget amount, there are other more effective things you could look into. Most crimes are committed by people who are generally desperate. Or don't know what resources are available to them. You're going to combine two of these into a 60 grand budget item. I'll talk to you later.

Thank you. I'll let you come up because there was confusion, but then we're going to move on.

Yeah, sorry about that. Hello, my name is Maxwell Askren. I'm a student here at Tech. The two concerns I wanted to raise were number one, like sociologists everywhere have like they cite poverty and inequality as like two of the biggest factors in crime. And I just feel like $60,000 is a lot of money towards surveillance and policing that we could be putting towards preventative measures. Second of all, you know, we are... We are living in the South in a time where there's been an uptake of racial violence recently. It's arising suspected lynchings in the South. And I've not seen any of the block cameras contribute to the safety of people of color or of other races. And we are just building the tools of surveillance that have great opportunity for misuse and are being applied unequally to like safety is being applied unequally based on race. So on those grounds, I ask that the council would deny this renewal of the contract. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Any comments from council?

I'm just smart.

I was just going to ask a question. I'm the newer one here. So if I don't do this the right way, Chad, just let me know. I thought I'd ask our attorney one question just because I have done my own research and we have been contacted by several citizens here and I see the large numbers in the room, but I've also had a large amount of people contact me in favor of the cameras, just about the same amount that's here. And so I'm just trying to listen to everybody and I've been trying to do my own research I was going to ask, because it keeps saying it's unconstitutional, I just wanted to ask from an attorney's perspective, is it unconstitutional?

So far, every court that has ruled on that question has ruled that it is constitutional. People have challenged it, both as people who've been arrested and the evidence was used against them at their trial and they've moved to suppress it as you would unconstitutionally obtained evidence, and they've lost. The courts have held that it's constitutional. Obviously, this is a passionate topic, and I'm sure that those kinds of challenges will continue to come. And this city always will respond if there are any challenges in any court that determines that it is unconstitutional. But right now, the case law, the courts are apparently uniformly saying that it is constitutional. And that makes sense from what we know about that expectation of privacy in public and the long history of case law in that context. So I hope that answers your questions.

And I have one more question, but I don't really know who to address this to or who would be the right person to answer it. But let's say we move forward with extending this contract. And let's just say down the road that I have an issue with it or we become aware of things that become unconstitutional or there's some kind of data breach or anything like that. Would I be able to recommend as a council member that we reconsider the contract? I don't know who to ask that.

You would definitely be able to recommend that the council terminate the contract because there's been a data breach or a violation of the law or because some court of competent jurisdiction says that it is constitutional and then the city would not be able to continue to do that. So that would be appropriate for you to do at that time.

You can ask that it be brought back up at any time at a future council meeting.

Thank you. Danny, if you could, I know you probably can't rattle off the number of it, but just the depth of those cases that kind of give this gravity.

No, it's not. I couldn't give you the number, but it's numerous and they're ongoing. In fact, one of the gentlemen handed out some packet of information and somebody's filed a new lawsuit four days ago, which I was reading and thought that was interesting, whoever it was that handed that out. But All the case law uniformly has held that it's constitutional in multiple different contexts. People have sued the city, you know, as citizens driving down the road thinking, I don't want my data. People have sued claiming that the evidence was used against them illegally in their criminal trial. So it's in multiple different contexts that it's been held constitutional too. So it's not just the number of cases, but the context of the cases.

Any other comment?

We also heard from several people that cases had been solved locally with children missing, with silver alerts, people with dementia and Alzheimer's. They have been located through the flock cameras. So I think everything has pros and cons, but we also have to look at both sides, the good and the bad.

All I was going to say, I'm sorry, I didn't respond to your email. I was actually out the last meeting. And typically what I love to do is face-to-face meetings. So I'd be happy to sit down and talk with you about anything that I was going to tell you that tonight. So if you want to have a conversation afterwards, I'm all ears. Thank you.

Absolutely. I'll speak for myself. None of us up here, well, I'll speak for myself. I'll speak for myself in assuming none of us up here have taken this lightly, not from the standpoint of It needs a ton of debate or warrant or merit to vote on it. I do think that I have gotten comfortable with the policies of our police department, as well as the way it's been explained to me that it's constitutional and the way that the data that are just snapshots of license plates, no different than you see when you drive down the road and people have chosen to put their license plate out there. The camera takes a picture of it and then it purges it. That in simple form is a pretty convincing argument that there's more good than harm to be done here. I will speak to the fact that I know that I think it was alluded to in one of the speakers earlier that fear is a persuasive and powerful emotion. But I would just say that of all the things that I've heard tonight about hacking, bad actors, surveillance, abuse, constitutionality, collection of data, possible errors, all those, those are easy, those are topics that One, we appreciate everyone bringing those concerns to us. For me, it's also those are all kind of, you know, slightly laced with a fear factor themselves. And for me, it's what is best for Cookville and what is best for the safety of our citizens, not for just the general licensure. It's what safety gives us to make, you know, whimsical decisions on. It's a matter of what matters. in the end, when that child is missing and needs to be located quickly, if you had the resources to put a thousand police officers on the corner and watch for every license plate, we would do that. But in this instance, we have the opportunity to use technology to magnify that and effectively do the same thing. So I just wanted to say again, thank you for everyone who has spoken and give that perspective. Where is it in the Constitution? No, sir, we're not going to do that. You've had your moment to speak, and no more disruption, right?

I'm going to read that. I don't want to speak. I don't want to speak. I would encourage you that if you, everybody that got in here to speak, I appreciate that. We understand your concern. My question would be, have you reached out? I'm going to put chief on the spot, but have you reached out and talked to our chief?

I tried.

Okay. This is like, think about it, and then you can talk to him afterwards. But so I did. I had concerns, and I went and sat down with him, and he showed that to me. So, again, I'm not trying to put him on the spot, but we are accredited. Institution and we, we are proud of that and our, our officers are here to serve the people and I guarantee you. Maybe you can speak with them afterwards and maybe we can set something up and I'll be having to go with you. And because when he sat down with me and showed me what exactly this did. It put me into it and put me into some peace. And back to, you know, yes, my children's stuff was unfortunately pulled from the hospital. And just to go back to you, I was not insinuating that it happened to me. So sorry, it's going to happen to you. That's not what I was insinuating. All I'm saying was, unfortunately, these things are going to happen. I wish we could. Big Brother's already, unfortunately, there. He's been there for a minute. He just grew up a little bit. But we... I feel comfortable moving forward and going on. But if you want to talk with me afterwards, I will be here all night. So love to talk with you.

Any other discussion? All right, seeing none. All vote.

Oh, that's correct. Or yes, motion carries. Every day is awful.

So nobody wants to play and talk.

Got it. Big mistake. Failure. Unacceptable. I would ask if you have a conversation to be had, if you wouldn't mind excusing yourself. Yes. I don't have that information. All right, moving on. Item 70, consider approval for city manager to enter a two-year contract. All right, 7A, consider acceptance of hazardous materials, emergency preparedness, HMDP grant. Chief Young.

Mayor and council, this is a grand opportunity. We actually applied for last year and council approved last year, but we didn't get the contract from the state till just a few weeks ago. So in that process, we had to get some updated pricing because some had some increases over that year period. So I'm bringing it back for you today to get approval on an additional cost. It's going to be going back through it since we have a couple of new council people and figure out what we're doing here. So we're experiencing a lot of growth as far as industrial and just traffic and everything else. So with that, you have a lot more hazardous materials coming through town every day that's stored here, traveling here, whatever it may be. In our current plan, we can detect certain gases and certain substances, but we can't really identify what those may be. And a big part of this grant is for two specific pieces of equipment that will identify those chemicals or gases. This will advance our team where we could test for a team of class two. Do you give some perspective? There's only one other class two, and that's Kingsport in the state of Tennessee. And there's two class ones, one's national, one's Chattanooga. So that would be a huge asset for our hazmat team. This is a 80-20 reimbursement grant. As we go through here, you'll see last year's prices versus this year's updated pricing. Now this is a Viper chemical analyzer. It's good for reading anything of solids and liquids. It can identify up to 30,000, 39,000 different chemicals and makeups. The next thing we have here is a gas analyzer, Explorer Chemical Gas Analyzer. See the price increase there too. Same situation here, it can identify multiple gases and multiple ones at one time. Both these come with a two-year warranty and training into the price structure. This is a Hazmat Sim Pro 3. It allows our technicians, Hazmat technicians, to actually train with more realistic simulations. We can use our tablets, and they can set up scenarios in real time and do their training, which we have nothing like that now to do. This is a cargo simulator and clamps. This is your cargo simulator. It's like a fuel tanker. Those clamps, they can be used as training props, but they also can be used in a real field. So kind of a... two deal there as far as the clamps goes. And our hazmat suits, that's the only thing that actually went down in price. And those we're gonna be using, five of our older ones, we'll use them for training. Take these new five ones and put those into frontline use. This is a breakdown of the total cost. So the new pricing would be $204,427.76. The grant was for $155,935.20. That grant does not change. With the 80-20 match, we went up to $48,432.56 is what our match would be for this year. So that's a difference of price increase of $9,433.76. If approved, it would require a budget amendment in the future, but I would ask for your approval and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Is there a motion?

No.

Motion by Councilman Parkinson, second by Councilman England. Any discussion from the public? Discussion from Council? We like 80-20?

Next one's better, it's 100%. That's the deal.

Thank you. All right, no discussion, I'll vote.

All votes correct. Four yes, motion carries.

Sorry. Keep your glasses here. Item 7G, consider authorizing Bass Bering Sims PLC. Sorry. Item 7F, request authorization to apply for and accept $350,000 SCIP grant, and if approved, authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with Volunteer Behavioral Health.

Yes, Mayor and Council, this is a grant opportunity that we had come up just really quickly here in the last few weeks. It's a $350,000 no match reimbursement grant. It's for a state crisis intervention program. for Cookville Community Response Program. What that does, it teams one of our mental health clinicians from volunteer with one of our fire EMP ladies are here tonight. Great team, can't praise them enough for the work that they do here in town. This grant is funding through the State Crisis Intervention Program. It's administered by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and it's passed through the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs. This would be a one-year match. It ends 9-30 of 27. Our program that pairs those people together, they go out and respond to nonviolent behavioral health and social service crises, whether that's suicide prevention, behavioral health, evals, substance abuse, homelessness, whatever that is. They can either access that individual there, try to get them the treatment they need, try to get them some treatment respite beds or whatever the situation may be. It's dispatched through the CPD's dispatch center through their non-emergency line and they triage those calls to see which ones would be qualified for the CCR team. They've done a really good job with that too as well, the police department has. The purpose of this grant was to expand that program. So I got with our CCR team. It was like, you know, they work 3 to 11 Monday to Friday now. So it's kind of a limited time frame that they work. But going by the call volume that PD had at the time, that was the best time to implement it. But doing follow-ups was a real issue with it, right? If they have an interaction with a person tonight, you know, it's 3 o'clock tomorrow evening before they can get back with them. What this grant would do is contract with Voluntary Behavioral Health for a case manager and a mental health clinician, or I'm sorry, a counselor, to work those off-duty times that they're not on duty, like from, say, we set the times, 8-3, whatever that time might be, and even on weekends. So you can actually get some counseling sessions via telehealth through that and have the case manager do follow-ups and try to get these people placed where they need to be. And the goal here is the CCR response, crisis assessment, follow-up, resource connection, brief therapy, and connection to the ongoing services. If approved, this would also require a budget amendment. I would also ask tonight that I'm requesting authorization to apply for, and if it's successful, accept the $350,000 SSILT grant, as well as authorization from the city manager to execute an agreement with Volunteer Behavioral Health. We're happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Eldridge, second by Councilman England. Any discussion from the public on this item? Yes, sir.

Billy George, Cookville, Tennessee. As We continue to grow. I applaud the fire department or whichever department specifically went out and sought to find grant access that are 100% covered, but then also avail resources that could benefit individuals through their health. We know that there are a number of individuals who are displaced, who might be in any crisis need in any capacity. I know it's not just for those individuals, but I do see this as a benefit. So I ask you to vote yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more discussion with the public?

I would like to say, I'm sorry. Being a business owner on the west side, we have used this program since it's been in effect and it's been wonderful for those non-emergency calls. Sometimes there is someone that needs help that we, the business owner, can't give them. It's not an emergency. It's not a violent crime. So I'm very grateful for this program.

It's a niche market that's really needed, right?

And it gets to the root cause. It does. That person will get the resources that they need.

I was just going to embarrass my ladies back there, but if Eric and Frankie could stand up, just stand up really quick. They're not going to. I just want to commend them for what they're doing. I appreciate what y'all are doing in the community, and this is a wonderful program. And I just tell everybody, y'all are like a hidden gem here. And we don't want it hidden. We want it to be known. So we appreciate what you're doing.

Well, and part of this grant is some advertising funds and some other stuff. So hopefully that'll help.

And just to add on to what you guys are doing, starting probably November 1st, I'm excited because I've been working with two of our judges, Judge McKenzie, Judge Fry, and our DA, that our mental health court will be up and going. So this will be big to get connected with that. We've got a meeting on the 29th with a volunteer to talk about some stuff. So it's going to be huge. But I'm excited about that. It'll be a good partnership. It will be. What do you think we can ever do to get more money that way?

Yeah.

I'm all happy to do so.

We thank you. Not only is it award-winning, as you and I experienced at Eastern Sea, we've got other towns calling to copy our bottles. Yeah, we get calls a week about what you're doing.

We actually get calls weekly from all the country, from bigger cities, smaller cities, and you can scale this up or scale it down, however you want to do it. It's really worked out well.

That's good. Well done. Thank you. Any other comments?

Are we seeking some additional grant monies? We are. We do. Yes, sir. We actually have another grant in the pipeline. Have not heard from it yet. It's a multi-year, multi-million dollar grant to expand those services to a day crew, a weekend crew. So hopefully we'll get that. Thank you.

Any other comments? All right. I'll vote.

Although it's correct. Or yes, motion carries. Thank you. All right, so I checked that wrong.

So I'm going to respond this time.

Item 7G, consider authorizing Barbarian Sims DLC as bond countable for the proposed not to exceed $20 million general obligation series 2026 and 2027. Ms. Neiswanderer.

Mayor and Council, this item and the next three items on the agenda all relate to proposed not to exceed $20 million general obligation bond issues. This first item is the engagement of bond counsel for this issue. We are using Bass, Berry and Sims out of Nashville. This is our first time using Betsy Knotts because the counsel we had used in past has recently retired. As bond counsel, she will provide bond opinion regarding the validity and security of the bonds, including source of payment, security of the bonds and the excludability of interest on the bonds from gross income for federal and state and tax purposes. She will prepare documents, coordinate authorization, and execution of the documents for the bond. Her fee will be paid from the proceeds of $40,000. I recommend your approval.

Thank you. Do I have a motion?

Motion.

I have a motion from Councilman England. Second from Vice Mayor Eldridge. Any discussion from the public on this matter? Any discussion from Council? Seeing none, all vote.

All votes correct. 4-yes motion carries.

Item 7-H, consider authorizing Cumberland Securities Company, Inc., as municipal advisor for the proposed not to exceed $20 million general obligation bond series 2026-2027. Ms. Nicewant.

This item authorizes Cumberland Securities Company to serve as our municipal advisors for these bond issuances. They have acted as our municipal advisors since 2015. They will prepare and publish official notices, coordinate with Moody's for the bond rating process, coordinate and deliver all documents, advertise and manage the bid process, evaluate all bids to determine the most favorable bid to the city. Their fee in our existing agreement is $3 per bond and there are other fees. preparing and issuing the documents, all of these are paid for by the bond proceeds. I recommend your approval.

Thank you. Do I have a motion? So moved. Motion by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Second by Councilman Parkston. Don't forget my bearings on that. Any discussion from the public? Any discussion from Council on that? I'll vote.

Although it's correct. Or yes, motion carries.

Item 7I, consider Resolution 2609-19, initial resolution authorizing the issuance of a not-to-exceed $20 million in general obligations bonds of Cookeville, Tennessee. Ms. Neiswander.

This resolution is for the city to issue not to exceed $20 million in general obligation bonds. The project's plan for this bond issuance is for the 39 Depot project, design and construction of the parking lot and other infrastructure improvements, a fire training facility, an east-west connector south of I-40, and east 10th Street phase 3 improvements. We propose to divide the issuance into two bond issuances of $10 million, one in 2026, another in 2027. Current bonds outstanding are $41,085,000. These bonds would add $20 million to that balance. We service debt through our general obligation bond debt service fund, which has a projected unaudited fund balance at July 1st of $22,605,891. Issuing these bonds will require utilizing fund balance for about five years, reducing to approximately $19.7 million in fund balance. We do have the debt capacity to cover these bonds, and I recommend your approval.

Thank you. Do I have a motion? Motion by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Second by Councilman England. Any discussion for the public? Any discussion from Council? All vote.

All vote's correct. Or yes, motion carries.

Item 7J, consider Resolution 260920, detailed resolution authorizing the issuance of not to exceed $20 million in general obligation bonds of Coteville, Tennessee. Ms. Neiswanderer.

This detailed resolution provides the final authorization for the issuance of the not to exceed $20 million in general obligation bonds. Bond issuance costs are estimated to be at $190,000 for both issuances paid from the proceeds. Exact issue costs will be shared after the issue in an after action report. This resolution is much longer than the initial resolution and has much more information for the bond issuances. It provides definitions, authorizes the mayor to sign all documents for the bonds, set forth maturity and redemption dates, and other provisions required for compliance with regulations and laws. I am happy to answer any questions, but I recommend your approval.

Thank you. Is there a motion? A motion by Vice Mayor Eldridge, second by Councilman England. Any discussion from the public? Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Jeff King, Cookville resident. I am a big supporter, as I've told you multiple times, of the Depot project. My only concern is this is a $20 million debt, and I am uncertain why we are doing the initial and the resolution at the same time. And I would like to understand that a little bit better. It feels slightly improper to do it at the same meeting, but I could be wrong.

We actually, Gene and I actually discussed that. He has a good question. We've done it both ways. So we're comfortable doing them both at the same meeting. I want to point out too that we're asking for authorization for 20 million. All we intend to do for the immediate several months is 10 million, but we'll see where we are. then and if we need to, we'll come back and I'm sure we will for an additional two million. But the other point I wanna make is we complete all the projects that we have on that list, you're looking at another 20 or 30 million we'll be doing in the next several years. And you can see where our debt is. This is substantial increase from 41 to 61, but we do have the capacity to do an additional 20 or $30 million in the future.

Thank you. Any more discussion from the public? Discussion council. Thank you, Mr. Mills. All right. All vote.

All votes correct.

Or yes, motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you.

This concludes the agenda portion of our meeting. Are there any citizens in the audience or anyone like to speak from the public on non-agenda items? Yes, sir. Please state your name and address, and it's on non-agenda items.

My name's Raul. I'm a student at Tennessee Tech. I also live in Cookville. I'm not sure if this is the best place to put forward this, but I have two traffic complaints. One surrounding Tennessee Tech. I know our crosswalks there are a little bit outdated, and I also feel they're a bit unsafe, and I implore this council to maybe consider doing land bridges for more efficient cross-trafficking. This one is, the other one's a bit personal for this traffic. There is, I forget the two streets names, but I work near them, County Service Drive and Willow Avenue. Those stoplights, the sensors are a bit off, and every time I come in from County Service Drive, I get stuck there for like 10 minutes because it doesn't register my car when I'm trying to turn left. That's all I have to say.

Thank you for that. Maybe after the meeting, we'll stick around and talk to see how it works. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any other comments? Yes, sir. On knowledge and items?

Yes, sir.

Good evening. My name is Fred Weymouth, and I'm with a ministry out of Virginia. And we had a meeting yesterday. I guess City Councilman Ali asked me to come and maybe tell you all a little bit about what we're doing. I'm a church planter back home and also a founder of a substance abuse program. And we were contacted by a place called Freedom Place, which is in Cooksville? Cooksville. And not Cookville, but Livingston, sorry. And we met with the board there and we've kind of come to an agreement where we are gonna rebrand. We're gonna bring our ministry here. And really that was an old Teen Challenge program, I believe, and some other things. And I just wanted to connect with you guys. And I was grateful that he invited me to come and to share And just to tell you a little bit about what we do, we focus primarily on a subculture of drugs, alcohol, and people who are unsheltered. And so we really, really are excited to be a part of the community. I know back home how vital it is to have the community support. So meeting with the sheriffs and some of the probation and other people yesterday was a blessing. And so I would love to stay after and answer any questions that you have. But, again, we want to be a blessing to Cokeville and the people that we are called here to minister to. So, anyway, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Fred. Yes.

Ollie sent his regards. Sorry he couldn't be here. Okay. He just wanted me to let you know that. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. So, but.

Anyone else? Yes, sir. Okay.

Brian Moore, since I'm here anyways. The entrance into the Jackson Convenience Center, I don't know if you guys are ever on that side of town or going up that road, getting pretty rough. When you're going east, you're going east on Jackson and you're turning left into the Convenience Center, You got all that traffic coming up the hill pretty quick. You can't see them, so you have to kind of fly into the convenience center, and you hit that pretty rough patch right there, like half the road's missing. You guys are repaving half the town anyway, so if you get a chance to do that, it'd be great. Thank you. Appreciate you saying that.

Somebody knows how much driving we're doing.

Anyone else? We appreciate it, buddy.