Council - Regular Meeting

I have item 11H on the consent agenda, an invoice for certified alarm to repair badge access at the intake door of the animal services building, which suddenly stopped working one day.

But you're back in business now, right?

Yeah, we're back in business for the intake door to be open.

Good, good, good, good. Y'all have any questions for her?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Mary McDuffa?

Thank you. So just kind of a leading into my item on the agenda. So at the electricity department, we kind of keep a 10 year rolling plan of where we want to be capital projects. And so one of the capital projects that we are working desperately needing and working on is expanding our space. So we have maxed out the amount of space that we have had had it maxed out for some time. We have material and cargo containers locked up because we don't have anywhere to put them. We have transformers we're storing at our dump site on our property that we put all of our old poles that we take to the dump. We have poles at four different locations across the county because we just don't have enough space at our central campus for all of our material. So, in last year's budget, we put in the budget $400,000 to purchase some properties that tie to our existing properties. And if, you know, once that's accomplished, if we can get that approved, then we would be able to close some roads and we would really be able to open up our space that we have now for our campus. One of the items that I have on this week is 12D, which is a resolution for a sales agreement for real estate. And this is one of the pieces of property that we are requesting in order to open up and give us more room on our campus. So, go ahead.

So, you said $400,000 in the budget last year? Last year, in our current budget. Okay, thank you.

Yes.

And this property, what did it appraise for? $168,000.

and we're purchasing at 168.

Correct.

Just to give some history to the rest of the council, we looked at this property last year, but we didn't have a current appraisal and we felt it was too high and it didn't come to the full council. The appraisal is there now. He came down to your appraisal amount, which is what we were trying to get to happen.

last year so um i think that's a good thing but the question i have is does this leave two more parcels correct at least two more parcels that we would like to purchase at some point in time of the future we can work on some prices on those so you said that you have um poles there throughout and so if this were to happen then what's that space that you've got them scattered out what's going to happen with that

So currently where they're scattered out is substation sites, and they're really in the way. And so if we were able to purchase this property, we would be able to take at least two of the substation sites that we have poles and bring them into this one location. We wouldn't be able to bring them all, but the other location, the poles are going to be the ones used for the new Rogersville substation site build. So those are going to be used permanently. Most of them will be used at that time, but we'll be able to move the other two sites into a central location to this one. And then, like I said, it'll free up that space. Because right now they're at substation. They're in the way. We're constantly having to move them around in order to get trucks in there. So it's just an issue. Especially our Florence primary. The whole TVA is redoing their line through the golf course and all that. Y'all are aware of that project. And so they've been in and out of that site a lot. And so they've really been in the way in the last six months for the TVA project.

And so in this purchase, this house, what is it going to be utilized for?

So the house garage will be torn down. There's like an outside garage that's there now, and it's really short. It's not very usable because it's just really short. And so it will be torn down. The house, we hope to redo the house, and we hope to make – we don't have right now a place for our tree trimmers to meet and a performance to meet in the morning and kind of do their – you know tailgate sessions and all that with their crews and so we hope to use that for that space we'll just have to have it checked for asbestos and do all the safety aspects of it and as long as it comes back and it's usable then that's our goal to use it as

mm-hmm they park right behind it so just kind of the perfect yeah i mean location for them to use okay what are they what are they doing right now you say it's outside they're just outside doing it and so the house the plan is to leave the house intact not tear the house down correct And then you said you might want to redo the house and then that will be an extra cost.

Well, if whatever will be re-run, we'll do it in-house and we have a whole maintenance crew in-house. And so we would do any of that in-house. We would not contract any of the updates to the house. We would just do it in-house.

Mm-hmm.

And you have this money in your budget, correct?

This is in the current budget?

Correct.

I think it's line item... I think it's written on here, actually. It says... Let me look.

It is...

Actually, the one I have does not have it on here.

It's not showing on our agenda.

It's not showing on your agenda.

That is a budgeted item.

It is line item 389 in our current budget under our capital expenditures. It should be under general. Let me find it exactly, and I'll tell you what it says. Should have written this down, but I didn't write it down. So this is under general plant in our budget line item 389 land and land rights and it says number one purchase adjacent properties for 400,000.

Is this something you feel that you need at this time to continue to grow the electricity department?

It is. We are just completely maxed out on space. And our whole... We've already owned... I've shared the map with you guys, but we already own the other side of the property. So this is kind of blocking... our two properties from joining. And so we've held off on building a pole yard because we would like to purchase this and because we could do a better design if we had all the property because we could close the roads and we could make it better use of our space.

So does that make sense? It does. I like your 10-year plan. I think that's great to be looking to the future.

Let's say this house is not usable for... a meeting space or what was the plan for that? And then what would be the plan to have a meeting space?

Have a meeting space. So if it's not usable for meeting, I mean, it's usable. I mean, if you go in there, as long as it's not full of asbestos and it's got some major issues, you know what I mean, that we're going to have to deal with. I mean, it's a usable space. And if it's not something that we end up using for this and we just use it for storage or something else, In the future, we right now just have a parking lot where the old animal shelter used to be. We purchased that property from the city and right now it's just a parking lot. And our plan in the 10-year plan is to actually extend our sheds for more truck parking. And in the corner of that, the sheds, our original goal was to build an office space for the tree trimmers in that space. So if this doesn't work for them and we use it for something else, that's kind of in our 10-year plan to build out the sheds for parking and in the corner to put an office space and extra restrooms.

Any more questions for her? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Bailey?

Good afternoon. The contract on your agenda, item 12C, is our contract with Community Action Agency for residential rehab for the upcoming grant year.

Y'all have any questions for her? Okay. Great. Thank you. Chief Holt?

Good afternoon. I have three items. The first is 11F. It is an invoice for $1,310.05, and that was to repair an ice machine at our training facility. Questions?

Did they repair it? Because it says attempt to repair.

Both of these say attempt. I think that was the previous language, but yes, they were repaired as far as I know. There are no questions about that one. I have item 11G. Very similar. It is to actually repair the ice machine at the Florence Police Department at our headquarters building, and that was $411. Questions? And finally, invoice with Crouch and Sons Plumbing for $750. We were having some drainage issues at our headquarters building, and that was to repair that. That has been repaired.

Was it a dog toy? I don't know that it was a dog toy. That's an inside joke that's had back there. We had an issue at the animal shelter last week with dog toy.

Yeah, I don't know what caused that problem, but it is now repaired.

Good deal. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Cole.

Good afternoon. I have a few items on the consent agenda. Item 11C is a contract with Brinks Fence Company. You can see the rate there, $75 per man hour with a 30% material markup. This is just to continue to maintain and repair any issues that we have with fences for water, wastewater, and gas. Quite a few fences, as you can imagine, everything we have is fenced or gated. Any questions on that one? The next item is with Barnett Plumbing, a contract for Barnett Plumbing. You can see the extensive list of pricing there on page one with the attachment. But this is, again, the same to cover all facilities, water, wastewater, and gas for any issues that we have. Any questions on that? And both of these contracts are one-year contracts, and they will be renewable if pricing doesn't change up to three years. The third item is a contract with Cone Cranes. This is in the amount of $21,461.04. This is for the repair of the conductor bar on the hoist that we used to change chlorine out at the Wilson Lake Water Treatment Facility. So as you can imagine, it's got some age on it, but the chlorine also... It takes its toll, and so it's just worn and old, and it's been eat up by the chlorine fumes and everything. So just to replace that, and there's a breakdown of labor materials and equipment. Also, there's a little bit of shipping and handling in there, if I remember correctly. Any questions on that one?

Are these in your budget?

Yes. Yes, ma'am. And then the last item is resolution to pass the municipal water pollution prevention annual report, or as we refer to it, the MWPP. This is basically just an overall grade of the performance of your collection system and also our wastewater facility at Cypress Creek. And on the, I think it was on page, I can't remember the exact page number, but toward the end of the report, there's a possible potential 783 points. The higher you score, the worse off your facility is. But our plant scored a 40. Our plant and collection system scored a 40 out of a potential 783. So the lower, the better. So we're the... The report states the actions are as appropriate. So we just need a resolution to pass this. Many sets of eyes look at this report, including our consulting engineer. This report is due May the 31st. And so that's the reason we've got it before you tonight to get you guys approval. And then I'll get it submitted to ADM this week where we meet the deadline. Any questions on that? I'll be glad to explain anything. It's a pretty lengthy report, but I'll be glad to explain any part of it if you guys need an explanation for anything. But we did score very well.

That's good.

Any questions on that?

Is that the lowest that we've ever scored?

Yes, ma'am. Now, in the two and a half years that I've been here, yes, ma'am, I think that's the lowest. I think for some reason I want to say we had a 43 last year, and I think we had a 47 the year before. So there's a lot of different factors that play into it, including your sanitary sewer overflows, different things. But that number was down this year, so we're making some improvements. So, yes, very, very, very pleased with the outcome of that.

But this doesn't have anything to do with the report that you send out annually, right?

You're talking about the Consumer Confidence Report? Yes, ma'am. Two totally different things. Consumer Confidence Report is just for the annual report for our drinking water, and then this is strictly for wastewater. Okay. So that's two of the major reports that we have to do annually. This one is due May the 31st, and then the Consumer Confidence Report is due July the 1st. We're currently in the printing stages with it. We'll have it prepped and ready just in the next few days.

Okay. Thank you very much. No more questions. Chief?

Good afternoon everyone. I have a few items on the consent agenda. I'll start off with item D. That is a contract with IIA Lift Services, and this is basically an annual test that we have to do on all of our ladder trucks, the aerial ladder trucks as well as ground ladders. There's a service rating that must be renewed every 12 months for firefighter-rated, service-rated ladders, and this is just that annual. And this is a not-to-exceed. We may be able to... to keep this down they charge you per foot and we may be able to get this down depending on when our new truck arrives if we get that truck here before this testing is is able to be scheduled and taking place we'll be able to reduce this number a little but this is a not to exceed cost in the amount of $8,074.55 from budgeted funds any questions about that

This is for all the trucks?

This is the whole entire fleet. All the ladders, ground ladders, including ladder trucks where the big ladder mounted on the top of the apparatus, they test all of them. There's an annual test to them. That certification is good for a year, and you have to recertify them.

What's the anticipated date of the coming in?

Well, we're thinking that we're hopeful for August, but this company that does this, it's kind of on us right now and get in line. They come to this area, and they try to knock out all the departments, volunteer and municipal departments around kind of northwest Alabama all at once while they're here, and they move on to another area geographically. So we're hopeful for an August timeline. Okay, good deal. Any more questions about that one? Item K, this is an invoice with Williams Fire Apparatus. I've got three items revolving around Williams Fire. This was a radiator on engine one that runs out of firehouse one. We had the bottom cap on a radiator started leaking and we were able to rebuild that radiator. with parts and labor at $11,238.32, and we can cover that from budgeted funds. We compare that to a new radiator, which a couple of things. Several of our apparatus, we can no longer buy the radiator that's in them as a replacement. There's a retrofit, which you still get a radiator, but now you have to make a lot of changes to the truck to make it fit because of age, and they basically discontinued. We were able to fix this one for that amount of money with just replacing, having a rebuild. The new radiator is a little over $20,000 just for the component. Then you have to pay the labor to have it installed, so it's very expensive. But that was on engine one. The leak did take the unit out of service, so we went ahead and got that fixed, and the repair has been made, and the truck's back on the road. Any questions with that one? Item I, one of our reserve apparatus that had, we were in a position to have to put in a frontline role temporarily, had an electrical issue. And that invoice is an amount of $9,229.21 to make the repairs on that truck. And that was one of our reserve fleet apparatus. Any questions on that one? Both of these are Williams Fire because that's our dealer. That's why we deal with them. They're our apparatus dealer. And item M is our general maintenance contract, just a renewal of our annual maintenance contract, and I included the documents with the Granica submittal should have that hopefully present. And that's just showing their labor rates and travel rates to and from when they come. Any questions about all those?

I will say on the...

The item K that I was referencing, I think only $900 of that included travel and labor. The rest of that $11,000 was just materials, just getting the work done and cost of that. Any questions about any of those? I have one item on the regular agenda, item A, and this is a contract with Fresh Works LLC to construct a new training center classroom in our training center up on Chisholm Highway. This was a project that we originally began the process in 2024. We mostly and predominantly had the budgeted funds secured last year in 25, And we chose to hold off and wait on pushing forward with that project last year, late in the year. But we have bid the project out now. It was presented to the Public Safety Committee before that bid process has taken place. And we had four bidders that submitted bids. And we have budgeted funds in the amount of $390,592. And the low bidder came in, including his deduction, of $307,001.23. So that's $83,590 and some change below budgeted funds. We have met with the representatives of Fresh Works LLC. We've gone through the line-by-line, the scope of work, making sure everything there works. Bidding on and looking at is exactly what we're looking for as a return and all of those checks have been balanced and everything looks good. They give us a 12-week build time, depending on whenever we provide approval for the project. This is a project that's been needed. Our training center building was built in 1976. Classroom was started in 76, finished in early 77. And we have literally outgrown the space to a large amount. The space we have now is rated for 20 personnel to sit in it. As an adjunct facility for the Alabama Fire College, we fall under post-secondary education requirements. In that room, we can only fit, it's rated for 20 personnel. And one of the major problems, I don't know, I didn't include this necessarily in any correspondence with you all, but my training lieutenant, We have a training chief and a training lieutenant. And our training lieutenant, his office space is currently in the women's bathroom, in what's supposed to be the women's bathroom in that facility. And that's where his office space is set up. And if we can get approval and get this classroom built, we have a minimum of 24 weeks a year not including our interdepartmental. We owe 24 weeks worth of certification training a year that that classroom is occupied and we don't even have access to it. We hold certification courses that you're in a lockdown room for 40 hours minimum. And, you know, it's really, it's just like a classroom at college or at school, grade school. No interruptions, there's instructor to student ratios, and there's nationally recognized testing that's administered at the end of each one of those courses. The need for this, we're going offsite to churches, local churches, UNA's East Campus. We go on Toon Avenue. We use that, a couple of their buildings, a couple of their rooms very often when they're available. But some of the churches have been very gracious to give us some space. And we're just at a point we need to, the fire college is telling me, look, you're gonna have to get this, the women's, you know, you're gonna have to get this fixed. we can't keep doing this. There are women, even though we don't employ them currently, there are many women that come from all over the state and all over the country. We have people... literally coming from all over the country and a few from outside to come here to Florence and spend a week or two at a time and participate in this training because Alabama Fire College training curriculum is recognized not only in the fire service nationally, but also in the military. The Department of Defense, if a person is looking for officer rank training, what we offer they they recognize so we we draw in a lot of dod guys uh to to come and participate in these kind of classes and um there's certainly a great need i want to be able to get that the current space we have now my goal is to get that uh lieutenant out into that classroom take in a small corner We are going to take care of outfitting that room for his bathroom space, and we will take what he's currently using as an office. We will do that work and convert that back into a usable women's facility. The plumbing is there. Everything is there. It's just... It's just covered right now. And we just need to get all that set up and operational again. There's a, there's a single, uh, bathroom with a toilet that's beside his desk. And you know, that's all of that is still there. We just need to get it. Uh, we just need to get it opened up and usable. And, uh,

chief i know we had the opportunity to to tour and everything and appreciate all that but you know it's so important too that you know we're going to have um people coming into our town from so many different states and and things like that and again that you know brings um you know people to our town to you know expand and everything but we appreciate this sure what you're doing

We often have a demand for up to as many as 30 students in a class. And we have to turn them away right now. And we draw revenue off of their tuition for hosting these classes. There's a tuition share that's returned to us. I know when we met in February, I told you we were right at $40,000 in a cost share revenue account with the fire college. And that account is approaching $55,000 right now for the classes we've held this year. And we will use that money. We're basically, in this project, we're building the building. That fund is going to set up all the equipment, all the IT, all the support. And basically, the fire college handles that account, and they maintain it. They will only allow you to spend it on something to do with our training facility. It's not enough money to build a classroom from scratch, but it's enough money to outfit if we can get the building up, they will take care of. There's enough funds there to outfit it, audio, visual, everything we need to get it up to par.

Thank you for taking your time to go into detail about this.

Sure, sure. Any other questions?

I was just also going to comment that when I went out and toured the building, it is very evident that you need to fix your women's...

Yes.

The facility part of the building and make it more appropriate and usable. So I'm really excited about this. And hopefully we can get the women's bathroom out of the man's office and the man's office out of the women's bathroom. Sure, sure.

The building we're building is immediately adjacent to the training center classroom we have now. We've looked at everything. I've been as conservative as I can be with that building. It doesn't even have plumbing in it. We're going to use the building next door. It's like walking down that hallway. And if someone in class needs to go to the restroom, they walk into the building. There's 10 feet, 12 feet between the two buildings. They just walk next door, and the goal is to have the facilities right there for that. The men's is there and operational. We just got to get the women's open up and operational again. Any questions? Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Mr. Fowles?

I have four resolutions here. The first is for a 700 specialty retailer license of consumable hemp products by Sri Ram 2024 Inc. Doing business as Cloverdale Food and Spirits at 3504 Cloverdale Road, Suite B, Florence, Alabama, 35630. The second is for an alcohol application for a restaurant full menu with 040 Retail Beer on or off premises and 060 Retail Table Wine on or off premises by Rossbox Chin Corp. Doing business as Rossbox at 1529 Northwood Avenue, Florence, Alabama 35630. The third is an alcohol application for special event with on-premises liquor, beer, and wine by Gwendolyn Woods, doing business as Shoals Cabaret, 702 Veterans Drive, Florence, Alabama, 35630, Florence, Lauderdale Coliseum, to take place on Friday, July 24th, 2026. And the last is an alcohol application for an automobile self-service station and convenience food with 050 Retail Beer, off-premises only, and 070 Retail Table Wine, off-premises only, by Subie 2026, Inc., doing business as Map Code 932 at 302 Cotch Creek Parkway, Florence, Alabama, 35630. All right.

Thank you very much. Mr. Musgrove.

good afternoon um i would like if it's okay i'd mention this to president simmons i'd like to remove item um in on the consent agenda which is a it's just a contract for cleaning services at the municipal court and i'm sure it's fine i just have a few questions that i want to get answered before the estimate And I was delinquent in talking to the court clerk sooner, but the estimate is very vague, and I just want to find out what exactly the cleaners are going to do before I ask the council to approve it. So if we can take that off until I'll have it next time.

Okay.

And then the other item I have on the agenda tonight also deals with the municipal court. And it's an invoice for $882.70 for the annual servicing of the air conditioning unit at the court. So it's just changing the filters. The parts, and I believe the parts were $82.70, and the labor was $800 because it was eight hours at $100 per hour. But they cleaned it, changed the filters, just your basic annual servicing. And it's budgeted funds.

Okay.

Any questions? No. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. The next one, Mayor Tyler has a contract on there for Bubba Marines, and it is to provide for the barge and the tugboat for the firework display at the Spirit of Freedom in McFarland on July the 4th in the amount of $10,000, and it comes from account 110-2048-51700. Any questions in regards to that? This is something that we have been doing for years. Okay, no questions? The next one, we have some upcoming board vacancy reappointments. Yes, we're still working on the two alternates for the building and property board of appeals. Beautification, we do have one vacancy on that. And we can take nominations at this time.

Yes, I would like to nominate Mary Margaret Epps for the beautification board.

And we would remove Ms. Bullard due to she's been on another board that would be.

Ms. Hubbard.

Ms. Hubbard, I said Bullard.

Yeah.

Ms. Hubbard.

Okay, we have a nomination, a motion, a nomination for Ms. Mary, is it Margaret? Mary Margaret Epps. Mary Margaret Epps. I'm confused. Is it Mary Margaret or Margaret Mary? Mary Margaret.

Yeah.

Okay, we have a nomination for Miss Mary Margaret Epps. Do we have any more? We have a second. Okay. All right, Ms. Mary Margaret Epps. All in favor of Ms. Epps? So that takes care of the beautification board, correct? Okay. So that's one that's now filled. Next, we have a board of zoning adjustments, a reappointment. Who are reappointing? Who was on there?

John Vance.

His term has expired. Okay. Okay. So we don't have anybody for them. So we'll take it.

I do have a nomination for that one. And it's Lisa Watley.

Lisa.

Watley.

Watley.

Yeah. And if y'all prefer to read her application before we vote, you know, I'm okay with waiting until next time. Because I haven't seen it. I'll nominate her again. Okay.

All right. Y'all okay with that? Okay. Okay. Alrighty, then that is everything that we have right now. If the council has nothing else come before us on work session, we will take a break and start back up at 5 o'clock.