Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order if everybody will please stand for the invocation by Mr. Randy Gray, if you'll come to the podium, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and for honoring us the privilege to be a part of it. We thank you for this gathering tonight, Lord. We thank you for each council member, for our mayor and all of those that work with them. We thank you for every person that is here. Holy Spirit, we just ask you to lead and guide each person throughout the course of this meeting and let that which is to be accomplished be accomplished and we'll not fail to praise you for it for we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.

Amen. To the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Williams, if you'll call the roll, please.

Yes, ma'am. Council Member Hendricks? Here. Council Member Dixon?

Here.

Council Member Bolling? Here. Council Member Spence? Here. Council Member King?

Here.

Council President Simmons?

Here.

Madam President, six council members are in attendance, and a quorum is present.

Thank you. At this time, we'll have the approval of the agenda. Please. Motion.

Second.

Motion by Ms. King, second by Mr. Bolling. All in favor? Thank you. At this time, we'll have a message from mayor Tyler.

Ms. Simmons-Council, thank you very much for this opportunity. We have an unusual and very proud moment today. And get used to this because this is going to happen over the next couple of council meetings. Just so the people who are listening in and tuning in who can't see everybody that's in the crowd, the City of Florence Parks and Rec Department. And while I'm saying this, I'll let Randy Burns and Bill Jordan go ahead and come on up if you guys would. Parks and Rec Department in the city of Florence has a total of six World Series championship teams. Two of those are represented here with us today. We have the, and I'm going to... I'm going to say this. I guess it's the U-triple-S-A eight-year-old rec World Series champions. And we also have the Babe Ruth softball 12-year-old World Series diamond bracket champions. And this is the first two that we're recognizing. Girls, I'll tell you this. I haven't had you. Didn't get to see you play, and I'm sorry that I didn't. But here's what I know. For you guys to win at the level that you guys have won at for both of y'all, you had to play exceptional softball very consistently for a very long time to the point where you all defeated your peers from all over. And I hope you made memories with your friends, with your mom and dad, and I hope that you cherish the moment that you had. Look, everybody is glad that you got the award and that you guys won all that stuff, but the memories that you guys made and the high level of softball that you all played and the way that you had to fight through adversity, all of the lessons that you learned, I just want you to know the city of Florence, and as the mayor, I am certainly proud of each of you. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to start with the eight-year-olds. I'm going to have Randy Burns, and if Bill Jordan wants to say a few words, the guys for Parks and Rec just do an amazing, outstanding job at all the facilities and the fantastic work. It relies on coaches. Parents have to spend a lot of time and money, so all the parents, we just appreciate, and grandparents appreciate what you all do. But I'd like Randy to come up. I have some certificates that I'm going to present. I'm going to start with the head coach when he gets here and present it to Travis Boyd, who's going to be the coach of the eight-year-olds, and then Sawyer Roberts will be the coach of the 12-year-olds. And I'll let you all pass them out, and then we'll pose one at a time for a picture. Does that work for everybody? Am I doing that right? Yep. Good. Come on up, Randy.

Thank you. I just thank our coaches and our parents. Without you and your commitment to your kid, none of this is possible. I want to add that the eight-year-olds, they were also diamond champions in the eight-year-old division of the Babe Ruth World Series. So they actually won two World Series. And I think 12s were runner-up, maybe in the U-triple-S-A rec side of everything. But to the kids, thank you. We love you playing at Park and Rec. It's easy to go play travel ball and your commitment, you do play travel ball and everything, but your commitment to Park and Rec, we thank you very much for that. I do want to say there's a lot that goes into working at the Park and Rec and putting on tournaments and stuff like that. And one people I want to thank is one of our city departments, the fire department. They're there for the high school regional, and they're also there for the World Series EMTs. And this year, they got their money's worth because it was heat, it was injuries. I know some kids had to go to the hospital and get stitches. And also for the regional, we couldn't do what we do without our fire department coming out and supporting us and all that. So thank you for that, too.

Travis, come on up, please.

He's not here. I'll get it right there. Well, first we want to thank the coaches that coach with us. It was a long process for them and us from fall to spring, and then we played all summer. But I want to thank this lady first, Coach Danielle Hill. Next, we have Dallas Ashley. Zoe Boyd. Mayberry Clark. McKenna Corbin. Emmeline Floyd. Esme Hines. Baylor Hill. And Athena Kilburn.

Coach Roberts, you come up.

I'll give Sawyer's to him. I should have given Travis. But Sawyer Roberts was the head coach. I'm not sure who all his assistants was. Who can tell you about them? But these guys do a lot for these young kids. And I think we should give them a round of applause, please.

Here you go.

So mine will be pretty short. As y'all can see, I've only got four girls here. Unfortunately, and fortunately, most of my girls play volleyball and they cheer. And so it was pretty hard to get them all here. Three of these didn't have an excuse. Their dads either coached or helped coach. And we got one that she just wasn't gonna miss it. My other coaches, Justin Huckaba and Val Bonner both, I can't thank them enough. And all the parents, we did have a great season. I think all of our girls had a lot of fun and they all grew tremendously. So first is McKenzie Bonner. Kaylee Doxey. Kaylee Huckaba. And Neely Roberts.

Thank you.

Ms. Simmons, I'll be brief after that. Thank you very much. Those girls certainly earned the right to be recognized, and the coaches and the parents as well. So thank you all for coming, and congratulations once again. I do want to remind everybody of a couple of things, that this is homecoming week for Florence High School, and there's going to be a bonfire Thursday night out on Florence Boulevard. followed by an afternoon parade on Friday in downtown. I hope everybody who's coming to participate in the parade will please arrive early and patronize all of our downtown restaurants because it's going to be hot and it's going to be a busy time on Friday afternoon. It's also a big week at UNA, and I do want to – this is – Wear purple week. I think I'm saying that right. We have some ladies from the University of North Alabama who are here. After long last, we are going to get to the city and UNA's own Division I stadium on campus and watch the Lions play on Saturday evening. I will say this, the budget work continues, so we are making progress, have a meeting scheduled tomorrow, and hopefully we'll have something for you all to consider very soon. Same applies for an update on City Hall. Work is there, and you're going to hear more information on City Hall and possibly a contract for that. I am glad to see, as was mentioned during the work session, that Pine Street opened. I think traffic seems to be moving faster Very good and continues to move. You can see a few scars already where those table speed bumps are there where cars may have hit them a little too fast. So please pay attention to where those raised and elevated speed tables are and be careful going over those. would like to say this also I did not see it and didn't I just I read the article in the the newspaper and I'm I'm thrilled that that Laura Dale County Commission is going to help partner a little more with the with the appropriation of the animal services I think this here's my only nuance that I'd like the council to consider when the time comes we have several things that are pending We have an ambulance contract that will come due. We probably need to revisit the jail agreement and also some funding for the Florence Public Library. I would ask that the council, as much as we're grateful for this, to allow maybe the attorneys, the respective attorneys, to be able to review and negotiate each of those things. They're all going to require separate resolutions, but instead of us doing a a three stooges routine where we take money from one hand and put it into the left and give it to the left hand of that person. They put it in the right and it goes around in this weird circle. And at the end of the day, we're no different than we were to begin with. Let's negotiate the ambulance contract. Build on the momentum that they have helped with the animal services. Look at funding for the Florence Lauderdale Public Library. And also now may be a good time for us to review any jail agreement if there's changes. And let's take all of those at one time and review them. And that way we can come to a very solid consensus and arrangement. on all four of those. But I do appreciate those guys and the effort that they have made and taken and the steps to support animal services. I just hope we look at all of it together and then come back with a recommendation and separate resolutions where we have all agreed on what's best for our entire community in each of those areas. That's all I have, Ms. Simmons. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Any reports from any department heads? Standing committees?

The Utilities Committee met on 9-9 at 4 o'clock. In attendance was Mayor Tyler, myself, Katrina Simmons, Josh Bowling, Tad Cole, Jeff Whitten, Mark Lovejoy, Sandy Preedom, Mary McDuffa, and Luke McCain. We had a rate discussion. Ms. McDuffa talked about TVA rate recommendations. TVA sends updated guidelines at the beginning of each year for the upcoming year. TVA is recommending approximately $7.5 million in revenue. Three customer charge options were discussed. Option 1, increase of customer charge by $3, approximately a 4.46 increase of the average customer bill. Option 2, increase the customer charge by $10. Option 3, increase the customer charge by $10.48. I asked what happens during the months when TVA bill is higher than expected. Ms. McDuffie explained that the utilities department is responsible for covering the increased expense. She also stated that she would like to propose the adjustment to the full council. I, along with council member Bowling, indicated that we would prefer an approximate 5% increase rather than a $10 increase. Ms. McDuff explained that any changes to the rate structure would require council approval, which could make a future adjustment more difficult. The mayor noted that included appropriate language in the rate structure could allow for adjustments to be made as needed and would help prevent the council from having to address this every year. I asked whether rate increases would be necessary every year. Council member Bowling asked how far behind the department currently is. Ms. McDuff has stated that the department currently cannot cover all of his expenses for the year and that nearly two substations are currently at maximum capacity. Council Member Bowling asked what percentage the department currently is behind with a TVA recommendation. Ms. McDuffa stated that in order to adequately fund the department, the customer charge would ultimately need to be approximately $30 million. Council Member Simmons stated that she was not in favor of changing the rates, but if the increase were necessary, she would select option one. She also asked about the maximum amount that could be included in the escalator provision. Ms. McDuffa stated that the amount would need to be reviewed and based on applicable numbers. The Handy Whitman Index, which TVA follows when determining the rate adjustments, was also discussed. Last year's increase was approximately 11.6%. While our increase did not reach, we are well below the increase reflected in the handy Whitman index. I stated that the primary difference between option one and option two is that it would allow the council to respond to TVA recommendations rather than automatically following them. rate adjustments are an annual issue miss mcduffa proposed that the increase eventually take effect um taking effect july the first she also asked about implementing a power cost adjustment that would be used when necessary I asked whether the proposed customer charge increase would be significant to cover. She explained that the PCA would provide additional protection during months when costs are usually higher. She estimated that the PCA could potentially be approximately 10%, although a 5% PCA would also need to be considered. Council Member Bowling asked how much the department lost during the past year. here because of the PCA was not in place. Ms. McDuffa stated that department approximately lost $3 million during January and experienced significant loss in June. She estimated approximately 75% of the year was difficult and noted that additional action would likely be necessary even with a $5 increase. July's expenses were approximately $7 million. TVA requires approximately 8% of cash on hand, which would amount to approximately $13 million. Council Member Boehling stated that given all of these changes currently being considered, he believed the PCA should be left out for now. Ms. McDuffa stated that she would present that at the next council meeting. I requested that the PCA and customer construction charge structure be revisited and the county be given additional time to review the proposed changes. TVA rate amendments are scheduled to take place October 1st. The group agreed that any necessary rate increases should be implemented gradually. than all of them one time in the future. I also made a motion regarding the proposed rate adjustment for option one. Councilmember Bowling seconded that motion. Tad Cole spoke about the SRF project. The department is seeking to address the bottleneck across the former fertilizer plant property. The proposed project would eliminate the bottleneck and improve the system in the area. There's approximately 1.8 million remaining in the SRF fund, but approximately 1.2 million has already been committed. This leaves approximately 684,000 available to commit to the proposed project. The project has been bid out in the lowest bid totaling approximately $811,000, leaving a shortfall of approximately $157,000. Mr. Cole explained that the department may be able to reduce the cost by about $25,000 by completing portions of the work in-house. There is also potential to reduce costs by using gravel instead of sand. He explained the SRF funding does not always result in a product that exactly matches the amount of available funds. Since the money has already been borrowed, the department needs to use the funds available for eligible for the project. If necessary, these funds could be reallocated from another line item in the current budget. The project is currently budgeted, so the request would not be a constituent additional funding, but it would involve moving funds between budget line items only if necessary. He stated that the property owner has been very cooperative and easy to work with. The mayor clarified that the request would not require additional money. but would involve moving funds from other budgeted line items if needed. The project has been on the priority list since 2003. He explained that completing this project would save money in the long run by reducing the workload on the lift station and improving the overall system. He stated that he had worked on this project as close as possible to the amount of the SRF funds remaining. Council member Bowling indicated that he was comfortable with the department pulling the additional funds from another budget line item if necessary. The project is anticipated to be placed on the agenda for October 6th. And that is all. Meeting was adjourned around 5 o'clock.

Thank you. Any other standing committees? No. We do have one public hearing. Ms. Bailey, if you'll come at this time.

Thank you, President Simmons. Tonight, we'll hold the public hearing for the rezoning of approximately 5.64 acres at 263 Skypark Road and the adjoining lot to the northwest from R1 single-family residential large lot to R2 single-family residential small lot, and that comes at the request of WR Investments, LLC. The Planning Commission heard this case at their July meeting. They unanimously recommend the rezoning to the council, and I'll be glad to take any questions or comments from the council at this time.

Okay.

I don't think there'll be any.

All right. Hearing none, I recommend that we open the floor for comment.

Okay. At this time, if there's anyone to my right who would like to speak. No? In the middle? To my left.

Ms. Bailey, there be none. Perfect. I recommend that we close the public hearing. Thank you. I'll close. Thank you.

Okay. We will have business now from the floor pertaining to the items on the consent and the regular agenda with a five-minute time limit. You can come to the podium, state your name and address. To my left. Nope. In the middle, to my right, there be none, Mr. Williams.

All matters listed within the consent agenda have been distributed to each member of the Florence City Council for reading and study, are considered to be routine, and will be enacted by one motion of the council with a separate discussion. If a separate discussion is desired, that item may be removed from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda by request.

Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda as presented?

So moved. Second.

Motion by Mr. Spence, second by Mr. Bolling. All in favor?

Item 12A is an ordinance to approve the rezoning of 263 Sky Park Road, an adjoining lot to the northwest, as requested by WR Investments LLC, sponsored by Melissa Bailey.

Thank you. Do we have a motion for immediate consideration?

Motion. Second.

Motion by Mr. Bowling, second by Mr. Hendricks. All in favor?

6-0.

Do we have a motion for the adoption?

Motion.

Second. Motion by Ms. Dixon, second by Ms. King. Any discussion? All in favor of the motion?

6-0. Motion passes. Item 13A is a resolution for alcoholic beverage license application for Roundabout Replay, LLC, doing business as Roundabout Replay, 418 South Royal Avenue, Florence. It's a Schedule 40 on-premise retail beer and Schedule 60 on-premise retail table wine.

Do you hear a motion for immediate consideration?

So moved. Second.

Motion by Mr. Hendricks, second by Ms. King. All in favor of the motion?

6-0.

Do you hear a motion for the adoption?

Motion. Second.

Motion by Mr. Bowling, second by Mr. Hendricks. And I'm sorry. Yeah, Mr. Hendricks. Any discussion? All in favor of the motion?

6-0. The motion passes. Item 13B is a resolution for an alcoholic beverage license application for Brinker Restaurant Corporation, Florence, doing business as Chili's Grill and Bar, 370A Cox Creek Parkway, Florence, a schedule 20 restaurant retail liquor.

Do you hear a motion for immediate consideration?

Motion.

Second. Motion by Mr. Bowling, second by Ms. King. All in favor of the motion?

6-0.

Do you hear a motion for the adoption?

Motion. Second.

Motion by Mr. Hendricks, second by Mr. Bowling. Any discussion? All in favor of the motion?

6-0. The motion passes. Item 13C is a resolution, an alcoholic beverage license application for Fuji Buffet in Florence, doing business as Fuji Buffet, 125 Cox Creek Parkway South, Florence, Schedule 40 on-premise retail beer, and Schedule C on-premise retail table wine.

Do you hear a motion for immediate consideration?

So moved.

Second. Motion by Mr. Hendricks, second by Ms. Simmons. All in favor of the motion?

6-0.

Do you hear a motion for the adoption? Motion.

Second. Sorry.

OK. Motion by Ms. Dixon, second by Mr. Rowling. Any discussion? All in favor of the motion?

6-0. The motion passes.

OK. At this time, we'll have business from the public with a five minute time limit. You may come to the podium, state your name and address at this time. State your name and address.

Good afternoon. My name is Morley Kate Powell. I'm a junior at UNA, majoring in public relations and minoring in marketing. And this is my friend.

I'm Ava, and I'm a computer science major at the University of North Alabama, and I'm a software test engineer at the Redstone Arsenal.

So tonight, we actually just wanted to come and formally invite y'all to our event called Purple Knot. You want to go a little bit more?

Yeah, so we're A&M and AMC. AMC stands for Action Makes Change. So we're going to tell you a little bit about who we are and what we're doing. So... This really started as a fun way to run our campaign for SGA, and it turned into something so much bigger. And so what really stood out to us was when Mayor Tyler came and spoke to us and said he wanted Florence to be a place where people wanted to stay, grow, and create tradition. And that really inspired us to create Purple Week. And what better way than bringing UNA students and the community together? And so that's what we're here to talk to you guys about. And Marlee's going to get into a little bit more detail about that.

Yes, so like Ava said, when me, Ava, and Chloe were coming together to run our SGA campaign, we were thinking about our name, and we thought, oh, what's better than AMC? We did it movie-themed, and then we got to thinking we wanted to be more intentional than that, and after we met with the mayor, we decided that we wanted to take action in what he was trying to deliver throughout our community, so we decided to name it Action Makes Change, which also stands for our initials. And we've been able to partner with over, I believe, over 30 businesses throughout Florence, all of downtown. If you'll notice in downtown district, they started painting their windows purple. And we've just created an event partnering with multiple different businesses that hopefully bring alumni together, bring their kids together, bring UNA together, anyone in the Florence community. And we've poured so much into this event so that the community can get so much out of it. And we want this to just, like Mayor Tyler said, we want this to be something where people want to bring their families back to. We know that if this is something that continues, we would love to bring our families back to this one day. And that's what we think is so special. So we just wanted to formally invite y'all and everyone in here to Purple Knot this Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Kelly Lewis and I'm a resident of Florence at 3410 Chisholm. The reason I'm standing at this microphone tonight, because it seems we need to be vigilant and keeping ourselves protected from government intrusion at the hands of what seems to be an unholy alliance with mega corporate technocrats and venture capitalists. Our local administration has unfortunately, like the rest of the country, walked straight directly into a massive corporate technology trap. It's been said across the whole country, so it's not just you. It's not about one vendor. I find the usual flock safety versus privacy arguments to be elementary at best. and well short-sighted of what's really going on behind the scenes. So on August 31st, I officially filed four separate unbundled public records audits under Alabama law SB 270. I did not ask for a single file of sensitive police investigative work. I didn't ask for any big tech trade secrets. I did not ask for piles of printed paper. I didn't ask for anything that takes more than 20 minutes to print, and that includes a coffee break. I asked for routine administrative computer logs across the suite of technology that's being run here in Florence. The problem is the public owns this administrative data. But big tech takes it, controls it, holds the keys to it, shows it to whoever they want, sells it to whoever they want, and the city can't do a darn thing about it. It's a problem. They rent it back to the dashboard of the police. Across the country, everyone's arguing about police dashboards because they don't understand shared cloud. The data for the real backend is owned by the public, but controlled by big tech and our police department, IT department and entire councils locked out of that data. Otherwise I assume I would have gotten it by now because it's very simple to print. You can't privatize Alabama records laws by simply outsourcing it to a remote corporate server. The rest of the state is already starting to figure this out. We heard about Walker County giving it up. But what I think is more interesting is the news that came out when they said, we followed Florida because we don't know What happens to the data? That's the problem. I'm not here to argue. I'm here to hand you a proposal for an ordinance for a Municipal Technology and Sovereignty Act to lead the country on this because no one's talking about the back end. I'm not here to argue about police dashboards. That's elementary. I'm here to argue about who has our data in Silicon Valley and why did they lock us out of it? If they didn't, where is it? Where's the user logs? Who can log in and see that data that the public owns? Is it data brokers? Foreign intelligence? Insurance companies? Show us who sees it. beyond Florence Police Dashboard. That's child's play. That's what they rented back to you after they compiled it somewhere else. It contains sovereign key control, anti-backdoor procurement, a 30-day warning lock for the public, public audit, receipt mandates. Seems the entire nation fell for this scam.

One minute remaining.

They bought pretty front dashboards from private tech brokers. But if our local government IT department, police department can't independently audit or cryptographically verify every single piece of eyes and hands that's on that data, how much time before a defense attorney's gonna hold it and start throwing out the evidence? If you wanna pass an ordinance, this ordinance brings data back to physically secured server racks restoring bulletproof courtroom chain of custody and full public records compliance. And if you want to discuss safety, consider the information outlined in a recent Forbes news article with the history of these corporate acquisitions, particularly with Accent. This technology was developed with foreign military intelligence and cyber warfare Elite team of unit 8200. Time. And it was funded by Jeffrey Epstein himself. That doesn't make me feel safe.

Thank you. Anyone else to my left? In the middle? To my right? OK. All right. At this time, we will have the council members report with five minute time limit, starting with Miss King.

Hello, everyone. Thank y'all for coming out tonight and those watching from home. First of all, I want to thank Miley Pujol, who helped organize an amazing, wonderful thing at the animal shelter where she redid the fencing, the gravel, is putting tarps up outside where they've never had shade before. This is a much needed activity. revamping to the playground area and we appreciate her for taking time to raise that money and for all the people who donated to that. I also wanted to thank the County Commission. I went to their meeting last night and for their increase of appropriation. It's not all about saving dogs and cats. It's also about public safety. And we've had an increase of dog attacks and mollies in the state of Alabama. And it's very important for animal control to have the equipment, the vehicles, the staffing they need, and the training they need to keep us all safe. So it's about safety as well. Last Thursday, I had my District 6 meeting. We had a wonderful turnout. Cheryl Jones from Animal Services spoke. Chief Holt from the police department came and gave crash data. We had the engineering, not engineering, sorry, electricity department come and talk about tree trimming. Learned a whole lot that I didn't know And also the gas department came and talked about safety. So great meeting. I will be posting notes from that meeting I've had a lot of people who were sick or couldn't attend and so I will be posting those on social media My goal is to be accessible and transparent to everyone. You can call me at any time, send me an email. I need your email addresses. If you're in District 6 and you want to know about an upcoming meeting or something going on, I like to email you to make sure that you don't miss that. The meetings are advertised in the Times Daily. They are put on the city Facebook page, the newsletter, and my personal pages. So please send me your email addresses so that I'll have those so I can communicate with you in the future. I tentatively am planning another meeting. We'll probably do that sometime in March. So definitely be watching for that. And thank you again for coming out tonight. We appreciate you. Thank you, Ms. King. Mr. Hendricks?

Thank you very much. I only have a few things. I want to brag on Pine Street a little bit. I took my wife through there on Sunday and wanted to show it off. I was very proud of it, as we all are. The thing that I like the most with what we did with UNA, actually there are two things. One was the additional crosswalks. I've witnessed for years the students walking diagonally across Pine Street, put you on the pavement the longest distance you can actually be on there so we really really needed those additional crosswalks for safety but the other thing is you no longer feel like you're on a four-lane highway dividing a university campus you actually feel like you're driving through a university campus, which again slows traffic down, creates a lot of more safety. I really look forward to the sidewalk project, the beautification project next spring and seeing that overall finished project. I want to congratulate UNA. I know they've worked really hard. to get this stadium ready to open this weekend. Look forward to seeing everyone at the game on Saturday. And I do need to ask for some patience. I got a couple of calls. They're testing the sound equipment this week. And so you can imagine what that sounds like if you're someone in a close-by neighborhood. I've been told it won't be that loud once they get through this testing phase. So hopefully in a couple of days, that'll come back down to a normal sound range. And then there's continued work on Riverview Circle, replacing the water main over there. I think we're down to a couple houses, so I want to thank the Water Department for continuing on that project. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Hendricks. Ms. Dixon?

I also want to congratulate UNA. I know there's a lot of people very excited about this weekend, so that's going to be exciting. Also, I wanted to just announce, I'm sure the word is out now that McFarland Park Campground is now open, as well as the pier. We talked about that at the work session. and I just wanted to share a little story. I went down there to check it out. I was on a little run, and I ran into a couple that were out there walking, and I just thought that the chain of events of how they ended up in Florence was very interesting, so I wanted to share that really quickly. So they had friends who had kids attending UNA. They were from another state. Their kids were attending UNA, and they would come down and visit, and they decided they loved it so much in Florence, so they moved down. So now we have the UNA students and their parents living in Florence. Well, the friends, the ones that I spoke to, came to visit them from another state, and they came out and visited a couple times, even stayed in the campground. before it was all redone, and stayed there a couple times, really loved it, really loved Florence, really loved our parks, and decided they wanted to move here also. So it was UNA students coming here that brought their parents, which brought their friends. And that is what happens in Florence. When people come here to visit Florence, they see the gem that it is. They see our parks. They see what we are doing to make this a place of a high quality of life. And they were excited about the new campground. They were excited to come back. We have a little community use fire pit down there that is really, really nice. The pier is beautiful. There's picnic tables. benches. It's being landscaped very nicely. There's a playground. There's the shelter. The bathhouse has been revamped a little bit. It's been cleaned out thanks to a local church whose youth came out and cleaned it just before it opened. They made it nice and sparkling clean. So Everybody can enjoy that. So come out and see what it's all about. Enjoy our beautiful McFarland Park. It's one of my favorite places. So I'm really excited about that. Also excited about Florence High School and their homecoming week and some of the activities going on with that. just to be aware that there's going to be a lot going on this weekend and come out and enjoy it. And also this night that is, I think this is Thursday. Yes, Thursday night is what they said on this. So that will be really exciting. So lots going on in Florence. I'm really proud to be here.

Thank you, Ms. Dixon. Mr. Bowling.

Thank you, President. Thank you, everyone, for being here tonight and watching online. Thank you, ladies, for coming and sharing this information with us. It looks like it's going to be a great night on Thursday, and there is a lot going on. I would like to just point out just a few things. I want to congratulate the softball teams again on the World Series. You know, I think Mr. Burns said that earlier in the meeting, talking about, Travel ball is such a big thing now, and I'm a rec league kid, and I'm sure everybody else our age are rec league kids. Recreational sports was such a big deal back in the day, and these World Series were such a big deal. And so it's so great to see – and some of them still play travel ball, but it's so great to see that our rec program is huge in this area. I mean, I would probably say it's bigger than any other area as far as rec league ball. So – Congratulations to those girls and I know we have many more coming. We got a lot of talent here in Florence, so it's great to see. I've also been speaking with Justin and the building department. I've had several calls last several weeks about just different ordinance. um issues um we're we're working on that there's a lot i know the other districts you are probably getting the calls as well and um we're working on them a little as we can um we only have so many inspectors and and they have other things that they're having to do so when you call about an ordinance issue we're on top of it it just might not happen as quick as as you think it should, but we're sending people out there as fast as we can. And these ordinance issues are, you know, food trucks in the wrong spot, signs still out on the side of the road where they shouldn't be, vehicles parked in the wrong area. So we're working on that and trying to get all that taken care of, especially in District 4. And also, I would like to mention about the homecoming week. I know Florence is homecoming this week. It's a busy weekend in Florence with the UNA game. But with homecoming week, I guess this is a PSA. There's a such thing called junior-senior wars, and I don't know if you've ever heard of them, and it's a real thing. But we ask if you're a parent of one of those kids that are out there at night, please remind them how important it is to make the right decisions and not possibly ruin their future with the wrong decision. Very, very important. And also to the residents, for the most part, I love to have fun, and I think it's great. I got a kid that lives across the street from me, and apparently he's probably the most popular kid in Florence High School. So I see a lot of activity going on over there. I think it's great. These kids are having fun as long as they don't take it too far. But let's also be – have our eyes out for them, you know, and making sure that we're not making a bad decision as well when things are happening. You know, if the call needs to be made, make the call, but let's just be aware of what's going on in our city right now. In a couple of weeks, there'll be, I think, Mars Hills is in a couple of weeks, and, you know, so I'll be sitting on my porch every night But anyways, I just want to, I think that's very important to talk about is to make sure, I mean, we want these kids to have fun. Obviously not take it too far, but we want them to have fun. So, and it's going to be a great week for the city of Florence. So I'm looking forward to it. And that's all I have, Ms. Simmons.

Thank you, Mr. Bowling. Mr. Spence.

I want to thank everyone for being here tonight that's present. We invite you back any time and those who are watching online. Also, I want to thank our city employees for what they do each and every day for our city. I just want to echo the Florence Falcons homecoming game Friday night. Plan on being there. So let's go pack the stadiums and support them. Also, for the Florence Falcons, I'm here for UNA's first game. Plan on being there for that as well. Let's go out and support the Lions this weekend as well. So everyone have a great week. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Spence. My comments are very brief. I echo what everybody has said. Congratulations to Florence Falcons, who will be playing on Friday night, and also DNA Royal Lions. So let's go and support both of these teams, and let's just pack it out and show that Florence spirit, right? All right. If nothing else, Mary, do you have anything? Okay. If everybody will please stand, we'll have a closing prayer by Mr. Bowling.

Let's pray. Father God, we just thank you so much for this day and all your many blessings. Father, we just thank you for this great city and how you bless us each and every day. Father, we thank you and ask you to continue to bless our mayor and our council and all of our citizens here in this great city. Father, I pray this a lot. But my prayer is that we might not always agree on things, but my prayer is that we seek to understand each other and decisions. So, Father, we just ask you to continue to pour your blessings on this great city. Father, we thank you for Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross. In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.