Council - workshop

opportunity to let us come here and talk to you a little bit about your exciting project, New City Hall. We're going to try to keep this short, keep it tight, and focus on what matters to y'all, and that's how you're going to get this project done in the most effective way for you as a city. Who are we? I'm Jack Fein. I'm CEO of Fein Construction Company and Fein Management Services. Our trade name is Fein Building Company. We're celebrating over 50 years in business this year. We'd love for you all to visit our website, fightbuilding.com, and see a little bit about us and how we're celebrating these 50 years. I'm proud to say I've only been here 39 of those 50 years. But we've been around North Alabama a long time building projects and certainly happy to be here and stand before you guys who have a big responsibility to your constituents. And we certainly recognize that. we're builder first you're going to hear me say that several times real quickly here and and michael as well and kyle probably mentioned it and what i mean is builder first is is we know how to build okay we uh we you see a lot of our projects we self-perform a lot of our projects and so we feel like it's very important for the the builder the general contractor and the construction manager to know what's going on and how building goes together and to be builder oriented builder mindset But when I say builder mindset, it goes back a thousand years. You know, what was a builder? A builder is usually the designer and a builder. And he worked with very few documents, worked with models and scales. And a builder was the builder. And he got a lot of great projects and cathedrals and stuff all through time done with very little documents because they had ownership in the project. And that's what we'll do as your construction manager, your agent, make sure that everybody has buildership, builder mindset, ownership in the project. And I'll give you a quick example. Plumber comes up and says, well, the plumbing drawings show this, architecture drawings show this. Okay, you got to have ownership in the whole project, the whole documents, right? One of them is against the code. You're a licensed plumber. You should know the code. We want to head those projects off for you before they get there. And I believe a builder mindset and our experience in building and not just being a contract purveyor of information is very helpful to you as your agent. And we want to prevent problems in the field. We want to be in front of them. And when problems do occur, we want to bring solutions to the table. There's never been a perfectly built building. There's never been a perfect set of drawings. But the group or the mindset that you can come and provide solutions instead of pointing fingers is a huge asset to you as a city. And that's what we'll do is acting as your agent. We saw this in our industry. The reason they're construction managers is because builders were not being builders, in my opinion. They were pointing fingers and saying that it wasn't shown in the plans and specifications, which probably was true. But you got to be a builder. You got to know how things go together. And that's where I think we're going to help you. We're committed to constantly improving our people within our organization, improving our technology, our processes. We spend more on technology the last five years than we have in the previous 45. Part of that is we've got our own branded scorecards. We call them our health meters on our job sites. And those are how healthy are we on the leading indicators that could point towards the cart getting off the road into the ditch. And that's your submittals, your RFIs, your contracts up to date, your schedule up to date, where's your budget. And those leading indicators will tell you the health of the job. Every job we do, is your agent. We're going to evaluate everything on five KPIs, key performance indicators, and that's going to be safety. Nothing's worth building in this city if somebody gets hurt. Two is going to be quality. It's got to be built for the plan specifications and the expectations of the design team and you as the owner. It's got to be on schedule. The job's got to be on schedule. It's got to be a financially healthy project for you. So we've got to manage the contract part of that, understand the contracts and the relationships, and make sure it's not only successful for you contractually and financially, but also for the contractor and the architect and everybody because you're going to have a better job when everybody's making money. The fifth one is the customer experience. We're going to have the competency to get this managed for you and working with the contractor and the designer meet those KPIs, but if we don't have fun doing it, man, we got to enjoy ourselves. We got to have fun. Fun is one of our core values, actually. It's in our core values, so we want to have a good time, enjoy each other, and make this a pleasant experience. We're invested in the Shoals and in Florence. We've got key people. One of my partners is over here, lives in the Shoals. We've got Living in Florence as well as numerous live over here. We care about this city. We wanna do quality work. We wanna see it done on your behalf. This is gonna be a logistics nightmare building the new city hall. I think we've displayed two logistical nightmares right up the street with the new Bank Independence Stadium and the new student housing project. How are we protecting pedestrians? That's number one. How are we logistically delivering everything? Are we putting forth a logistics plan that protects you, the public, and getting it done? Where are we parking people, et cetera? So we're very experienced in doing this. Hey, look, it's all about competency and character and you can trust and we have trust in this market. So when you use us, there's numerous subcontractors in the Florence Shoals area that we have a long history with and they know our competency and they know our character and they trust us. We work with your building departments. We work with the utility departments. We built up the trust that's required, and we think we can help you. I felt rushed. I'm sorry. I kind of ran through that. Appreciate the opportunity. I'd be glad to talk more about our company if you want to know more. I'll let you ask questions, but otherwise I'll turn it over to Kyle. Thank you.

I'll try to be shorter. Appreciate you guys again allowing us to be here. Certainly, we think the local perspective really matters, and that's what we want to do. We talk about a builder's mindset often. It differentiates us a little bit from a lot of construction managers, owners, reps, but we're here to represent your interest. At the end of the day, you guys have a responsibility to the taxpayers of Florence. You want to know that what you're doing, that you have somebody on top of every item, so we're there to Information, but to protect the city's interest, oftentimes you talk about budget and schedule. We hear those a lot. And so when those conversations come up, we want to make sure that those are at the forefront and that what you guys need is there and that we're providing the information back to you to make quick decisions. We also believe that that's an upstream and downstream conversation. uh issue is ensuring that the project is getting what it needs from the city when it needs it to move forward and garber can probably talk a little bit more to that but we want to try to solve a lot of your problems early in the process so that when the construction begins you know what you're getting into you know where your cost is likely to be but but we have that ability to do that again going back to mindset but uh you know a lot of communication uh you may over communicate we'd rather tell you a lot early and fast than you find out something after the fact um or right when a decision has to be made so but we understand and we have a very unique perspective we certainly have got a couple of past projects current project, excuse me, that we're working on. And I do want to say, I think I've told most of you this before, I have the pleasure of serving as the city council president in Decatur. So I understand things from your perspective as well. The needs that you have, you know, public projects are often highly scrutinized by the public. And so you want to know you have somebody there to best represent you. But a couple of these projects, one similar fight came in after the project had already been awarded. The design team was in the was in process and it was about looking at $64 million for 100,000 square foot recreation center indicator. That was clearly over budget. FI came in as the construction manager and the owner's representative was able to get that down to about 52.5. That project is now on schedule. I got to tour it yesterday, actually. I'm excited to see that. The city of Hartsell, very similar. They had a project that they had inherited from a previous administration, a library. We came in to help them move that forward. Michael Garber's working through that. And then another sports complex in Decatur. was a project that, again, the design changed about halfway through. It was over budget. Had to figure out just the best way to get that back. These are all public projects. Certainly there's a lot of eyes on these from both the council and the public. So just wanted to share a few of those examples, but certainly have a unique perspective on the job that you guys have and how we can better serve that. Michael can come up and share a little bit, but more technically about how we manage and the things we do from an owner's perspective. If y'all will give us a few more minutes or we can stop there, we'd be glad to take questions.

All right.

Thank you very much, Mike.

Thank y'all for having me. Am I on the right side? I think I am. A lot of the technical side of it really rests on my team advising you, understanding that this is going to be more of a construction manager, owner's agent setup rather than a true CM. And where we come in the best in this whole thing will probably be in the dispute resolution coming in during budget management. Because we will be kind of the parent in the relationship where somebody wants something, the other person wants something else. And we try to figure out what kind of tile we get that's not going to hurt anyone's feelings or maybe hurt somebody's feelings, but it's under budget and your constituents are going to be happy. During the whole process of design, we will work hand in hand with the construction management at risk and the design team. To come up with different solutions to different problems, whether it is finishes, whether it is location of certain things, programmatically, does it make sense to have a stack of bathrooms on top of each other or outside? Where does the feed for the water need to come in? All that stuff will be part of our budgeting process. and constructability. On the schedule and expectations, I run into this a lot with different municipalities is, hey, I've got to have this done by blah, blah, blah. Nine times out of 10, that's not realistic and it's going to cost the taxpayer more money. I will tell you, yes, we can probably do it for that, but it's going to be this much more. But if we do it at a typical pace, this is what it would cost and give you those options so y'all can make the decision based off of those options. We'll also, during that process, since we do have a CM at risk in this conversation, we can push back a little bit as your agent and try to get them to come to the table with different solutions. On-site and coordination, there may be things you don't want to tell everybody. We will serve as that carrier of that information, especially when it comes to the site itself. Tell us what you want done. We'll be the punching bag, right? And I'm not talking about outwardly to the public type stuff. I'm talking more of the design team. And again, if you talk to any of the teams that I'm working with right now, they all love it. We make it fun. We really do have a lot of fun. Mayor Hartzell, in particular, she always texts me like, hey, that was a fun meeting, you know, which is good to hear on my perspective, because usually I feel like a bit of a butt during the meeting. Let me see. And just to close back to the builder's mindset, background for most of our construction managers is in general contracting, so they know how that brick goes in, how that lintel supports the structure above, how that floor goes in, why we need prep, all that stuff, before they can become a construction manager. Too many times you see a lot of construction management firms that are just that, and they don't have any anyone that's actually put their hands on the materials that are going in and realizing that the architect designed something that can't be built and therefore now there's a change we look at it at the very beginning we just got rid of that change order um on paper and when it gets built you never see it so we're really excited about the opportunity uh we hope you all consider us um and with that i'll close it real quick pal um any questions

I HAVE ONE. IN THE DECADER PROJECT THAT WAS OVER BUDGET, WAS IT SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OVER AND LIKE WHAT ARE SOME OF THE THINGS THAT YOU ALL DID TO BRING IT UNDER BUDGET?

SO ONE OF THE BIGGEST ISSUES WITH THAT WAS JUST SIMPLY BETWEEN THE DESIGN TEAM AND THE MUNICIPALITY. Y'ALL ARE NOT AND DON'T LET ME SPEAK FOR SOMEBODY WHO'S ON THE COUNCIL. General contractors, different verbiage means different things for different people. In this particular case, it was a program budget versus a construction budget, which are two different things. A program means all in, soup to nuts is what it's going to cost me. A construction budget is just the construction side of things. went down the road thinking that the program budget was a construction budget and ended up way over budget. We came in. Programmatically, we were able to give the city everything they wanted in the original design. We just, in essence, shrunk it, reduced some of the finishes, reduced size. So the 52 and a half, It came in $45 million and, uh, we are carrying right now going into the last month of construction. It'll open in August, uh, early August, we're carrying about $980,000 worth of contingency, hoping to give the city back. And that's including the first, um, really large, um, playground, uh, inclusivity playground that we were able to save enough money to build a playground next to the facility.

Anyone else have any additional questions? I like when you mentioned about change orders because I can tell you that's going to be a major concern with change orders with the project that's going forward.

Yeah, and I'll tell you, change orders are going to happen, especially when you're in a not, it's not a greenfield site. Yes, there's nothing there. There's going to be stuff there, you know, but we're going to mitigate it. We're going to go through, especially on the civil side, the geotech report, all that stuff, go through it really in-depth and make sure that it's in the budget where if a change does occur, it's already carried in a contingency at a unit rate. We're not just throwing money at a problem to make it go away.

I would just add, and I promise we'll decide, but I would add to that from the council standpoint, also sent in an attachment. There's an executive summary of change orders. So I know from my perspective on that side of the dais and others that it's very good to understand in more clear terminology what a change order is, why it has to happen, because those are things that come up publicly, right? If it comes up, it comes for a vote.

increase any type of budget but it is really good for all of you to understand exactly what's in a change over why and then why it's justified and why did the architect forget to put x y and z in the drawings because at that point it could trigger uh an insurance claim that you get you get uh paid hold for so we parent in the relationship so uh we will people accountable including ourselves Okay.

Anyone else have anything? All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate you all coming and sharing with us. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Hall.

Well, that's a big project.

I feel like I just signed up for karaoke and Whitney Houston just sang in front of me. So we've got a little deck we want to show you guys. So we're working on a festival. We've been working on it for about a year and a half now called Sky Dog Shoals. And it is a three-day festival that will be held at the Renaissance Shoals Hotel and Spa. We bought out the hotel. So it's entirely on the grounds. To stay in the hotel, you've got to be a VIP guest for the festival. So you'll be able to watch the show from your balcony. You'll be able to – we're having activations at the conference center as well as a market between the conference center and the festival grounds. The festival grounds will be outside the pool, between the pool and the dam, so the dam will be the backdrop to the show. We've got – how many – I don't know. We've got 10 or 12 acts there, multiple Grammy winners, multiple hit recording artists, and – you know, legendary band that's, you know, from the Swampers and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and the Fame Gang. And it's, you know, it's being built as a cultural, Southern cultural festival where we're trying to celebrate Southern heritage. And I would like to introduce you to...

I was just gonna interrupt you.

to my partner, Kissy Black. Kissy has been working with us at FAME for 25 years or so. My dad hired her years ago, and we've been really, really close, and she's a co-partner on this thing, and I'll let her jump in here.

Well, we're like brother and sister at this point, so please, like, let's tag-team this. I wanted to start with, do you know who this man is? Uh-oh. This is Rodney Hall.

Do you mind getting in the mic?

Oh, thank you. I talk loud. I just wanted to introduce Rodney Hall because I think that bears an introduction on its own because what we're trying to do here is much deeper than a music festival.

Rodney Hall is the owner-operator of Fame Studios, the son of Rick Hall, the person who put the hit recording capital of the world on the map. So in my role with working with the Hall family, it's been commercializing the intellectual property and bringing sustaining legacy to what this region does to the world. And we've had great success building the documentary film, building out the portfolio with rights management around the history of Rick Hall's life. Now it's going into a Broadway musical and other rights management around this cultural IP is being developed. We want to tell the next generation story. This sky dog is the nickname of Dwayne Allman. And so we know this region is the birthplace of the hit recording capital of the world, but it's also the birthplace of Southern rock. We've seen what business and commercial development can do in the region. When we marry art and music to open up people's hearts and minds, and then they become immersed in the culture. They start to care about it. They start to invest in it. And that rising tide of support really brings a new kind of focus to and community to how we connect as people. We're trying to overcome loneliness. We're trying to overcome disenfranchisement. We're trying to overcome music rights being forgotten as we move into a world of AI. You won't see any of that on the surface of what we're doing because it's going to look like a lot of fun. But what underneath it is a big giant science experiment. So we've been given the confidence of One Louder to let us plan two years in one. So we already have a lineup already scheduled for 2027. And as we've planned, we've learned that grandma's economics must prevail. And we've been scoping it. appropriately for our first year festival. And that's why we're here today, because we think the city of Florence needs a cornerstone in our vision, because it's about the community that we're trying to support. Every vendor, every act, every business that we've put into this is something you're already investing in. We don't want to separate the support. We're trying to double down on the support. So Shoals Fest. night moves vendor village the stories of billy reed the alabama chanin the handy festival these are things that are finding a home inside of what we're doing and we're connecting macon we're connecting memphis we're connecting nashville and other cities through other business corporate partnerships to drive economic development through hotel rooms food and beverage services, cultural programming that's being started in pilot ways. And now we're even talking about other media distribution partnerships through music manufacturing companies and new businesses coming into the region like Hadrian and tie-ins with Huntsville through aerospace and the Scientific American Media Partnership that's coming in to take root in our convention center storytelling. So I just wanted to paint this canvas for you, open up the canvas of the painting we're trying to paint for you, that it's just more than a festival. And I've probably gone on too long about that.

But yeah, please.

We'll go to the next slide here and give you a visual on what the 3D map looks like. But I do think the name Sky Dog bears repeating that it was... Can you tilt that some so the council can see that?

Sure.

So Sky Dog was Dwayne Allman's nickname that Rick Hall and Wilson Pickett gave to him. And when he played the famous guitar track on Hey Jude, it really was the moment when Southern Rock was born and the birth of the Allman Brothers Band, which I think we all can agree has changed a lot of our lives.

So if we'll go to the next slide. I think we can skip the video because it's short, but it's... Let's see the video. Let's watch the video.

How do I do that?

It's short. It's 45 seconds long.

These are the current interpreters of this music. These are all the living members of the Allman Brothers Band, the musicians that played on those stages, just like our Swampers and our Muscle Shoals heroes. And all inside this encapsulated storytelling venue where we can really lead people through an immersion and get a lot of data along the way. What did they like? What did they engage with? What did we learn? And so we're going to lead people through the Rolling Stones Museum, the Convention Center, the vendor market. And then we have a mental health group called Porter's Call, giving everybody yoga and mental health coaching throughout the day. So it's going to be a holistic kind of experience for people. And it's our first year and we're very nervous about it. I hope you can probably hear the trimmer in my voice even talking about it.

But we're 50 days away. And so we're in. This is happening.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So what we're coming to ask you guys for is $1 million. Actually, we're looking for in-kind support. We'd love for the city of Florence to be our official city partner. We'd love to get some help with some garbage cans. We'd like to get help with some barricades. And, you know, if we could come up, we would love for you to come in at the $10,000 level, if that would be appropriate.

Your relationship with police and EMT personnel to make sure everybody's safe and coordinated, that would help as well.

absolutely so yeah that's basically our our ask it's right here

Okay, thank you. So here's our lineup, and we have local heroes, and like we discussed, stars on the rise, and a rendering of what it will look like.

This is the campus map.

So we'll have some Greg Holman film screening that just has come out, and the producers and directors of that film, some book authors, and some scientific talks. So we have a convention center.

Show them where the stage is.

And so every room will have a view of the stage.

Imagine having your own balcony and private bathroom at a music festival.

So we're pretty excited about it. But you'll be able to navigate the experience and we'll be able to connect people in meaningful ways. But this is an AI rendering of what we think it will look like off the pool deck of the Renaissance. But we're being very thoughtful about it, too. We're not Live Nation. It's Rodney and Kissy.

It is.

We're making it very homey, and there's going to be a lot of love there. And when I pitch this to One Louder and to Rodney, and as we've talked about it, we're solving for the equation of love. That's what we're solving for here. And so it's more about the outcome and how people feel and the feedback we get than it is the number of how many people we reach, like the size of the ticket audience.

Yeah, and again, this is year one, which is the hardest year to get through. We just need some support to get through this year, and next year's already lined up. So we're hoping this will be going on for decades.

Yeah, absolutely.

Just like the Handy Festival.

Yeah.

Except different.

We'll put your questions, too.

Yeah.

And we're also ending with a moment of faith and gratitude with the Sunday brunch on Sunday. So, you know, peak energy on Friday, a lot of education and connection on Saturday, and then faith and family and remembering why we're all doing this. So we've been so thoughtful about it. This is more than just a concert. We've done concerts together before. We did the Muscle Shoals 100th celebration together. So we've got some road under our tracks.

Absolutely.

Tracks under our train.

So you got any questions?

I may have missed it, but you said you're doing this for two years.

Well, we already have it planned for two years, but we plan to do it for many years.

And the location for the second year?

Same place. And I don't think we hit on this, but it's kind of the concept is a cruise ship on land. So everything will be around the Renaissance and the convention center.

And you have shuttles coming in from hotels in town and other parking lots so that it's all very easy to navigate.

So, Rodney, for our younger viewers on YouTube, even though you're famous and located in Muscle Shoals, will you tell them what FAME stands for?

It stands for Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises. Thank you.

Thank you.

And it started on the corner of Seminary Street and Tennessee Street above a drugstore. 1959, so 67 years ago. Anything else? Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much.

Thanks for coming. Thank you. Next, we'll have Miss Jennifer Churchwell. She got omitted from the work session, so we had to add her back in. So I do apologize for that again. That's quite all right.

I appreciate you guys having me. So good afternoon, Mayor and members of our communities and members of our community. My name is Jennifer Churchill, and I have the privilege of serving as the chairperson of the Colbert Lauderdale Association. domestic violence response coalition. Thank you for allowing me just a few minutes today to an issue that affects every community, including the city of Florence. Domestic violence does not discriminate. It affects women, men, and children. It affects young adults and seniors. It affects people of every race, every income level, every profession, and in every neighborhood. It happens behind the doors of beautiful homes, modest apartments, and everything in between. The recent tragedies in our community... that we've experienced has reminded us that domestic violence is not something that happens somewhere else. It happens here. It affects our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors, and sometimes even the members of our own families. Domestic violence doesn't just include physical violence. It can be emotional, financial, psychological, sexual, verbal, digital, and even spiritual. Many survivors never have visible bruises, yet they live in fear, intimidation, manipulation, isolation, and control every day. One of the most dangerous misconceptions about domestic violence is believing that if someone is being abused, they can simply leave. But in reality, the period surrounding the separation is often when a victim is at greatest risk. Many victims have spent months or even years being isolated, manipulated, threatened, and made to believe that they have nowhere to turn. Some fear for their lives. Others fear losing their children, their homes, and their financial stability. That is why our community has resources and organizations whose sole purpose is helping survivors safely navigate those moments. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, there are people ready to help. In situations involving immediate danger, calling 911 is often the safest and most appropriate first step. Law enforcement officers are trained to respond to domestic violence incidents and to help victims leave dangerous situations as safely as possible. While no response can guarantee a victim's immediate or even long-term safety, officers put themselves at risk every day to protect members of our community and connect victims with the resources they need. Safe Place of the Shoals provides emergency shelter, safety planning, advocacy, counseling, legal support, and a 24-hour crisis line. They are available day or night for anyone needing immediate assistance. One Place of the Shoals brings multiple services together under one roof, helping survivors connect with advocates, law enforcement, prosecutors, counselors, obtain protection from abuse orders, and other resources without having to tell their story over and over again. These organizations are the first line of defense for survivors. They have the training, experience, and resources to help people safely move from crisis to hope. They work alongside community resource partners such as the Colbert Lauderdale Domestic Violence Response Coalition, the Kramer Children's Advocacy Center, the Healing Place, VOCAL, and many others to ensure victims receive the support they need to rebuild their lives. But they cannot help someone they know nothing about. That is where every one of us comes in. If a friend suddenly becomes withdrawn, if a coworker begins showing unexplained injuries, if someone you care about seems fearful of going home, is constantly checking in with their partner, or becomes isolated from family or friends, don't ignore it. You don't have to investigate. You don't have to have all of the answers. Simply let them know you're concerned. Tell them you believe them. Remind them they are not alone. Encourage them to contact one of our local domestic violence organizations. Sometimes just knowing that one person is enough to begin changing the course of someone's life. Community leaders and public servants, each of you also has the opportunity to help create a culture where victims know that they'll be believed, supported, and connected with the resources they need. Domestic violence is not just a private family matter. It's a public safety issue, a public health issue, and a community issue. Every life we save strengthens our families, our workplaces, our schools, and our city. Together, we can build a community where victims know they are not alone and where asking for help is met with compassion, not judgment. I would like to leave you with just one thought today. If you see something that doesn't feel right, don't stay silent. A simple conversation, a caring question, or helping someone find the right resource could save a life. Thank you for your time, for your service to our community, and for standing with those whose voices have for too long been silenced.

Thank you very much. Does the council have any comments or questions for her?

I do. And Jennifer, I've had, it's not a question, an opportunity to talk with you several times on occasions. And just want to thank you for your work that you're doing and what you're doing to educate our community and keep our communities informed. We really appreciate you and what you all are doing. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? I want to say thank you for coming and explaining and sharing resources within the community. Appreciate you and what you're doing.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

Ms. Bailey? No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Mr. Sullivan?

Good afternoon, everyone. I have item 11AE, but it's a contract with an abstract company. This is a contract for us to be able to do deed research and actually do title searches. Instead of us having to come to you every time we do a title search for an easement piece of property, this is a contract not to exceed $200. Most cases, and it will be less than that, and just keeps us from having to come every time we need research done on easement. We can do this one contract and then have it ongoing. It's for a year with the option to renew both sides mutually for two years.

Okay. Thank you. Ms. Bailey.

Hi there. On your agenda, item 12B is an ordinance to annex property at 263 Sky Park Road. On the work session agenda, it's listed as 1,906 acres. It's actually 19.06 acres.

I mean, you know, we'll take it either way, but...

Just because there's a little bit of a discrepancy between the two, I did want to clarify that it's 19 acres. 19.06 acres. And this property will be developed. It's making its way through the planning commission process now for single-family residential.

Do you have any questions for her?

I do want to add just briefly that whenever we have an annexation, particularly from the planning department, we are not in the eminent domain business. So if anyone requests or if questions come to you all, it's because it's been requested. At the last council meeting, there were some folks here that were under the impression that we were annexing their property. happen. So I want to make that, you know, very clear that annexations are, there are three ways of annexing property in the state. We exercise two of those either by direct petition or through a vote of those that are within the area to be annexed.

Thank you. Thank you. Angus?

Good afternoon. Greg Angus with the Fire Department. Chief Anderton's on vacation, so he's and I'll be real honest, he only gave me one agenda item, but the agenda that I saw online has two, so I don't know. I'm ready to talk to two if I need to, but I only showed one. So what are y'all showing?

Two.

Two. All right. This one is for an invoice for North American Fire Equipment Company. And this is for our high compressed air compressor to fill our breathing apparatus bottles. And we also fill the scuba diving bottles for the PD as well. And it needed repair. And that was for at the cost of $1,122.85. Okay. So that's the first one. And then 12 D is the ordinance to amend section 9-66 of the city of Florence code. And basically this is the international fire code 2024 edition. Currently we're under the 2021 edition and it's just to update it. I think the building department is also going to do a theirs as well, their section of that where we're both matching and things are flowing easier instead of us being on separate codes.

Okay, good deal.

Any questions?

Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Jones.

Good afternoon, Cheryl Jones with animal services, I have item 11 G on the consent agenda, the contracts with full folks bush hogging and lawn care to do the maintenance at the shelter grounds. Any questions, thank you.

Chief.

Good afternoon. I have two items on your agenda. I believe the first one is 11T. It is a damage release, a property damage release. In this particular case, I'm asking that you sign a release for a damage to property. This was involving one of our message boards that gives traffic messages, basically. It's an item that's valued at $25,153, a vehicle damage. has offered $25,000. I recommend we accept that and move forward so that we can replace that piece of equipment. Questions? 11U. This one was new for me. I hadn't seen one of these exactly, so bear with me when I try to explain something I barely understand, but hang with me here. So this involved a police vehicle on Chisholm Road that was struck and involved in an accident. that involved another person who was at fault. Allstate has agreed to release $1,365.63 toward that vehicle repair. What this is is a request for the mayor to sign and execute a power of attorney so that those funds can be released so that we can get that taken care of.

Okay. All right. Do you have any questions, Lauren? No?

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Mr. Coates.

Good afternoon. Three things on the agenda. The first one is an invoice from Oise, which is a company that does forklifts. It's just a forklift to get it back going and recycle. Second contract is H&H Trucking Outdoors. This is to put a metal building at the street department that we can store. uh for the upcoming season so we'll have two places we can keep salt so we shouldn't have a bigger inventory than what we've had in the past after we get this put in and then the third item is sand some equipment a leaf truck that had a whole lot of wiring issues and problems with it and this was to get it uh those guys to diagnose it figure it out they had to go to the company to figure out what all was wrong with it but we got it we think that fixed questions for me thank you thank you mr lovejoy

I have two items, item N and O on the consent agenda. And the first item is to pay an invoice to All Brand Service Replacement. It was for an ice maker on the second floor, and that was the amount of $873.67. They had to replace the motor, and he cleaned it while he was here. Any questions on that one? And then the second one, evidently, we used to have a contract to have preventive maintenance on these. And so the second item is a contract with all brand services to come out twice a year and inspect and replace filters and everything on in the amount of 295 per inspection twice a year. So 590 per year. Any questions on that one? Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. McCain.

Good afternoon. Today, I have three items on the agenda. It's item 11 H, M, and P. First item is a contract with Whiteland Collins and Associates. This is a blank contract for land surveying and engineering services on an as-needed . Any questions on that item? Next is a resolution for the joint cost allocation between TVA and the city of for allocating electricity department funds. Any questions on that? And last is a contract with Maintenance Plus for the HVAC units and materials for the warehouse offices at 611 East Reeder Street for the amount of $38,000. And this is from budgeted funds. Any questions on that? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Mason?

i have three items on the agenda one is 9a which will be a public hearing uh for adoption of the 2024 building codes um and then that goes right along with the 12e the ordinance of the certain building codes but those those codes will be let me make sure i don't miss any of them That would be for the 24 international building code, international residential code, property maintenance code, plumbing code, fuel gas code, mechanical code, existing building code, and the public hearing will also cover the international fire code, along with the 2023 national electrical code and national electrical safety code.

Any question on those? How often are these codes updated? I'm just curious.

Well, so right now they're working on codes so we're just moving into 24 codes but they're already working on the uh publishing the 27 codes gotcha uh the last one i have on the agenda if there is no questions on that would be 12a which is the ordinance adopt chapter 5 of the building code of of city the city of florence code which uh there's no if we adopt that we're re-adopting all of chapter 5 which is the building second To change to the new building codes, there are some amendments that we have on there that have to align with the new building code. They may have changed sections in the new code where the old code said, okay, under 2003, that amendment is section 303, where the new code may be, okay, now it's moved to section 305. So we have to take those amendments to adjust those sections to align with the new building code, so we're adopting the entire Chapter 5 section. Okay. Any questions on that?

I have a different question. Okay. When we were in the parking lot last week, you were dealing with a new air conditioning problem that wasn't the chiller. I was expecting to see an invoice tonight. Did we get it repaired? Where does it stand? Yes. What did you expect?

We did get that repaired. There was a bearing that went off, went out on one of the air handlers on the other side of the building, what we call the good side of the building. and we've got it repaired, and it is operational. We've had to do some bracing because there's some metal fatigue because of the age of the air handler there to try to keep from having to replace an air handler, but we have it repaired now, and it's cooling. Okay.

Good deal.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Jordan?

good afternoon guess first can we can i request them a root remove item e the email that i sent y'all yes so that program is a summer program feeding and we'll address that again next year okay have several items any of them in particular you might have a question about

Do I have any questions on any of them that's listed? Do not.

If I may, I want to say thanks to Myra and Tim. They've been phenomenal to work with already and such a blessing to continue the relationship. So thank y'all both for being here. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Mr. Cole.

Mm-hmm.

Good afternoon. Tad Cole, Gas and Water. I've got a few items, W, X, Y, A, D, and A, F. W, X, and Y are all basically the same thing. This is the renewal of our wholesale water contracts with the water authorities listed. We align those contracts as closely as possible. There are a few differences, but it's basically... and the amount of water because they are of course different size systems any questions about those all right then ad is a contract with republic services this is a contract that we brought before council back a couple of months ago um the republic services did not like some of the language that was in the contract and requested it be removed so We've worked with Lee, and we've gotten everything, I think, taken care of. They also requested a name change. I'm not exactly sure, but it still came under Republic Services, so I don't fully understand exactly why. But they are a sole provider of removal of the waste from the Cypress Creek wastewater treatment plant, so we really don't have an option. But I think we've got everything taken care of. Any questions about that? And then the final is item AF. This is a licensure with Tennessee Southern Railroad. This is in conjunction with a project that's part of our clay and concrete sewer replacement that we're doing along what I will refer to as the old rainbow fertilizer area down through there that that property is now under is owned by someone else and they've agreed to allow us to go in. So basically we've got a bottleneck for the sewer that comes down through there. It's reduced from a 30 inch to a 27 inch. And so we want to go in and correct that. But in conjunction with that, we also have to correct our the way the line goes under the railroad. When it was hand dug and put in many, many years ago, we went under the railroad at an angle and they no longer allow that. So now we have to basically intersect it with a 90 degree angle, just like a perpendicular intersection. So this licensure is a 30 year license. It's basically $1,000 a year. So it's $30,000 total. Any questions on that? Thank you.

All right. Thank you. I do have a question on the contracts.

What's the effective date on the contracts?

The effective date would be July 1st. We just did not get everything prepared in order. But we're still charging the current amount until everything is approved. And then as soon as everything is approved, we will charge the new amount then.

Hey, hold on. Don't run off so fast. I have to thank you and your department for everything you did during that whole water main break out there by the hospital. I know that was extremely challenging. You guys just did a great job, and I just really appreciate how quickly you work and your quality of work and everything. So thank you so much.

Well, we do appreciate it. That's kind of a unique situation there. Most of the time, we just go shut down what we need to shut down, make the repair, but with the hospital, you can't do that. So we just basically said, let's just work the problem. The guys did a great job, and I think we were able to get everything resolved and satisfactory, especially for the hospital. But we do appreciate that, and I'll be sure to pass that on. Please do. Thank you. Thank you all.

Thank you. Mr. Williams? Yes.

I have one item for your consideration tonight. This is item 13A on the agenda. It would be for the approval of an alcohol beverage license for Compass Group USA, Inc., doing business as Chartwells. It is for a Schedule 160 special retail, more than 30 days license, to be located at 10 Champions Way. Stadium. This license has been approved by the ABC board. This would be Chartwell's third location licensed. The other two being the UNA softball complex and Flowers Hall.

Okay. Do you have any questions for me? All right. Thank you very much. Mayor Tyler.

Thank you, Ms. Simmons and Council. I have three items on the agenda tonight. I want to cover two of them first, and we'll get to the other one. 11J is simply an invoice with Designer Graphics to repair that federally granted jet that's located at Veterans Memorial Park. They did some new vinyls on that jet out there, and we are required to maintain that. So that is an invoice for $1,500 with Designer Graphics. The second item that I want to go ahead and cover is Consent Agenda Item 11-AG. This is a resolution with Lynn and Collins and Associates for a topographic survey of the old parking deck property in preparation for the new city hall. And this will be... The city hall bond money is what that is, and that is in the amount of $2,300 is what that is. That's just part of the standard topographic survey as we prepare. The third item is 12C, and I'm going to pass out. I have – I'm going to pass you all out. I'm going to sit yours down somewhere. There's a second one there. So we have a very—I'm excited about a great opportunity ahead of us. We all know that there was a lawsuit filed— years ago and settled with Big Pharma and the pharmaceuticals that created an opioid settlement fund. Lots of cities across the state have received some of those settlement dollars, and there's been lots of questions on how do you spend these dollars and what's the purpose. And so they have – we've received – Several years of funding and not known how to spend it. We were at the League of Municipalities training back in several months ago. I don't remember when it was. I sat through an opioid. settlement fund presentation and what we learned at that time from the attorney general is in order to expend those funds or allocate those there needs to be a direct nexus between opioid prevention education treatment and enforcement if you can connect the dots directly from where you spend those dollars or allocate those dollars to, and there's your nexus back to, hey, it's going to prevent, educate, treat, or enforce some of the opioid-related laws or issues or concerns, whichever are those that you take, then it's an appropriate way of spending that. As I've looked into it more, They really don't want just a one-time funding source that just the money goes in there and then it dries up. They really like the idea of these programmatic solutions where you can implement a program that can have a multi-year impact. When I had an opportunity to talk with Myra and Tim, the Florence City Schools Athletic Director, Assistant Athletic Director, we had a great opportunity to talk about working with Florence City Schools Athletics, not as a way to fund the athletic department. I mean, we're not purchasing sports equipment or maintaining fields or paying for team travel or buying team uniforms. That's not what this money is for. The money is to go to athletics and use that as a catalyst, a conduit, if you will, to have the biggest impact for education and prevention. So when you partner with Florence Athletics for education and prevention, we are able to reach not just student athletes, but the student body at Florence City Schools and Those who are student athletes have family members who are going to come to athletic events. The community at large is going to come to football games, baseball games, tennis matches. They're going to come to softball games. You'll bring large crowds of people out. So you have this conduit or a catalyst, if you will, to reach a large portion of our community with education and prevention initiatives. It is a lawful way to partner and use this opioid settlement money. Now, it's just these are two prongs of what should be three spokes to a wheel. This hits our education and prevention aspect of spending that money. There's additional funds that can go towards treatment. We have additional funds that we can direct towards enforcement. But we're casting a wide net using athletics. The community support of those people coming out to watch the family members of student athletes and the student body at large to partner with the athletic department and and really promote this and help educate, bring raise awareness. They have a lot of initiatives there. And I passed you out all a presentation and we can put this out. It talks about some of those things. I'll give you one example of how this will work. Scott Cochran, many of you all may know him. He was the strength and conditioning trainer at the University of Alabama. Left under – I think everybody at the time had – was unsure of why he left Alabama, and he was picked up at Georgia, and he left there and come to find out he had an issue with opiates and pain medicine. We've already got him, I should say, they already have him lined up to come and speak to athletes, the student body, those in the community who want to be here. But this is us partnering with an organization, Florence City Schools, particularly Athletics, We're not giving them a grant. They're not a grant recipient. This is not a grant. They are a service provider. The service they are providing is education and prevention, raising awareness of the challenges, the dangers of opiate use. is the catalyst to reach a broader audience there. So there'll be some school-based drug prevention and awareness initiatives, some direct student education and awareness delivery. They'll purchase some educational materials. They're going to have large community events like Scott Cochran. We're going to have... You know, pill dumps, raise awareness about turning in. I mean, there's all sorts of things that we're going to do, and we're partnering with an organization that has a separate board to help oversee some of this so we don't have to worry about where the funds are going. Are they being used properly? Is there proper accountability? Florence City Schools has a board that we certainly support. This is a lawful... way of, of spending these dollars because there's a clear nexus between what they planning to do and the fact that it is raising awareness, educating and help and hopefully preventing, um, opiate use. This is a hundred dollars or a hundred thousand dollars a year. Pardon me. I sound like Rodney, uh, Rodney Hall here. It is $100,000 over three years that allows them to implement a program. They can line up speakers and training for next year and the year after that. They can prepare multi-years in advance and don't have to try to go out and spend money and go, I don't know if it's going to be here next year or not, but they have an opportunity to prepare for that. Line up seminars, have community awareness nights, do staff and coach training and They can do that and implement that in the school systems. And again, it is not to supplement or purchase or, you know, buy new lawnmowers to cut the fields or any of that stuff. This is to use them as the avenue that we reach a very... So it's you heard Jack fight talk about the KPIs and there's we can ask, you know, Miss O'Mara and Tim a year from now before we release the next funds. Men and tell us what you did. Who did you you know, who did you impact? What's the number of students? What's the number of athletes? How many community members were present and impacted? what's the volume and type of the educational materials that you distributed out, and maybe even some of the public attendance numbers at the community awareness events. This is one spoke of a multi-spoke wheel, and I think it covers the education and prevention aspect of it very well, and we're working with a Well-known, reputable organization in Florence City Schools. I think it's a great idea to use athletics as the catalyst to help get that message out to a broader group. So that's the purpose of what this contract is.

Any questions for me?

I'm just going to say thank you, Mayor. Ms. King and myself were able to sit in that with him in Montgomery. It's Montgomery, right? Yeah. And just thank you two for being here. I think it's a great thing. It's good, the partnership with the Florence City School Systems.

And Myra and Tim are both here. If anybody wants to ask them any particular questions, you're welcome to. And I'm sure they would be willing to step up to the microphone if necessary.

Great. Come on up. I have a question. Thank you for being here. Yes. Yeah. Okay. A question. Hopefully you have this number off the top of your head, but how many, what's the percentage of athletes in Florence City Schools? Do you know? Like how many of the student body are actually athletes?

We have about 800, don't we, athletes? Yes. We have about 800 athletes.

Is that across the high school and middle school as well?

Middle school up.

About 800. Okay, good. I love our Florence Athletics. I just have to say that. So I am really excited about this program. And also, just so y'all know, 5K.

That's one of the best things, and I got that idea not from an opioid thing, but we did a pill dump when I was at Hoover, and I thought that was, I'd never heard of a pill dump, you know, and so I went one day just to witness what was going on, and you would be amazed at the people that showed up just to get rid of medication, pills, legal and not.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for, I love this idea, so I'm really excited about that.

We're going to be finished in about five minutes, and I have a side conversation I need to have with you. And it's all good. Good. So if you could hang out for just a minute. Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Is that all you have? Okay. Okay. Next, we have some board vacancies. Library Foundation Board. One member building and property board of appeals. We have one alternate. Do we have a nominee for that? Someone for that one? I would like to nominate Bill Griffin for the board of appeals. I will second. We have a nomination for Mr. Bill Griffin and we have a second. Any other nominees? What about the library board? We'll come back to that one after, since we finished this one. Yeah. Okay. All in favor for Mr. Griffin. Okay. Bill Griffin.

Is that an alternate?

It is. It's an alternate.

There's still one remaining. That was it.

Okay. Library board.

I'd like to nominate Jackie Hendricks.

Okay. We have a nomination for Mr. Hendricks. Do we get a second?

Second.

Okay. Any other nominees, nominations? No. All right. All in favor of Mr. Hendricks?

Thank you.

All right. Jackie Hendricks. Historical Preservation Commission. We have one vacancy there.

I have a nomination for Kelsey Dempsey. She came highly recommended from those who are serving on that committee right now, and I would like to put her name out there. Second.

All right. We have a second. Any other nominees, nominations for that? All in favor? Ms. Dempsey? It's a lady in front. All right. Next, the Board of Zoning and Adjustments, the two reappointments. Did they want to be reappointed, Kathy?

Okay.

Did y'all have any other nominees? Okay. I'm okay with them being reappointed. What about the rest of you?

Yes? I'm good. Mr. Vance?

Yes. Everybody's good?

Good.

Okay. All right, Kathy. You can leave the report.

You're good, right? I think that's it. That's it.

Okay. If nothing else, come before a work session. We will take a quick five-minute break because we're already past 5 o'clock.