Council - Regular Meeting

It will be hard to take down.

All right, it's 5:00. Thank you everyone for being here for our work session for our April 6th meeting. We've got two presentations tonight. Up first will be Carter Watkins, communications update.

Good afternoon, council. Mayor doing good. Since January, the communications department has focused on one goal. Deliver clear, consistent, and accessible information to our residents while supporting the work of the mayor, this council, and every department across the city. Get my little clicker here. In a short time, we've changed the pace of the city's communication. More updates, more consistency, and more visibility. And most importantly, one unified voice for the city. That foundation is what everything else in this presentation is built upon. We've backed that up with increased output across every platform, more web stories, highquality social media posts, and more consistent communication. Overall, the focus is on making sure residents know what's happening and why it matters to them. I might add, people are noticing. Our content over the last 90 days has received 1.3 million views and over 1,000 new followers on our social media. Our website redesign is a major step forward. We're building a modern front door for the city, one that allows residents to quickly find information that keeps everything we communicate in one place. We are still aiming to launch the new website this summer. Now, I'm about to give you a brief snapshot of what we're moving towards. Keep in mind, this is not active and still under development, so things could move move around a little bit. These are a few early looks at that redesign. You can see a cleaner layout,

improved navigation, and a structure that puts important information front and center. The goal is simple. make it easier for residents to find what they need without having to search for it. We're also excited about the new Castis streaming and archiving system possibilities. Our is team is bench testing the hardware and will actually hook it into the system here in the chambers this week for more testing. There are still steps before we are ready for a public launch, but we are making progress on it. This system gives residents easier access to meetings and city content on their own time, which strengthens transparency. The community survey we performed back earlier this year brought in 689 responses from across the city. This is a snapshot in time and serves as a baseline. It also it allows us to measure progress and better understand what matters most to our residents. We saw participation across all five districts which gives us a strong city-wide view and helps ensure we are hearing from across the community. There have been questions about the number of people who participated in the survey. 1.2% of our population participated. This number actually exceeds expectations for a voluntary municipal survey. We set a goal early on of 500 people. We received good representation from each district. Our goal is to get more people involved in future surveys. For transparency, we're sharing the number of survey responses from each district. We also see registered voter totals included as a general point of reference. These do not represent the total population, but they help provide

context of how responses are distributed across the city. Most importantly, participation across all five districts along with those who spend time indicator gives us confidence that this survey provides a strong citywide snapshot. Let us stress that the survey was designed to provide a city-wide baseline. District level data is shared for transparency, but it's not intended for statistical comparison. Our district meetings have been a strong success. They provide a direct connection between residents, the mayor, and council with a focus on listening, answering questions, and building trust. Our approach to communication is structured. Web stories serve as the source of truth, and social media directs residents to that information. This keeps messaging consistent and ensures residents are getting accurate, complete details. We focused on delivering clear communication during complex or highinterest topics, helping residents better understand what the city is doing and why decisions are being made. We also support every department across the city from public safety to parks and recreation. We help ensure their work is communicated clearly and consistently. This centralized approach improves efficiency and reduces confusion. We're evaluating tools that allow us to communicate directly with residents and provide a two-way connection. our focus on finding a solution that is effective and physically responsible. We have a vendor meeting this week and are reviewing additional options. Looking ahead, we will continue building

on this momentum with the website launch, bringing Castus online while expanding video and content capabilities and continued measurement of resident feedback. Our focus remains clear. deliver communication that supports the city, mayor's office, this council, and serves our residents. Indicator, we are better together. If the public ever has any questions, we are here to help them get answers. They can me email us anytime at questions-al.gov. That's it. Thank you, questions or comments for Carter?

Yeah, one question comment. I know the answer to it, but I to be able to tell it for the folks watching. Okay. So, on the focus on two-way engagement, that would be like text alerts because we hear a lot, well, I didn't see it in the paper. I'm not on social media. So, what we're looking at is a app that people can opt into and with that we'll be able to send them alerts on traffic situations, um, any kind of weather events, any such alerts like that. And they'll also be able to text us like, "Hey, there's a pothole here or there's a concern with traffic here." And we'll be able to receive those messages. Perfect. Mhm.

And I I'd just like to say just a few months has really improved the communication the city and I know all y'all appreciate. Thanks, Mayor.

Mr. Good evening, members of the council. I want to open up my presentation by first saying a quote. Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you could do something about it. Now, this is from Alan Leaken. The first thing that we took on this year is our new zoning rewrite. The zoning rewrite became active on January 1st, 2026. The planning department, some of the things that came about as these changes came into fruition with the new zoning rewrite is that we've assumed responsibility of the board of zoning and adjustment. We've with this new zoning rewrite, it has granted us the opportunity and ability to also be able to expedite some of our processes as it pertains to plan review. One of those things is minor site plans could be approved administratively within our office. Major site plans still have to go through the process of going to our planning commission and and so forth. Other things as a part of the zoning rewrite is that we are allowed to do variance adjustments if can be made administratively if they're less than 10% of a change or a stray away from whatever that particular ordinance is. Another high point of the zoning rewrite is also that we've de we are developing a stronger collaboration with community development to address zoning enforcement per the ordinance. For example, LED lights are no longer prohibited. So, we've been working with the office of community development to go around and inform business owners about the LED light prohibition.

No longer permitted in windows.

No longer permitted in windows. Yes, sir. Also, we are currently seeking to take certificates inhouse to be able to subdivide and consolidate like lots to be able to expedite our development process. We feel if we could take in minor site plans and handle them administratively, something simple as consolidating three or less lots or subdividing one parcel into three or less lots is something that's an easy function that we can expedite instead of having developers and property owners wait an entire month just to sub subdivide into three lots or consolidate three lots. Lastly, a major advancement is that we've recently solicited nine volunteers for the zoning rewrite committee. This committee will work with us to go through the zoning ordinance to see if we can find any inconsistencies or things that may need correcting or things that were important from the last zoning ordinance that we probably still should consider doing. For example, there's a discrepancy between like an agricultural lot and a minimum size versus a R1E lot and a minimum size. In this ordinance, it doesn't show a good transition from going for that. For example, the R1 lot has recommends I think it's 3 acres and then the agriculture has less than that. It's one acre and really the agriculture should be at least 5 acres. Next, a thing that we we've taken on this year, of course, everyone knows about the short-term rental, which we're about to launch this Wednesday. So, please pray for us. I' I've been hearing murmurings on the street that there are a lot of people that are excited and have been anticipating this. We've been receiving calls in our office. I actually just spoke to a resident outside who wanted to get a head start and know what she would need to apply for a short-term rental. The purpose of the short-term rental is to manage, monitor, and

address short-term rental units to improve the quality of tourist homes and home stays per our new ordinance. Um what we've done to move this effort forward is we've selected Decker Technologies in February 2026 and they will help us accept applications as well as create a public interface and inspection module and STR monitoring and tracking and also create a dashboard that we can always refer to to keep up with the number of units that are renting to individuals visiting the town, the number of nights they're renting, as well as just collecting as much data as we and to report to the public and stay a breast of what's happening in the city. As mentioned, we're launching this on April 1st, this Wednesday. The planning department will begin accepting the applications and going through the initial review process. And we will take seven, our goal is to take seven to 10 business days to finish reviewing the applications as they come in. Next on our list of goals that we aspire to do, and I'm I'm excited about this one. I've done some research and I've had some assistance from one of our consultants outside of the city in return as it pertains to long-term rentals. Long-term rentals will be a good way for us to stabilize the community and environment for people who are renters and tenants to ensure that they have quality, adequate housing and they're not being cheated out of their experiences being a renter. We know that there are slum lords in every city. We know that there are absentee landlords in every city. But this is a way we can get control over it and get a better understanding of what we have out in the community in terms of rental properties. This is also an opportunity for us to think about the future and how we can encourage more developers to come into our city and build and develop highquality multifamily housing. Some of the things that I found in my research that I'll be proposing to council in a few weeks or month or however long it

takes for us to get to a ordinance that everyone is happy about is that we should at least start off with a rental property registry where we have a good idea and have the data on the number of rental properties that are available in the community and so forth. Another thing is consider doing a business license if a company has or multiple properties that they manage so that we can get a foothold on actually how many management companies exist in our city. We know we have some private business owners uh just individuals in the community that may have three or four properties. those aren't the ones we're necessarily concerned with, but those who own a multitude of properties and they may be present in the city or outside of the city, we like to know who those individuals are and perhaps encourage them to get a license. The other thing we should consider as we're developing this ordinance is inspections. Like whenever there's a vacancy or there's a change in the tenency of a of of a place, we probably wouldn't go in and do an inspection that often, but at least every 3 years, we do an inspection on a property to see that it's conducive for and inhabitable so people don't wind up living in less than standard and substandard housing. And then lastly, which is similar to the short-term rental process, that we have a complaint line. A lot of times in many cities when they deal with long-term rentals, it's hard to enter the property or it's hard to get the city involved in what happens in that particular property because there's no gateway for an inspector to enter that property. But if we start a program and create a complaint hotline, there's an opportunity for us to go see what's happening with that particular property, especially if that person has a license. We have some consequences and recourse for individuals who don't take care of their properties. So Chad, before you go too far there, I just want to make sure people understand these are just topics that you're talking about you're going to evaluate. Yes. Not things that you're studying at

this point would necessarily be in the ordinance or not be in the

correct. These are just elements that I found through my research in other cities and most of the ordinances and those are commonalities in a lot of the ordinances. Um, currently we also have a housing analysis going on. We fired a consultant, Mr. Randall Gross. Uh we procured his services to conduct a study of the housing market indicator. Um he's in the process of doing some. It has not been finalized. We're actually meeting with him this week to discuss what his findings thus far. And this is just a snippet of of one of the charts that he sent to us thus far. But we're going to go through the document and ensure that we have what we desire in this analysis and see how it could be useful to us to attract other housing developers into the city whether it's multif family, single family or what have you. Um this will give us a summary of existing conditions, the local economic trends and future projections for the housing market. The housing analysis again is near completion but has not been finalized. And as you can see from this chart, housing construction is increasing. And even within the short 6 months that I've been in this position, I can tell that housing development is definitely increasing, especially in a single family market. The two to four unit market and the multif family market is still fairly low, but we hope to develop that soon. These are some topics we've been working with other departments on and having discussions about trying to become more innovative and collaborative with departments and some of the work that we do. Uh one of them is we're coordinating with engineering temple and the University of Alabama and Huntsville to develop solutions for keeping semis off of local streets. This is something that the staff actually undertook prior to me getting here and I kind of stepped into the meeting and noticed that they were working with Temple to look at the traffic count and also follow semis

around the city to make sure that they're staying on the truck routes and what we're finding we know of the issues on belt line and around country club with the semis and so forth. So that's what the goal is to try to keep the semis off of the major thorough affairs that a lot of residents use and keep them on their truck route. So early on when I first came, Temple sat down and said that they would work with us with tracking those semis around the city to ensure compliance. Another thing that we're going through in our office is researching softwares to help us with planning management. The city uh primarily is using one software that we haven't joined on to yet, but we understand it may take a long time to join on to it. So, we're considering if we're going to try to manage it in-house without purchasing a software, which we've been kind of successfully doing and partnering with the development department and kind of using City View as a user, but we're considering how we can either tack on to that software or find something that could work better with us cuz with City View, it may take a long time for us to actually get on board. But, we're looking at our options currently. We're also collaborating with community development to start the discussion about land banking and the infield for affordable housing. Uh trying to see what's available out there, ways that we could perhaps begin to land bank some of the properties and get it into the hands of willing developers to do infield housing or other projects. Next, we also want to collaborate with financing and engineering to start discussions about beginning on working on a 4-year capital improvement plan. if we could sit down and kind of assess what capital improvement or infrastructure projects that could be turnkey to actually unlocking the potential for economic development in certain areas around the city. It may be something as aligning a road. It may be something as simple as putting in a pumping station somewhere or to make the land more palatable and attractive to economic development or in investment.

So, I want to partner with those departments to kind of see what's happening around the city and how we can take a part in that. looking at future resonings, future annexations, and that sort of thing. That concludes my presentation. Thank you for your attention. Any questions? Anybody got any questions or comments? So, how many short-term rental applications do you have so far? None. It opens. We're probably going to have a thousand on Wednesday.

So, you can't apply early. You have to apply. Okay. We we we're waiting to open up the opportunity for everyone at the same time. In fact, we were careful, and this was the mayor's idea, to not let those who had previously had an existing short-term rental get a head start above those who didn't. So, everyone gets an opportunity and a fair shot at the same time. And they'll be date stamp, I mean, a timestamped. It'll be timestamped. And and of course, the applications will come in through Rentyncape from Decard. And as we get them, we'll we'll know what time they come in. And and then after that, it's a matter of making payment. And then also having all of your information that's with a complete application.

Talking 12:01 a.m. It might not be ready then. I I don't know if we're going to open it up at 12 or or probably 8:00 a.m. when we get here. I think 8 a.m. Yeah. No, I'd like to say that uh Chad's still pretty new to this position and there are a lot of changes going on in the planning department and I really like the positive can do attitude and you know some of these other ideas that you're bringing to us that plan should look at. Yes, sir. Appreciate what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you, Chad. Thank you.

All right, we will move into our agenda. Um, we'll have approval of monthly minutes approved March 9th, 2026, 5:00 p.m. council work session approved March 16th, 2026, 9:30 a.m. council work session approved March 16th, 2026 10 a.m. council meeting approved March 23rd, 2026 10 a.m. special council meeting. This is one Tyler comment. All right, we got you. You want me to let you know when we get to your item? Yes.

Okay. Um, all right. Any questions on the minutes? All right. Public hearings. Orders number 264639. Approve reasoning request 144526 for property located at 3418 Indian Hills Road to Community Commercial. The public hearing was set March 2nd, 2026.

Good evening, council. I'm Tommy Williams with the planning department and the applicant is requesting to reszone 3.24 24 acres from RSF10 S single family residential to community commercial CC. The one decade the future land use map has this neighborhood commercial and this one before the planning commission in February. At this time the developer has no plans for developing the property. Okay. Any questions right now? All right. Resolution number 26068. Approve request for restaurant retail liquor license for Logan House Enterprises LLC. Doing business at Logan's Roadhouse 369 at 2315 Beltline Road Southwest at Ka 3561.

Okay, this is going to be a change in ownership. So, they're just requesting a transfer for a new owner. All right, any questions? Thank you. Resolution number 26069 approve request for special event retail liquor license for responsible partners LLC doing business at 609 social market for Decad days festival on April 18th 2026 at 109 East Molton Street Southeast Decator Alabama 35601. This event took quite a bit of doing but we finally have gotten all the approvals so they are ready to go. Any questions on this one? This is at the parking deck.

The parking deck. Yes. All right. Thank you. Moving into resolutions. Resolution number 26070 approved River Tree contract for auxiliary auxiliary auditing services for the revenue department.

This is a third party auditing firm that we use to help us audit since we're such a small department. Big audits we don't really have the capacity to to take on something like that. Um, but you can see it very well pays for itself. About 83% um, comes back to us. Um, they work by the hour. It's $75 an hour for them to audit. And what they do is if they find somebody, then they'll call me and tell me and I will decide whether or not I think that's worth us auditing. If um, I find someone and it's a large audit and I don't have the time to donate to it, then I will call them and ask them to audit them.

Okay. Any questions? They've actually returned. Uh we've had some huge returns. Yeah. So in 24 they got us $2,78,36626 and we actually paid them out $45,000 for that. So it was huge. Of course, you know, some years are going to be bigger than others. You're not always going to have big years, but we've definitely brought in way more than we paid out every year. Yeah. And if they if they have the same vendor and there's more like county and others that we split that rate what I understand. No, we split the hourly rate.

We do not split that hourly rate. So um Avenue is another third party auditor. I think you may be thinking of them. I thought I read it in disagreement. We if if they started out with an audit for Morgan County and then we joined in then they would. Okay. But on a typical basis it would just be us alone. Yes. Thank Thank you. Uhhuh. All right. Any questions? All right. Resolution number 26071 award whistlebl construction to bike construction company LLC.

Yes, Mr. Pike. Mayor Council, um, this is a project that, as the council is aware that it was brought to us quite probably a couple of years ago, the to do a park at on Market Street right there by the bridge. Um, we have been working with um, Goblin Mills and Kwood to get this project done. and we've went back and forth uh as far as with the design. Uh I've got a couple of pictures up just so that you have an idea of what the park's going to look like. That that is the bridge there to the you know to the left. That's right there at the bridge. Uh it's going to be a passive park. Um it will have swings around the the park. There'll be some large swings that you know again just very passive. They're not swings like swing sets. They're large patio swings. Um if you'll change that's the present property there. Um that's the I guess if you look um we are not you know again as we went through this project we tried to keep it we're we're right at budget under budget. Uh so we've taken quite a few things out of the initial plan. One of the things we're not going to do the pavilion that was we're going to do that as an you know we did not select that as an alternate um those poles that are that are showing at the front of that we're not going to do those. We also took the the fence out but I do want to talk about that in a second too but we removed the fence. Um so that's what the the concept that's the conceptual drawing what it's going to look like. Uh we have gotten some response from the neighbors and the town houses there that

back up to it that has asked that we put a put the fence put a fence up along that wall. What we would ask the council and what um the um engineers we've talked you know if we could go ahead and get the go ahead and get the contract approved then we will look at doing the fence. Uh we think that we'll be able to get that con still under budget. We're hopeful. Uh but we'll have to get that. We're working on that now. We got those responses back from the from the neighbors relatively uh in the past week or so. Uh I think Councilman Pike met with them and brought those concerns to us. So we are working on those. But um we would ask that the council go ahead and approve the contract. then we will work with GCM about getting some prices on what the the fence would cost and as long as it falls within the the bid laws to where we could do a change order, we would do the change order. If not, we could al we could always go back and bid the fence totally separate outside this contract. Um, so I take any questions that the council may have.

So what are those polls? They were just poles, just decorative poles. His architectural they really was I mean they were just architectural features that again trying to keep the B I asked him to take them out because trying to keep it under budget and we have achieved that. Um Oh, you said you the we took the polls out. Yeah, the polls have been taken out. And the pavilion I got?

Yeah, and the pavilion. Um, and I say we're under budget. There's I think during the count uh during the budget talks there was discussions about putting 200,000 from the city toward this project. It hasn't been this resolution will also budget that, but there's been I think it was discussed to put that in the budget in budget times. It just didn't get budgeted. All right. Any other questions? Thank you, Alan. Resolution number 26072 declare surplus of vehicles and used by various departments.

Sure. Jeremy Shur procurement. In 2025, we entered um a lease agreement with Enterprise, acquired 33 vehicles to update our age fleet, and over the course of the last several months, those assets have been received and put into service. And this list um is a list of the assets in our fleet that are no longer needed. We're asking for the uh approval to remove these. All right. Any questions on that resolution?

Thank you, sir. All right. Resolution number 26073 approve agreement with Fight Building Company for construction management small works. This is an agreement uh with fight for small works. uh construction management small small works uh would be construction projects below $2 million and this agreement will allow us to partner with them to assist in management of programs uh project estimation oversight and so on on select projects as we as needed and we did receive and review proposals from sever management firms across the region and are recommending fight for approval on this. Okay. Any questions? All right. Resolution number 26074, approve rebuild and repair to the VHS polishing screen. Wanda, you're up.

Okay. Thank you for allowing me to call in. This is for while we're down. In addition, while we're down, we ask both handling systems to come in to assess some equipment that may need some um work, and this is one of them. The policy screen is what we use to define materials. We get a lot of like shredded paper, a lot of uh small trash uh that comes in and this removes that and allows the big bulk items, paper, plastic to continue to run through the conveyor and you know we can finish our process. So, this particular uh piece of equipment needs rebuild and also some repairs and uh we're asking for your approval to get that done.

All right. Thank you, W. Any questions on that one? So, this does polic.

Thank you, Wanda. Resolution number 26075 approved budget increase for DEC utilities cut patching and pipe burst. Yes, we've been doing some repairs of patches from the utilities pipe bursting and we ran over what was budgeted for that. So we're asking to get funded for what we went over plus an additional 500,000 to so we can continue doing some patching and 175 to repave Duncan speed drive that utilities tore up during our project. So, and all this money will be reimbured by the county utilities that that we spent. So, it's 100% covered by the county utilities plus a 1% correct fee.

Thank you, Carl. Any questions? All right. Resolution number 26076 approved proposal for MS4 permit renewal and outfall cond. Good evening, Alejandro with the engineering department. Uh this item is to approve the proposal from three notch group. Um this proposal includes doing outfall inspections for MS4 permit as well as the permit renewal that is set to expire in September of this year and the total cost will be $24,000. All right. Any questions on that resolution? Thank you.

Thank you. Resolution number 26077 approved proposal for ADM services for Wilson Morgan Park outdoor improvements from Morel Engineering. Yes, Morel did the engineering work for our Wilson Morgan entrance improvements along the belt line and this is just uh for them to be able to submit for our storm water plan and also do the storm water monitoring during the construction of the project. Thank you. Any questions? All right. Resolution number 26078 authorize mayor to sign hive paddle sports agreement council mayor good evening

um this is for the city to enter an agreement with high paddle sports this is for our kayak launch at point mallard park that we're working on um this this is specifically for the rental units themselves and a continued agreement with Hive um for for the digital platform that they offer um which makes the the rentals themselves um I guess turnkey probably the best way to put it but um it they're self-service kayak units. So um there's 13 total slots that we're looking at and so this is to enter that agreement. I know there's a lot of language in the contracts. Um so I'd like to open up for any questions in relation to the contract. So we would purchase these units when a 105 for $55,000 roughly and then a 5year correct amendment. We would furnish

the equipment itself. Yes. Life safety. Yes.

So the the my estimated budget for the equipment which I I will ask for at a later date um is roughly between 15 and $20,000 that furnishes all 13 units. Um those estimates come from um five um single kayaks, three tandem kayaks, and then uh two paddle board and three fishing kayaks. I think that my math is right there. Um so it' be a variety of kayaks and that also includes the the life safety vests that are in each unit. Um as well as a whistle and other materials, first aid kits that come with each rental. um with each rental uh when when you're doing the digital checkout online. Uh so you'd go up, you'd scan the QR code, you digitally would check out, apply payment as all as well as fill out forms and sign waiverss and take pictures of all equipment. Um when you're doing that, you're checking boxes to ensure that the equipment is is in there and also um that it that it that it's functional and there's no issue. There's an inspection by each user each time as well as when they put the equipment back into the unit. Um and then as a department, we would do weekly inspections um for all equipment to ensure that the equipment is is adequate for use. Um it would we would also as a city like there would be a liability waiver that they would sign accompanied with that so that they'd sign a check a box uh when they rent the actual equipment as well.

And then profit beyond the admin fees split 8020

80 in our favor 20 in there. So, uh, the total admin fee for the two units combined is $20,000 for the year. We do not pay a dime out of that. Uh, they pull that from all sales that come in. So, over the over the span of the year, instead of us paying a monthly fee, they we actually don't pay anything unless we don't reach the $20,000 mark. Um, my estimate, and this is just within like a eight-month window, um, we only need roughly five to seven rentals a day. um during the warmer warmer months to hit that quota. Um so we feel confident about being able to hit that quota. Um I'm we're hoping to hit between 40 to $50,000 in revenue annually. Um so hopefully within the next 3 to 5 years we're able to not only we obviously pay our admin fees, but we also recoup the cost of the m the machines themselves and equipment. Um because that that money will also go back to replenishing equipment equipment over time. All right.

Thank you. We did receive our permit from TVA today. Yeah. Y question.

Yeah. The permit the permit is in. And so that was that was something we've been working on um with TVA. All these things have kind of been moving parallel with each other. Um and so that came in today and so now it's get this in place. Um we'll be bringing the next piece will be the the purchase of the the dock itself. Um but all this money is in the the the budget that we initially approved. Um and all these numbers were we we went through all this information with them months ago before we put the initial budget together. So we that that was that budget was to encompass all the moving parts. And so um there's no financial ask with this. Um that money is already in the project budget. uh this is just the contract for the the systems.

So now that we've got the uh permit from TVA and things are falling in line budget wise, what do you look the timeline for construction? And we we have we have installation complete by June 26th is the date that um that that Hive and Board Safe has given us on their end. They actually come and install all the stuff. Um, and so that we're we're the goal was to get it open by July 4th weekend. Um, and so we we feel confident that June 26 will be the date of completion. Thank you. Anything else? All right. Thank you.

Resolution number 26079, approve sidewalk cafe application for Mother's Italian Kitchen. Yes. This is for approval of a sidewalk cafe. Rather than it being in the front along the sidewalk, it would open to the back alley which is known as Sunnyside Alley behind 2092nd Avenue. Um they have provided enough space for ingress and eress of ADA qualifications ranging from 6 ft to 9 ft. So um we approved it for the design. Any questions on that? Nothing like sliding to dinner.

Resolution number 26080 authorized Baker Foundation to retain contractor for chapel renovation at the district cemetery.

Thank you. My name is Gay Blackburn Maloney. I am one of the attorneys for the Baker Foundation and tonight I speak on behalf of the Baker Foundation and particularly Cindy Baker Strickland and Becky Baker. um as we seek the council's approval for the uh Baker Foundation to engage a contractor for the restoration and renovations of the building commonly referred to as a chapel. And on behalf of uh Miss Strickland and Miss Baker, I have a statement to share with you. Our father Raymond Baker and our mother Marjgerie Baker are laid to rest at the Decatur Historic Cemetery. After both of our parents passed away, we often would go to the cemetery, take a bag lunch, and pay our respects. Over the years, we developed a deep appreciation of the cemetery, its history, and its beauty. With its earliest burials dating back to 1851, the cemetery holds the heritage of our city. Yet, we also noticed that the beauty and mission of the cemetery were marred by indifference, by neglect, and by a lack of vision. The cemetery looked worn and haggarded. In 2015, we made the decision to focus our charitable efforts and certain resources of the Baker Foundation to transform the aged cemetery into a cemetery worthy of the citizens of Decar. You may say that our goal has been to create a beautiful park in which

the citizens of our city are honored. Indeed, a park with a cemetery. A place to seek refuge, a place to renew spirits, a place to cherish the past, and a place to plan for future generations. Later, we led efforts for the Decar City Council to rename the cemetery as the Decar Historic Cemetery rather than the Decar City Cemetery. Over these years, we have developed a close partnership with the Decatur Parks and Recreation Department under whose opaces the cemetery is operated. With its public private partnership, dead trees and shrubs have been removed and replaced with new and expansive landscaping. We have dedicated significant resources of the Baker Foundation to build three entrance gates and to make other improvements. More than 400 trees have been planted to create a tree canopy. In addition, we organized the Decar Cemetery Legacy Society to receive funds through the Community Foundation of Greater Decar from individual citizens who share our vision for the cemetery. With a focus on the chapel restoration, the Legacy Society has also sought and received grants from entities. We are now ready to move forward with the restoration of the Victorian building situated in the oldest part of the cemetery and known as the chapel. As authorized by the previous city council, the Baker Foundation has engaged the services of architect Scott Schaw to prepare and update earlier drawings of

the chapel. Once restored, the chapel will include a multi-purpose room with its original high ceilings and tall windows, an office space for the cemetery supervisor within the room called the Northx, a catering kitchen, two accessible restrooms, and a ramp for the transport of a casket into the meeting space. The chapel will be available for rent through the parks and recreation department. Today, we are here to seek your approval of the resolution authorizing the Baker Foundation to engage a contractor to accomplish the renovations of this historic structure known as the chapel. Funds for this project are to be provided from those set aside by the Decatur Legacy Society already with the Community Foundation of Greater Decar and from the Baker Foundation. We are working with the Decatur Parks and Recreation to update its policies in general and to enter a memorandum of understanding regarding the management of the chapel and the cemetery. Thank you for your consideration of the resolution presented before you and we look forward to a continued public private partnership with the city of Decar and in particular the Decatur Parks and Recreation Department.

Thank you. Any questions? I do I do have a comment. You know, my parents are also in that cemetery and I just want to express my gratitude to the bakers and everybody involved and the great beautifification that they have done for the cemetery. Know I've seen the design for this and it is beautiful. We really appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Mayor Lawrence and uh the city council. I just sent to um uh President Pike just before the meeting, the drawings, uh the show, you know, it's it's not necessarily a huge change. It's in it's embracing what is there and improving it and making it um uh usable in these modern times. And I do have some print copies over here if anybody would like to see me afterward.

I would I would echo the same. The cemetery looks great. We certainly appreciate the Baker Foundation and their work. I remember working on this. Uh I think the first I heard about it was 2024 um the spring of 24 and it was in discussion precoid and then it came back up. So glad to glad to get it to this point. So thank you. Thank you very much. If anybody remembers what it looked like didn't take 20 years ago and got it done great work. All right. Resolution number 26081 approved purchase of AED equipment. Chief,

good evening, mayor, council. Um, here to humbly request that you allow top-notch CFO transfer $255,850 from the Opia Fund. Uh for essential tools, we need to outfit at least 70 of our police officers with the uh AED um equipment. Uh that's essentially it would help uh cut down on response time. Instead of waiting on the fire department, you get someone that overdosed. Uh we can actually service the community. Then uh the ones that we're asking for um it comes with a switch. it can distinguish between uh a child and adult. So it's the same path for all. Uh this company cardiac solution has been vetted by the state. Uh I vetted as well and had a meeting and went through a a hard interrogation with with with Herman. Uh so so Herman blessed it and I'm in front of you today that we transfer that money.

I would just add a little bit of context to that. The opioid funds are are pretty stent in how they're spent. Yes, they've got to meet certain thresholds and so certainly appreciate y'all working on this and have no doubt this a good life saving me to take as long as we're in full compliance and I trust that we're there since it's on definitely. Well, there's an attorney general's opinion that helps us to evaluate it as always. But but but there is some guidelines that we must still follow and that's what we plan to do. Chief especially wants to do that. All right. Thank you, chief. Any questions? Is that it?

All right. Resolution number Yes, sir. Resolution number 26082 approved victorious re-entry program agreement that that's the the lady that presented before with the help of the police department. uh we've uh made some modifications to it to to focus both she was already doing it but we needed to put it in the agreement certain counseling she's doing and other services she's providing and that's what this does. So, it's the same basic proposal she brought before with some enhanced uh language.

Yeah, it's a it's a three she asked for a four-year contract, but it's we can only go three years under state bill. Three years roughly $365,000 367050 again from the opioid fund. Yes. So she she presented to us she runs a re-entry um program and this provides a lot of services for that substance abuse um some transportation and other necessary needs for people reintegrating from incarceration. So I I really appreciated the presentation she came and did the services that she's offered. appreciate y'all's work on this and I'd just like to add

so um we have a schedule here thanks to Herman and our ability to get into the portal. It um basically it spreads out the payment from the different defendants um all the way up 15 years. Now, I don't know if we have any insight if there'll be any additional defendants added to this, but the current ones we have, we can we have potentially some more.

Potentially some more. Okay. So, we currently have uh $2 million in the bank. Uh what we yet what will decrease that is our payment to the drug-free clinic, which we approved a couple months ago. Um, and I should note that the folks at the drug-free community and Victoria's group, they are collaborating together with being able to provide the services as one. So, I feel like we're kind of getting bang for our buck. Um, but we are scheduled to receive in the life of all this roughly $6 million. So, between the AED's DrugFree Clinic and Victoria's Group, we're in pretty good shape um on spending this money. We had a very good meeting with the drug free on an update related to the results they're seeing and how they're making an impact which is promising and that's the purpose of this money. Um and so I think we're in a good shape to be able to fund these things and potentially look at some other options as it relates to this. But keep in mind it is very stringent on how we can spend this stuff. We're having to be pretty creative to bring stuff to you all. Thank you. You any questions? All right. Ordinances. First reading. Ordinance number 264621. Approve amendment to code indicator section 24.55 for record rates of large heavy vehicles.

Yeah, that's we're going to ask that be removed. what's what's going to occur, but is we're going to look the police department's going to help us once again look at the overall record ordinance and make other changes. So, we'd ask that be removed and we'll come back at some later date with a more uh defined and a broader coverage. It's all right. Thank you, Herman. Mhm. Ordinance number 264642 approve franchise for 3M force man pipe to discharge pre-treated waste waters.

All right. There's been some discussion but basically this is just uh continuing the cleanup efforts that 3M committed to. Uh the utility has been a very vital part of this uh agreement. uh and it basically just gives permission for pre treated uh discharge into their system and if the standards change either through ADM or EPA then this will have to be adjusted but the cater utilities is a vital part and hasn't been a great source in this development of this agreement. Okay. So they'll put this in our rightway right

that's what this is doing granting them permission to put this force meet all ADM requirements. Um yes, they'll be required to do all that. ADM, EPA, city of Decator, Decator Utilities and this portion is done at the cost of 3M. Yes. Now there was some the $10 is just you have to have a consideration if you have an agreement and that's just but Decator Decar utilities is going to charge their normal rate to to handle this. I know some confusion They want me to pay $10 a half to access in case they change the char.

Yes. Yeah, that's part of they they have to stay in compliance with our requirements, but most importantly EPA and AD. Yes. You never know when that might change. That's right. And and that's part of this. All right. Any questions? All right. Ordinance number 264640 approve request to operate a shower service by Dons Transportation LLC located at 406 Church Road, Harshaw, Alabama 35640. Yeah, again this is not a taxi service. It'll be a flat rate uh transportation request.

All right, any questions? Thank you. boards and committees. The mayoral appointment of Hannah Blevens to the ambulance regulatory board with term expiring August 19th, 2027. This will be a partial term due the regulation of McKenna Kirkland. Uh just a couple announcements. The district 4 meeting um will be held tomorrow, March 31st, 2026 at 6 p.m. at the Secure Utilities Auditorium at 10002 Central Parkway. Um, we will have our regular meeting obviously next Monday, April 6, 6:00 p.m. And then there will be a district 1 meeting on April 7th, 226 at 6 p.m. at Turner Shurles. Um, is there anything else from the departments, mayor, council? All right. Thank you all very much. Thank you.