Boma - workshop

Hey, thank you, Joey, and good evening, everybody. This is the work session for the Board of Mayor Alderman, Tuesday, August 25, 2026. I have a bunch of citizen comments, but we'll address those whenever we get to that item. I have no other citizen comments right now. It's not on the agenda. And so we'll move right on to the – oh, I'm supposed to call it. Thank you for remaining here. You're more than welcome. We'll go from the bottom up. Vice Mayor, are you present? Present. Alderman Potts? Present. Alderman Brown? Present. Alderman Berger? Present. Alderman Peterson?

Here.

Alderman Caesar? Here. Alderman Blanton? Here. Alderman Barnhill? Here. And the Mayor is half here. So we'll go on to item one, which is the Development Activity Report.

Okay, that's why I always have it printed out. Hi, good evening. All right. Well, I guess it's that time for your quarterly development activity report. And while it's popping up, I'll just go ahead and get started. So this is for the second quarter of 2026. And usually for the second quarter, we do a longer presentation. We will cover the first six months of the calendar year. But we also want to give you a review of what happened in fiscal year 2026, which ended June 30th of this year. So and as we usually end these presentations now we'll also go into our survey response update and an update on the upcoming development survey as well as just a couple of other things that I will touch on. But first let's get started with the calendar year since we are a little bit over six months in now, but this will just be for the first six months. When we go into the permitting activity, so far in 2026, the city has issued 517 building permits, 2,390 trade permits, so your mechanical, plumbing, and electrical, and 183 fire permits. In your packets, when you see the table, you will see that pretty stable from where we usually are at this time of year. We're in the first quarter of summer, which is our busy season when it comes to construction. And also, I always like to note because we don't have full five years of data for the fire permits, that's just something new that was implemented in 2024. And that's just to kind of separate fire suppression a little bit from the building permit just to increase the efficiency. So I always want to note that since we don't have full five years worth of data. Next, I'll go into the permit and impact fees and what we've collected so far this year. When we get into permit fees, we've collected just about $1.2 million. Road impact fees are at $3.6 million. Water impact fees were a little over $250,000. Sewer impact fees are about $3.4 million. And facilities tax is just over $1 million. And I usually like to have a little pie chart there just so you can see where the bulk of our impact fee collections come from. And you'll see it's mostly roads and sewer. But also we want to see kind of how that compares over the last five years. So I have a table and a chart that kind of shows the trajectory of how impact fees go over the last five years at the mid-year. So that's six months of data comparing apples to apples. You'll see with road impact fees we've remained relatively flat compared to this time 2025 calendar year. Same thing with facilities tax. You saw a pretty significant increase in sewer impact fees compared to last year and a decrease in water. With sewer, we've implemented a newer methodology over the last couple of years that kind of can describe most of the increases. With water, that's always just, it depends on the location of which the development is happening. We do not serve the entire city of Franklin water, so it is highly dependent upon the location of where the development is occurring. And then I'll touch on the housing and construction costs for the first six months. So for single family, the city has permitted 129 new single family homes, 13 town homes, and 35 multifamily units. 35 is a little bit of an odd number for multifamily. We usually permit a building with a lot more units at a time. I do want to note that that was two permits for Wood Duck Court, each building being about 17 units. So that is why it's kind of a weird number. And then construction values, we had a total of $142 million worth of residential permits, $412 million of non-residential permits, which totaled to about $554 million of total permitted projects for the first half of the calendar year. You'll see this reflected again in the fiscal year numbers, but this is a really strong level of investment that is continuing to happen in the community. This is much higher than where we usually are at, and we're looking to continue that trajectory throughout the rest of the calendar year. Next, I want to go and talk about the fiscal year, fiscal year 2026, which took place from July 1st of 2025 and ended June 30th of 2026. Going back to the permitting activity, for FY26, the city permitted 997 building permits, 4,687 trade permits, 382 fire permits, and I have 194 other miscellaneous permits, which are pretty much your floodplain, demolition, pool permits, et cetera. Those are smaller permits that we tend to group together. And that totaled to about 6,260 total permits issued for the fiscal year. That is still pretty comparable to where we've been at the last five fiscal years. It was not as strong as FY25, but still highly stable when you look at the trend altogether. So I always want to say, even though it's decreased slightly, development activity has been incredibly stable over the last few years in Franklin. See, when we go into the fiscal year permit and impact fees, I do want to highlight these are unaudited numbers. So things may change as we go through the audit and you get that presented in your ACFER later on. But what we have so far for permit fees in FY26, the city collected about $2.2 million in permit fees, $6.2 million in road impact fees. $412,000 in water impact fees, $5.6 million in sewer impact fees, and $1.7 million roughly in facilities tax. I do want to note again, water impact fees are lower than normal. That is just simply because of the location of the development taking place. Yeah. All right, thank you. So when you look at that over the last decade, how impact fees have gone, not every impact fee is the same. And you can see that. And that's why we don't use it as a measure of development activity because it is so highly dependent upon the development type. What may take more road infrastructure may not take as much sewer. So what you'll see on that very top is your road impact fees. And you'll see for them, and for facilities tax, which is that very bright blue, it has a downward trajectory. That is simply because we are not permitting as many big box commercial retail office spaces and not as many multifamily as we did in years like 2018 through, or 2017 through 2020. It's simply the development activity that's happening. But you'll see things like sewer impact fees have increased significantly since 2023, fiscal year 23. We updated the methodology to actually get our impact fees to reflect more of the cost for actually using the capacity, and you see that reflected. And as I said, with water, it's just dependent upon the location.

So

At the end of the fiscal year, I like to try and touch on what's been under construction because it's really cool to kind of look back and see what's going on in the community at that time. So when you look at residential, we permitted a total of 212 dwelling units for single family, 44 dwelling units for townhomes, which I'll note is low. We don't usually permit that few of townhomes. What we've noticed is that's just simply market-driven. A lot of our developments that had a lot of townhomes are getting built out, and we're not seeing as many come down the pipeline. And then with multifamily, we have 343 dwelling units, or just units coming in. Those are really from three developments. One was Wood Duck Court, like I mentioned. There's also a multifamily development in West Haven that got permitted. And then REM PUD, their multifamily got permitted in fiscal year 26. When we look at commercial space, we look at that more as square footage. In fiscal year 26, we added about 328,000 square feet of commercial space. And just some notable developments that got permitted in 26, I like to start off with New City Hall was permitted in FY26, and we see that beautiful building getting built in our downtown square, so we're really excited about that. I also brought up REMPD, that multifamily is currently under construction, and then In-N-Out Burger permitted and started building their office building in this last fiscal year. So there's a lot of really exciting stuff happening in the community, so I just wanted to kind of call that out. And then when we look at housing trends over the fiscal years, you'll notice that from 23 to 26, things have evened out. We're still hovering around 200 to 300 single family units every year. Townhomes have been decreased this year, but it's still relatively stable and multifamily is really stabled out. When you see FY 2016 to 22, those big fluctuations are really happening in multifamily. But now things have started to kind of level out. But this part I think is really interesting with construction value, where we look at really the level of investment that's happening in this community. The city of Franklin's total value of permits for construction projects was $891.2 million for fiscal year 2026. That is the second highest total construction value in the last decade. When you look at what the highest was, that was fiscal year 2018. And I just want to note, When you look at 2018, you saw how high the multifamily was. We're not permitting as much, but we're still seeing such a high level of investment occurring, which is a really interesting thing to watch. And we're on the same trajectory this year. Next, I just want to touch up on the survey follow-up. I've been giving you guys updates on the many customer satisfaction surveys, which have been going on for about eight months now. So far, we have 77 responses, and we still have an average rating of 4.78 stars. The comments have been overwhelmingly positive and I always like to highlight some. These really stuck out to me in this last quarter. This one anonymous responder said, we build all over Nashville and honestly our experience with Franklin is the most efficient and the staff actually care about the projects that they are working on. Another anonymous responder said, everyone is always so helpful. Feels like the people working there actually want to make things easier for the public and contractors, which is greatly appreciated. And then the last one I'd like to touch on, just because we're always trying to work on making our processes better, this anonymous responder really wanted to notice that the updated certificate of appropriateness application has been great. So I'd also like to touch on people that are working with us every day, they are noticing the work that we're putting in in our effort to make things better. And before I get into the FIT5, I do want to note that we are currently working with Polko to develop the next development customer survey, and we have a goal of making that live beginning of October. So we do have that up in place, and so you will get your next development survey soon.

Polco is the firm we use for the broader citizen survey that we've done. We've worked with them since 2016, I think. And so we're using a different group, but very similar surveys. So we'll be able to track trends from when we did it a couple years ago to this. But we have a really good relationship and have worked with this group on the survey tool significantly. So we feel good about them being in place for this process. Yeah.

And then I'll get into the FIT5. So you guys have been introduced to this during the budget process, but as we've been updating our strategic plan, we've developed this thing called FIT5. And FIT5 stands for Franklin Indicator Tracking, and what we've done is we've asked all city departments to define their five most important performance measures that reflect their operational efficiency while also connecting what they do to the city's overarching goals. These were established in the FY27 budget. We're still tweaking, but it's something that we are really proud of and excited to implement. And what we wanted to do is kind of show you community and economic developments fit five. And every six months, we will be updating you on how the FIT5 is going, what the measures look like because we think it's really important to show you guys the work that we do and it's we really like want to show off you know all the amazing things that we do as a city and as community and economic development. So I'll start by going through each of the three major departments. I'll start with engineering and traffic operations. Their fit five, what you'll see here is peak travel time index of 1.3 or better on at least 80% of roadway segments based on the INRIX data. They also have average number of plans reviewed per reviewer, average number of stormwater inspections per inspector per month. Percentage of the capital construction projects that are completed on time. And the fifth one is percentage of capital projects delivered at or below the bid amount awarded by you all. Next I have planning and sustainability. Their fit five starts with staff hours spent annually on the creation and updates of long range plans and special projects. Staff hours spent annually on research and amendments to the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations. Average number of current planning reviews per reviewer. Amount in dollars of sureties held for the insurance of completed public assets. And lastly, average number of historic preservation reviews per plan reviewer. And last but certainly not least, we have building and neighborhood services where we have time from plan submittal to permit being issued. average number of review cycles per project, number of reviews per reviewer per week, we see a consistency here, number of inspections, both building and municipal, per inspector per week, and then fees, both permit and their plan review fees collected as a percent of their total department budget. So just want to kind of introduce that to you guys and we'll give you updates every six months or so, just that you get an idea of what's going on a little bit more frequently than just every budget cycle. But with that, happy to take any questions.

Mr. Mayor. I'd like to take a moment of recognition. Katherine Harrelson's probably just delivered her last development activity report to you. She will be leaving us to become the assistant to the city manager in Alcoa, Tennessee. So we're excited for her to take this next step in her career. Catherine started with us as a management fellow five years ago, has done a terrific job, and Alcoa's got themselves a real good one. So, wish you the best.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. This has been such an amazing experience being here in Franklin. When I started here, I really didn't have any kind of local government experience, and this has been such an incredible opportunity to learn and grow as a professional, and I really can't wait to take what I've learned here, and it'll be with me the rest of my career as a public servant. So I just want to thank you all. You've been a wonderful board.

Surely there's no questions for Katherine after that. Katherine, thank you so much. We've so enjoyed your reports. Best of luck in your next endeavor. We know you'll have a great stepping stone to a lot of other career moves, I'm sure.

Thank you so much.

Okay. She's going to prove her mettle in alcohol. Let's see. We've got an event permit for Porch Fest at West Haven. We have Franklin High School Homecoming Parade. Any questions on those? Okay, and then we'll go to item four, which is resolution 2026, resolution, I'm sorry, 2026-75, authorizing the city administrator to allow for the procurement of mini packer for the use for the parks and recreation, sanitation, environmental services department amount not to exceed $200,000. Thank you, sir.

When I started Working with the city in 2006, within a year we purchased a mini packer, which is a 2007 model. Parks and Recreation has been using it for nearly two decades. And they and Sanitation Environmental Services use it.

What is a mini packer mark?

You like a rear end loader for a small garbage truck small garbage truck And it is It's dead So So we need to replace it they do a ton of events they do a ton of tournaments, all these other things. Sanitation uses it as a backup, um, for their backdoor services and things like that. And, um, there's one of these things that we'd like to replace. Um, a new one costs about $190,000, but we're looking at, um, lightly used mini packers, which we're thinking is around the range of $110,000-ish. So we'd like to move forward with that. It's not a budgeted item, and Michael will... certainly do a budget amendment should you approve this, but it's something that's really important for us to sustain our operations. Anyway, that's...

And this had been an item that had been requested in the budget. We were hoping to squeeze another year out of what we had. It had been used in SES for many years and then moved over to Parks and Recreation, and it just has given it up, and we can't make it work any longer. So we'll look for this. Like Mark said, we'll look for a lightly used one that can carry us through, but this gives us authority to go out in the market, see what we can find that best fits our needs. And we have capacity to amend the budget to allow for this piece of equipment. It will largely be housed through Parks and Recreation, but it goes back and forth between the departments.

Right. And if we had a shotgun, we would have shot it by now.

Alderman Barnhill. So what's the delivery date on the new one? We don't really know yet because we need your authority, and then we'll go to the market and see what we can get. If we can get a good used item, maybe it will get here quicker. But we'll see. We'll get it as soon as we can. But we want to have the flexibility to look at what's out there and get the best match for us. And you expect the used one to cost you how much?

About $110 to $130 or so.

So this would give the authority if we just totally strike out on used equipment to go to a new if we have to. But we're hopeful that we'll find a used that will work for us. Yep. Alderman Burger.

Okay, so a new one is around $200? A little shy of $200, yes. I would suggest we take a good hard look at that. That will be part of the process. And maybe... really don't go for a used one. If it's that close, how long do these usually last? What's their life cycle?

This one lasted 19 years.

Well, there you go. And if you buy a used one, we don't know, and we don't know what kind of guarantees come with that. I mean, that'll be part of the package as opposed to the guarantees that come with it.

Yeah, the people that we work with, they actually rebuild these things, so when we get a used one, we feel really confident in the ability for it to serve us. I always prefer new.

This gives us the flexibility to look at those options, and our fleet team and our sanitation team will find the best fit.

I'd be very interested in the warranties for a used one versus a new one and what that comes down to.

That's always part of the equation.

Sometimes we're throwing good money after bad in the long run if it's a short-lived, and if the guarantee is, hey, it'll be great for two years, we can't guarantee it beyond that, or five years, or whatever. and a new one has a 10-year warranty or some other kind of warranty with it. So I would be real cautious with that.

I appreciate that. Warranty is really always part of that equation. And we'll make the best choice we can.

Item five is resolution 2026-76, a resolution authorizing the city administrator to execute city of Franklin contract number 2026-0144 with Tyler Technology for financial enterprise resource planning solution in the amount of $1,582,320 for a contract term of three years. Any questions about that one? Good job, Margaret. Nailed it. How about item six, which is City of Franklin contract 2026-0289 with Patsy Pence revocable trust for a lease agreement for 507 New Highway 96 West.

This is the former Franklin Special District administrative offices that we use for our fire administration. It's under new ownership. This updates that lease. It doesn't really hit us with any additional expenses. It just renews it and rolls it into the new ownership. I think it does provide some tweaked insurance language, but this is pretty straightforward. It keeps us going with this operation as we're in the interim mode until we get to New City Hall in about a year.

Item 7 is Amendment 1 to City of Franklin Contract Number 2025-0001 with Southvale LLC for parkland impact fee and construction agreement for Southvale.

Thank you. Good evening. Before you, and you'll have several of these items, is as the development comes through, they update their exhibits over time that shows the public and the private use. Therefore, then an amendment to the contract is required, and we make sure that is put in writing as a whereas clause stating what those are. So this one for Southvale has that in there. No change to the number.

And Ford Coletta?

The same thing. They updated theirs as well as Bull. So each had an update in those, all of those, excuse me, those exhibits and then they'd have a whereas clause stating what they did in the exhibits but no change in the money.

Okay. Item 10 is City of Franklin Contract Number 2026-0094 with Franklin Noon Rotary for Rotary Plaza at Jim Warren. Are we still going to consider that tonight? One more session, we can provide an update.

Sure, absolutely. So first of all, if you haven't been by, we've got construction taking place, and it's going to be beautiful. This has been such a team effort, and I'm so thankful to the Noon Rotary and their volunteers and our team as far as parks and streets. We've all come together. What's going to come before you, and we ask that this come back before next work session, is the fact that we are now just clarifying clauses in the contract so that, and one of them I don't mind sharing, is Lynn Rotary asked, because they're donating the statue to the city, they would like just to make sure that it's crystal clear that should the city remove that at any given time for whatever reason, they would have first-try refusal to receive it back. put in a different location, those kind of things. So we're taking our time going through those. And so when they see, they want to make sure that it's right. So those are a couple of those small changes, as well as some verbiage on some taxes of paying those type of bills. But nothing major has changed in the project, but we just want to make sure we get it correct.

And expect the statue what time frame?

Yes, thank you. We are expecting it mid-October. And so very excited about that. It's going to be pretty much an extensive type of installation when it comes in. So anyway, we'll make sure that we're speaking with communications and we're going to have cameras out there making sure that we document because it's exciting for us now, but think about 50 years from now when someone else is looking at this footage and being able to put it up. I think it's important. So thank you for sharing that.

I look forward to 50 years from now. You should.

I will be retired as well. And so we'll have, we'll just, we might have a cold one on the property by that time.

You'll definitely be a long-serving alderman.

Retire to retire. I hear you.

Alderman Caesar, you had a question? Well, I look forward to that date, I hope. Are we going to do anything from a commemorative standpoint, like put a time capsule in there that celebrates the past 75 years of rodeo? Or have we coordinated any of that? Do you like that now?

Yeah. Please.

I'd suggest we keep the design as is right now. There might be an extra clause in the contract. I would say I want to commend staff for working with a civic nonprofit. I've led this particular one before. and it's wonderful servants, but it is hard to get some things, you know, get things done sometimes. And a room full of volunteers and staff is tremendous getting this designed. The pedestal is designed just to hold this. So coming back and, I mean, unless y'all can find a creative way to do it, but I think that would be a lot to do. But I will say there is a new exhibit at the archives. or new meaning the last six months. It has a lot of paraphernalia that I think is going to be more permanent there where a lot of memorabilia is stored.

Just to remind everyone, they do have walls as well as the statue itself sitting on a pedestal, so it allows for commemorative of members and businesses a lot of those type of our community will be represented on those in those areas and so they will make those decisions they'll bring it back meet our standards as a city as what would go on that on the property but I haven't heard town capsule but the whole The whole experience, the whole experience would be, there's room for other things in this plaza. So that might be a great idea to take. Maybe in the future.

In the future. Phase two.

Maybe.

The 100th year.

The 100th.

Alderman Potts. I'll open the door as Alderman Caesars talked about time capsule. We have a time capsule that's going to be buried at City Hall Park, and the time capsule has not been sealed. So if the rodeo did want to put something in there to commemorate the years that Alderman Caesars talked about, I think we can probably accommodate.

That's a good idea.

If I may, Mayor, if you've not been by Jim Warren, please go by. It's a wonderful, wonderful setup over there. So it's really nice.

It's been the work of a couple different contractors along with our own Parks and Recreation staff. It's a great team effort, and Streets has helped as well. So it's been a great team effort to deliver it, and we look forward to another month and a half or so to get the actual statue in place.

And you'd be surprised what people think we're building.

We had to put some things out on social media because we were getting so many questions.

That fountain was moving from City Hall to Jim Warren. I just want to share that with you. Thank you. Before Lisa leaves the mic, sidebar, we have a duck update. The duck is still, so for those that may not realize, we had an injured duck at Harlinsdale at the pond. It actually has a treble hook within its beak. And we have tried for the last five days to catch that little sucker. We have not been successful but I will share that it is still alive. It's still alive. We've got several organizations including TWRA and some others. It's wildlife. It's doing what wildlife things do but we are all trying our best. I have people constantly ask me every day. We had our communications even asked yesterday that another update had come through. So we do try to save the wildlife as much as possible. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Lisa. City of Franklin contract 2026-0271 with NeoGov for an applicant tracking system for the Human Resources Department with an amount of $104,056.75. Any questions about that? Sean, you want to say something? Go ahead.

No, this is going to be a game changer for our applicant tracking system. We are in an expiring contract with our current Cadient, so we'll be switching over to NeoGov. I believe it's our first impression for those looking to work for the city of Franklin. So changing to this software is going to be a game changer. It's going to allow us to track the applicants, post the jobs that we need to post, and be more efficient in the hiring process. Great. Good explanation.

Okay, how about number 12, which is procurement award and City of Franklin contract number 2026-0315 for sanitary sewer pretreatment services to monitoring and management services, LLC, in the amount of $93,960 for a term of award for three years.

This is a contractor we've had a, one of our consultants we've had a contract with for quite a while now. The number of restaurants in Franklin does not go down. It only seems to go up. So we just, as a requirement in our municipal code, restaurants are to be inspected every year for pretreatment, for grease, grease traps, for some different just basic sanitary or pretreatment practices, our singular pretreatment person cannot keep up with that. So we need to bring in some outside help to kind of get a better handle on that. So that's all this is. Okay.

Thank you, Michelle. Next is discussion of water management department-owned property at 113 Old Carter Creek Pike for future uses. It's my understanding that Kevin Riggs is going to give a presentation first.

Yeah, let me give a quick introduction and we'll get going.

Followed by Michelle and her team, Taylor Hopkins. So go ahead, Mr. D.

So earlier this year, the city and the board was approached about a potential use of property owned by the water management utility at 113 Old Carters Creek Pike, a transitional housing proposal. So the Williamson County Homeless Alliance brought that forward. They've done a little more work on it, so they're going to bring back some more information related to that. One of the things we identified at that time had been an ongoing effort of the water utility itself about exploring the use of property that we own for processing of biosolids. So we'll have Kevin and the team from the Williams County Homeless Alliance talk through that proposal, any updates or questions to be answered there, and then... Michelle will present kind of an update on the analysis we've done to date. It's not fully complete, but of how that property might be used by the water utility as well. So, Kevin, take it away.

We do have some people here for public comments on this. Is it now the time for them to share?

I thought it's okay with the board that I would let you do your presentation and let staff do their presentation and then open it up for public comments after that.

Okay. All right.

Thank you. Would that suit you?

That's fine with me. Okay. That's what we planned. Okay. All right. Yeah, since the last time I was with you guys, we have done our best to listen to neighbors' concerns and we have met with most of you and have one more meeting this week with the one that we haven't met with yet and even had a really good discussion with a group of men in the West Haven community that was a really, really good discussion and I appreciate their willingness to listen to us. And so we're trying to take all of that information and be the best possible neighbors that we can possibly be if this were to work out. And so we have made some changes, and I'll go through just some of those changes. They're in the packet that you should have received. And also, as I met with you individually, I went over these changes that we had as well. First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me and my team and hearing us out. I really appreciate that. But based on some of the things we've heard, here are some changes to our proposals that I think answer most of the questions and concerns people have. One is that we are going to reduce the number of beds to start with. The size of the building itself is going to remain the same. But originally there were 18 beds for men, 18 beds for women, and then six family rooms. And we're going to drop that to 10 beds for men, 10 beds for women, and then still the six family rooms. And so as far as the individuals go, that's almost... cut in half. And at a later time, if need be, we can go in and kind of do the double-decker thing that was in the original proposal. But that answers some of the questions. The second thing that we've been working hard on, and you have a copy of this, is we've developed a Williamson County priority. where we've tried to put some boundaries in place that we're emphasizing and people who are from this county or who have family in this county or who have some type of strong connection to the county would be where the priority goes for those beds. So the idea of somebody coming from Chicago and just showing up and getting a bed is not going to happen because this is truly transitional. There's no component of this that has anything to do with shelter. It is truly transitional living. And another thing that we're changing, and this is a big change for us, is based on the concerns that we've heard, we're going to keep our facilities right now on West Mead. So if this were to work out, we would still have an office presence on West Mead. We would also have office presence out at on Oak Harters Creek. But we would still operate our day shelter there. We would still use churches to operate emergency shelter when the weather permits. But the facility on Westmead Boulevard would be where people who are experiencing homeless would come first. Now, they could come We don't turn people away at the day shelter, so we don't know where they're coming from, but when they come to our office, they can take a shower, they can wash their clothes, they can meet with the case manager, they can get on the computer, and that will serve as kind of the vetting process so that before anyone goes out to the campus on Old Carters Creek, they would have been vetted, background check done, and we feel like that there is a good chance that they would be successful in our program. And so the property on O'Carter's Creek would not be a place where people are lingering or just driving in somewhere and going up there expecting to get services. They would have to go to the offices on Westmead Boulevard where we've been now for about five years. And then also in the packet you can see a residential agreement, and this agreement is based on what we already do with our transitional house on Westmead Boulevard. It's eight pages long. It's rules and regulations, what's expected of people who are there. And in the program manual we outlined that what would happen is HUD describes transitional housing or defines it as one night to two years. And so if somebody, after they're vetted, we want to give them a shot at the transitional house, they would sign a one-month, 30-day resident agreement at first. That gives them an opportunity to see if they want to stick with this. It gives us a chance to further observe them. If things go well, at the end of that one month period, they can sign a second residential agreement that would be for three months. And then during this time, we're trying to find them housing. The goal is that no one stays there for two years. Through our housing programs, we find housing for them. But at the end of the three-month period, if they're doing what they're supposed to do and everything is good, then they could sign a third tenant agreement that would then be for 20 months. And so if you add those three agreements up, that's the 24 months or the two years that HUD. And so we think another thing is that there will be a fee that people will pay to be in the program. And so I think with the fee structure, the Williamson County priority, an eight-page rules and regulation document that they would have to sign, that the idea of this being a magnet for people to come from all over the country is just not going to be the case. And so those are the changes we are suggesting in the proposal. And again, I've gone over those with you as individuals, but I'll be quiet now. I think I talked too long last time, so any questions or discussion?

I'm not familiar with the package you mentioned, but I assume it's in here, so thank you. Any questions for Kevin? Alderman Berger.

The priority scoring that you have, priority tier two says former Williamson County resident with local family or employment connection. And the second bullet point is individuals referred through Williamson County coordinated entry. I don't know what that means. Or local partner agencies. That is sort of a red flag to me because I think... people can come from all over and still be referred and not have any real ties here. So I'd work on that because I'm not real comfortable with that one as well. And also, if you're going to charge them a fee of some sort, which I remember we're going over that, they would have to have some kind of, income established and I know one of the things that we talked about was they're trying to find people housing and jobs have to go with that in order to be housed. Trying to find housing in our county is almost a non-starter and most people are going to have to probably live outside our county eventually. So is that workable for you?

Yes, our housing programs are HUD-based, and the Homeless Alliance is what HUD calls the lead applicant in this area, and our particular area is 19 counties. Every county in Central Tennessee, or Middle Tennessee, except Davidson County, Rutherford County, and Wilson County, so all the way from Montgomery to Pulaski. we can use those funds to house in any of those 19 counties. The majority of people that we have housed over the years have been here in Williamson County. Columbia is getting a close second, moving there. We have good relationships in Marshall County right now. And we're building relationships in Coffey County and even Pulaski. And so, unfortunately, the odds of a lot of them finding housing here is slim. But we do have the resources to, if they're willing to move and they want to move, to move to one of those 19 counties. Okay. Thanks, Kevin.

Alderman Potts. Thank you, sir. Kevin, thanks for meeting with me. And we spent close to an hour working through and listening through details and everything. And I don't know how all the conversations may have gone. So I wanted to see if you could share some of the details from our conversation. Because one of the things that piqued my interest was the current location that you have where you have a transition home. how many people that currently houses, and then if you could share with the board a little bit about what you shared with me about how you do have the option to subdivide that property and to build another building or another house on that current property. And I know this is close or kind of across the parking lot from where you're currently located, so could you share a little bit about that with the board, and then I've got a follow-up on that.

Yeah, I mean, transitional housing seems to be the way that even HUD is moving. And so having the transitional house already on Westmead Boulevard, when we bought that property, the previous owner had started the process of subdividing. drop the ball on it. I'm hoping I can pick it up at some point and get that property subdivided and we could build a second house there. And independent on what the codes would be or whatever, it would be a house just like the one beside it or it could be a shared living facility which would allow for a little bit more space. And then one of the suggestions that Mr. Potts said that other people had suggested to him is, you know, we're Winston County Homeless Alliance, and the idea that, you know, just getting some transitional houses in Fairview and Nolensville and Brentwood and different places and spread those out. And we have taken that under advisement. I mean, the logistics is a little bit... is a little bit different. I mean, right now we have to do case management, and when they're in Pulaski, sometimes, you know, a phone call is about all you can do as far as case management goes, whereas the property facilities where there's, you know, 10 men, 10 women, and families, there's a central place with a meeting room that you could have, I think, a little bit more efficient. case management. But all those things, you know, we're not closed to anything. And so I think that's what you mean as far as just adding more transitional housing. And then, again, with the 19 counties, I mean, there's nothing that says we couldn't have a transitional house in Giles County or one of our other 19 counties. And so that is a possibility. I think in my mind, having one major facility is a little bit better, but that's just my...

And so my follow-up on that, Mr. Mayor, is as Mr. Riggs and I were talking about this, is subdividing that property, adding a house at that location, and then we began sharing about the success that you've had in these other municipalities. And I can't remember if it was Columbia or Spring Hill where you have another transitional home there. And so if that person was able to, or those individuals were able to stay closer to their families and everything like that, rather than having one centralized location. And I wonder if you could just talk about that success there.

Yeah, right now the only transitional house we have is on West Mead Boulevard. In the other counties we have found rentals. There's a shared living facility in Columbia that we actually rented out for a little while, and then we let it go back to the nonprofit who has it, but we still place people in that. And shared living is a wonderful idea. I don't know how that would be zoned or coded here in Franklin because it's a little bit... Shared living... Like the one in Columbia has seven rooms that are large, like large bedrooms, basically, where you could have a bedroom and a sitting area, and then they all have their own bathroom, and then there's a shared kitchen and a shared laundry room. Working with a nonprofit, the rent in those things are like $350 a month. And so we just moved a 78-year-old lady into one who had been homeless living in her vehicle for five years here in Franklin. And with her Social Security and a small pension she had, she can afford that and should be good for a long term. But it took us two or three months to get her housed. And so to have a transitional place here where she could have gone for two or three months and then moved her into a more permanent situation would have been the ideal scenario for us. She lived in her car in our parking lot for three months until we found her housing.

And I know from a business perspective, as you look at all of your options, that was one of the things that you all were exploring was how to create or replicate the success that you've had at your current transitional housing in other municipalities. Right. So are there any other municipalities that you've gone before that you've shared this idea with or tried to partner with?

No, we have not. Now, you know, we have relationships in Fairview outside of that. You know, it's really odd because being the COC lead that I am, I have tried to meet with the different county mayors, and I may have told you this. I mean, I've met with the Marshall County mayor, the Montgomery County mayor, and some other mayors, but I've never met with the mayor of Nolensville or the mayor of Spring Hill. And so it's like, okay, that needs to be on my list. I've been traveling to the other counties in our own – Cities within our counties I haven't met with.

Thanks. Anybody else? I'll ask the board, since Kevin brought it up, I do have a number of speakers. You want to hear that before you hear Michelle and her team? Yes. Okay, great. Well, I'll ask the following to line up, and you have two minutes for comments. I have Becky Wilson, Betty Proctor, Juanita Patton, Christy Bittinger and Betty Webb, and then I'll call the other ones after that.

Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak.

If you'll come up to the microphone, make sure we can hear.

Is that better? Thank you. Okay. My name is Becky Wilson. I'm a Williamson County school teacher, a mother of eight children, grandmother of six, and I've lived in Franklin for the last 33 years. And I'm here tonight to speak in support of the stable house proposal for our city. Over the course of my teaching career, I have worked with students and families that face challenges that most of us don't even see. Some of the toughest have been when parents have had to work to find stable housing, and that happens. So this housing instability, I think, affects all of a person's life, and particularly with children. That's a need for them to feel safe, for them to be able to learn and to grow. As a mother and a grandmother, I believe every family deserves the opportunity to regain stability during a difficult time. Transitional housing is not about creating dependency. It's providing a temporary respite and then a bridge to things that they can continue with. As a city, we pride ourselves on being compassionate and responsible and being willing to offer a hand to our neighbors. Transitional housing reflects those values also. It recognizes that life can take unexpected turns for any of us. A divorce, a house fire, someone loses their job, a medical emergency, any of those things can leave a family in need of support for housing. So we know that the need exists even here, and so I think the stable house is an excellent solution. We know that these challenges exist. Things have been thought out, but I would ask that you participate in the planning and support this proposal. Thank you.

Mayor, Board of Aldermen, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm Reverend Betty Proctor with Hillsborough United Methodist in Leapers Fork and I'm here to advocate on behalf of approving the stable house project proposed by the Williamson County Homeless Alliance. Now, I could speak to you from a pastoral perspective and remind us of the times that Jesus needed shelter, how he was born in a stable because of lack of housing, how Jesus described himself as someone who did not have a place to lay his head. I could remind you of Jesus' love teaching us to love our neighbors. particularly those who are in ditches, in need of food, clothing, transitional support, and community assistance. I could remind you that God says that whatever we do for the least advantaged among us, we do for God. But I'm not here to preach to you. You probably hear that sermon often, and I can tell you every Christmas Eve in our church, we collect money for the Williamson County Homeless Alliance. So if you haven't heard that sermon, you're invited. Our evening services are at 7 and 11. I am here today to speak to the pragmatic need of what is being proposed with the Stable House project. I serve in an area in Leapers Fork which could be accurately described as financially isolated. And it's very tempting to categorize people who are struggling as not in my backyard and not my problem, but the truth is that it literally is in my backyard, and it really is my problem. When we encounter someone struggling with housing insecurity, and please note that I said when and not if, and my parish, when we encounter someone struggling with housing insecurity, we have paid for hotel stays, we have fed them, we have offered food and clothing support, we end up referring them out to Grace Works and Mercy Ministry and the resources offered at Williamson Housing Alliance. And on more than one occasion, we ultimately sent them to Nashville to the rescue mission. This removes them from any level of local support and simply dumps what was our opportunity into someone else's neighborhood. We have people in our local community who are struggling with housing insecurity, and we do not currently have a systematic approach to help them transition into stable housing. Whether one believes in God or ethics or our summons to human decency or not, we have a local community struggling with instability, and that destabilizes all of us.

Your attention, please, Pastor.

Absolutely. I hope and pray for a brighter day when this entire project reads like an irrelevant relic from the past, but we are not there yet. As Dolly Parton once said, we can't just hope for brighter days, we have to work for brighter days. Friends, I ask you to join me in support for this essential work to provide a place of dignity for those in the middle of transitioning from despair to hope and offer a legacy of brighter days for all our neighbors. Thank you.

I will remind our speakers I'm giving you two minutes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. To the Mayor and to the Aldermen, thank you for listening to us and after those two people stand up here and talk, I don't have much to say after that. But I do support this. I sat down with Kevin because I did have some concerns. My name is Juanita Patton. I live in Franklin, 301 Scruggs. But my concern is I own the property with my sisters right next to it. So therefore, I did have questions. And after I sat down and talked to him, I'm supportive of it. I mean, we ask for unity here in Franklin. Why not have unity and have those people to give them something that they can look forward to and be a part of this community? That's what we need to think about. Let them be proud to be here and want to say that they're part of Williamson County. And that's what they need to do. And the other products that you have here, I do suggest that Michelle Hatcher get with me on that, because I do have some questions I did not know about that project that's coming up. So I asked for that. I would like to have heard that before I spoke, so that way I can tell you my concerns if I have any on that one. But I do support Kevin on this. We need to have something here for those people that give them a buy-in on Williamson County. And it's not just for the living part. They're going to teach classes. They're going to teach them how to budget. They're going to teach them where they fell down to help build them back up and let them have some sense of pride in their self. And that's what we need to be about in our community. I thank you for listening to me. I hope you support this. And thank you so much for your time.

Christy Bittinger.

All right. Wake up. Good evening. My name is Christy Bittinger. I'm a Williamson County resident and a board member of the Williamson County Homeless Alliance. Homelessness in Williamson County doesn't always look the way people imagine it. It can be a family with children in our schools, someone escaping domestic violence, a veteran, or someone working right here in our community who has lost stable housing. Stable house is not a shelter. It is a transitional living program. Residents will be vetted before entering a structure program designed to help people move from homelessness toward permanent housing. At Williamson County, Homeless Alliance isn't asking Franklin to take a chance on an organization that hasn't done this work before. For more than a decade, Williamson County Homeless Alliance has operated group homes and transitional housing and has helped move more than 200 families from homelessness into housing. I also think it's important for our community to understand whose stable house is intended to serve. The proposed priority placement plan prioritizes people with strong ties to Williamson County, including current residents, families with children enrolled in Williamson County schools, veterans living here, individuals fleeing domestic violence, and people employed here and those with immediate family here. These are our neighbors. We already have people experiencing homelessness in Williamson County. The question isn't whether homelessness exists here. It does. The question is whether we're willing to create a thoughtful and responsible pathway back to stable housing for people who are already part of our community. I believe Stable House gives us an opportunity to do exactly that, and I hope the City of Franklin will continue working with the Williamson County Homeless Alliance to make it possible. Thank you for your time and attendance.

Thank you.

And I'll alert Ronald Crutcher and the Reverend Dr. James Green. They'll be after Ms. Webb.

I thought, uh-oh, am I out of order? My name is Betty Webb. I've been a Franklin resident off and on since 1987. I'm a 36-year member and elder at First Presbyterian Church in Franklin, and I'm at the mission committee at that church's liaison with the Williamson County Homeless Alliance. They're one of our mission partners, and I've been a volunteer for the Alliance for about five years. I took on the task of trying to organize the supply closet. That was about my speed. I'm here to lend my support and urge your support of the stable house. This past year, I personally witnessed how homelessness can happen unexpectedly. A neighbor and friend of mine, a nurse for 20 years, became disabled due to a chronic health condition. She could no longer stand on her feet for her 12-hour shift of taking care of others. She lost her job. and was evicted from her apartment in about three months. During that time, after she applied for disability benefits, she lived in her car or slept on my sofa. Throughout this time, she maintained contact with the homeless alliance staff, doing everything she could do to be accountable. She used their facilities for laundry and showering when she wasn't living with me, She offered to help at the Alliance headquarters in return for their compassion and assistance. She received her Social Security benefits in January, and this spring was able to move into her own apartment thanks to the assistance, both financially and spiritually, from the Alliance. Without the help of staffers Eric and Louise, my friend might still be in her car. I'm asking you to see the benefits that I've seen personally. The stable house would be a program where people like my neighbor could find hope for housing. Franklin's known as a great place to live, and I endorse that wholeheartedly. By having the stable house, this could become a reality for so many more citizens. Thank you for your time and your attention.

I am Roland Crutcher, long-time resident of Frankton. I live at 835 Willow Springs Boulevard. I am going to speak on probably what's going to follow here on the proposal for consideration from the wastewater department. And there are several possibilities of a biological, a biosolids fertilizer. And this ties into 1135 Carter Street Pike. I'm gonna make a brief comparison between the two just to give you some thoughts on those two sites. The land, the city owns the land on both sides. Site preparation, Cottage Creek Pike requires approximately $200,000 for the cost to remove two water tanks. Traffic, and traffic is your probably biggest complaint. With the use of the existing site of Hillsborough Road, there is going to be no traffic added to the roads as far as moving the raw waste to Carter's Creek Pike. There will not be any cost on their traffic for that. Now the traffic cost will be created by hauling the water material from the wastewater site, Carter's Creek Pike. That will not be incurred if the homeless shelter, and I shouldn't use the shelter, transitional housing is put on Carter's Creek Pike. If you'll finish on that, please, Mr. Mayor. Okay. There will be a cost from either side as far as biosolids fertilizer to haul it away. That will be by private haulers. Utilities. Electricity, water, and sewer is on the site off Hillsboro Road. It will have to be brought offsite for Carter's Creek Pike. That's my thoughts on that, between the two sites, and I'm obviously speaking for the Carter's Creek site for the Homeless Alliance Stable House. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and to all of the board and to all who are present. I am the Reverend Dr. James J. Green, and I live at 202 Dabney Drive, which is in Rolling Meadows, and I'm here in support of this project for the transitional housing. I would just like to say, first of all, I would just like to commend the mayor and the board and all of you that have taken time to listen to this event. And I believe that in your hearts that you're going to make the right decision. because you've already proven. Because the transitional housing would not even be in existence if you had not allowed it or permitted to do so. And I think that there's one or two things that I would like to say that they have proven a great track record So we can bet that the service that they are going to provide is sufficient, excellent, because of the TREC record. And also, personally, one of my wife's family members participated in the transitional housing program. but he had to move. He's been a long residence of this city, family ties, but he's now living in Columbia. So it would be a good thing because of what Mr. Riggs is doing. He's going to be providing services for a person who have a standing living history in this city and making that a priority. So again, I just want to thank all of you. And we know that we all are church-going folk. And we all know Matthew 25. So let's continue to keep hope alive. And thank you for an opportunity to speak with you.

Mr. Mayor, if you would, just allow me. I meant to say this earlier. On the one side of the property is the Patton family and they have spoken in favour of it. On the other side of the property is Mr. James and Diane Carruthers and I met with them and they were unable to be here tonight but they gave me permission to tell you that they support this project as well. And so the neighbours on both sides are supportive of what we're doing and then of course on the back side is the rock quarry. I haven't talked to them but I don't see how they would be. opposed to what we're doing. But the two immediate neighbors support the project.

Thank you, Pastor. I think we're ready for Michelle.

Okay, so obviously I'm Michelle with the Water Department. I wanted to talk about Taylor. Taylor is our new assistant director. He's been working on this quite a bit with Streets and with Todd. Someone approved him to be on vacation tonight. I don't know who. So you're stuck with me. But I wanted to kind of run through this a little bit. These are some evaluations that we've performed and then certainly welcome to questions as we walk through this. As Eric was saying, we've not really delved into this because we kind of wanted to feel out the board before we start moving into a real detailed planning phase. Do I control that here? Okay. Right. So just a little bit of background. I'm not sure that many of you have read the full 500-page IWRP report. But as you remember during that, Mayor probably, we had really, during that report, we had really honed in on kind of the sustainability of the biosolids process and how that was going to look, right? We had been taking our solids to the landfill, which is not sustainable. At any point in time, a landfill could say, we're done, we're out, which is one thing that we feared at the time. And then we would be without an option. So we currently take our solids to the Lewisburg landfill as we kind of start to work on some of these other options. So during the IWRP, we had looked at This is a table that was copied out from the IWRP to produce a Class A solid, sustainability, reliability, public acceptance, minimizing energy consumption, a diverse portfolio of product and disposal options. risk reduction, expandable strategy for growth, efficiency of operations, odor control and automated processes. So these were characteristics that were defined during the MWRP as a successful process. This is what was defined. The next one is kind of one that was taken from our design, preliminary design memo from when the actual process was chosen and how we wanted to look at the design. So if you remember During that time, we had solar dryers that were part of the final solids process, which would be kind of a polishing process. It would dry the solids to about 95%, which would really make them kind of like a dryer than a coffee ground. So from the preliminary design report, we wanted to develop a fertilizer for use at city facilities, stored and distributed for the citizens of Franklin, similar to the composting program, and then combined with yard waste compost for distribution to the citizens of Franklin as a soil amendment for local farms. So this is kind of the path that we've been proceeding down. This is what the basis of the presentation is about. So to get into now, so we took control of our solids process in 2023. It has taken us a bit to optimize the process. When Mark and I had started discussions with some solids brokers before we started the construction at the plant, and really kind of the decision was we can't do anything until we understand the nutrient content of the solids because we were doing so many process changes, so many nitrogen and phosphorus reduction strategies. So, it took us a bit to optimize the process to get us to where we wanted to be. That's why we're a little bit later. So we produce biosolids seven days a week. We haul to the landfill five days a week right now. So it's an 82-mile round trip down to Lewisburg and back, and it's about $63 per trip in fuel cost, doing some very rough diesel cost associations, those types of things. We take about one to two trucks a day. We could probably consolidate them, but for odor purposes, we're hauling them as soon as we get them full. And since the plant has come online, our tipping fee, so when the plant came online in 2023, right, when we were taking solids every day, we were taking about two to three trucks a day, our tipping fee was $42 a ton. It is now raised to $65 a ton. That was the contract that you approved at the last, or that you, we talked about at the last board meeting, the work session. So it's now $65 a ton. So they are totally, totally taking advantage of us not hauling to them as much as we used to. Here's a table of the tonnage that we have on a monthly basis. So just for one year's time, you can see our landfill price in one year is about $360,000. So that's just at the disposal of solids. And our fuel price is about $10,000. So that doesn't include wear and tear on a truck, doesn't include obviously insurance, and then the salary for the employee that is solely driving the truck. So I put this graph in here. So time is on the x-axis, hauled tons are on the y-axis. And I really just wanted to show you the trend is trending downward. So what we're really trying to do is we are trying to optimize our process as much as we can. Right. The whole purpose of can be was to be able to reduce the amount of solids that we produce. And we're doing that and we're trying to get better. We're obviously never going to reach zero. That's not attainable. Right. But we're going to continue to try and optimize and reduce as much as we can. We're kind of finagling with some times that our digesters and it can be to to pull that down as much. All right, so, oh, that kind of looked a little bit weird. So we have done a lot of work with the streets department and with composting to really look at how our biosolids blends with the compost that we have to really create a viable product. So, we took samples earlier in May. We just sent another one off in the fall, or I'm sorry, just recently in the summer. It's about 21, 21.5% solids content. So, 21.5, that's what, 75% water, 75 pounds of water for every 100 pounds of solids that we're hauling. We sent this for a germination testing and that's the pictures that you see here of the grass growing. So we did it based off of a 75-25% biosolids to compost ratio and then a 50-50 biosolids compost ratio. So Todd at the composting facility wanted to see the different type of blending ratios and how that affected the germination rates. We also do a lot of, we've also done a lot of sampling. So, you know, a lot of the PFAS and, you know, T-clip sampling, which is kind of for metals and some toxicity sampling. So really trying to do our due diligence to understand, to be able to have, understand what's in our solids, to be able to have a product that we can now market to folks, that we can, you know, solidly tell, this is complete pun intended, that we can tell folks what's actually, what we've got, what our product is. All right, so some of the regulations. So we received, when we finished our solids process, we received certification from TDEC that we have a Class A product, actually exceptional quality, I highlighted that in this letter. So we don't have to recertify this letter, any, until we change the solids process. So what we did is when we started, you know, taking some, diverting some to the composting facility to kind of try this out, right, to see what Todd could do, we did receive notification from them that it's okay for us to be able to do that, to land apply this. So we wanted to make sure we were on the same page, on the, you know, regulatory page, so we weren't cutting any quarters. So the next thing that we did is we looked at potential locations and I'm gonna go through some of these we Obviously one of them is Carter's Creek. We've ended on that one, but we've looked at other ones This is up to the board's decision. So we looked at Harlinsdale kind of this area It's the orange dot kind of Tucked up behind the Hayes house of that wooded area right there The pro that we saw was that it's kind of away from other uses So, you know, it would kind of be in the trees It would be the area that we could clear out The problem is is that I think there's a land easement parks was telling us about there's no utilities. There's no access we'd have to make all that which would obviously be a little bit costly and We looked at the area that the water department also owns, the back catcher site across the river. So using the entrance that the Methodist Church uses, but kind of going back there. let's see the pros would be easy obviously easy access from that catcher and it would be a distance from other uses so we wouldn't have you know noise or potentially any odor issues the cons are there's a small area that's outside the floodplain right that we would have to kind of work with finagle and we don't have any utilities at that site so we have to run some utilities the other locations i'm at the top is the open field that's inside our plant property. So behind the second solar array that we have, so it's inside the gate, still accessible for Mack Hatcher. Obviously, its utilities are available. It's a gated. We have an access gate back there. It is out of the floodplain. The cons is that proximity to other uses. So if we had, you know, potential odor or noise issues, dust issues, those types of things that we see.

Michelle, that site also had some land application many, many years ago. Does that limit some use there or not?

The other site that's on the other side of that tree line, that's behind the current solids facility. Okay. Is that right, Mark? Okay. Then the... Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Will you clarify that? The orange dot...

I'm sorry, can they see this if I use the... Yeah, yeah, we can see it. I'm sorry. So here's this area. This is my catcher right here. This is where the pedestrian trail... This is the area that was the potential solids from a while ago where solids were laid and applied.

And you can't put these on top of that?

I think there would be a little bit more hoops that we would have to jump through, but we've not explored that yet. When they were applied here, classified might be a generous word, so we might have to do some work here.

They were unclassified.

All right, so the site on 113 Old Carters Creek Pike used to be one of our potable distribution tank sites. The pros, obviously, that it's access to Carters Creek Pike. Utilities are available, and it's also a gated property, too. The cons are that it's proximity to other uses. There's residential houses all around there.

One thing that helps with that site as well that we'll just add is that we've got our existing compost site nearby, probably about a half mile away, so that gives you a sense that those could work together to make the product more valuable.

Yeah, that is the intent. So if we were to use Carters Creek, that we would also keep the Incinerator Road facility open. So the processing would occur on Incinerator Road, and then this would just be used for storage. So thank you for clarifying that.

Go ahead, Alderman Caesar. I didn't call Alderman Caesar on this.

Oh, I didn't know if Alderman Barnhill wanted to go before me. Yeah, I think I've got... Does the biosolids eventually need to land on Incinerator Road in order to finish and produce the composting product?

So all of the equipment and all of kind of the windrows and the aeration that Todd has is already on Incinerator Road. So that's where we would start. That's where we would haul solids from the Claude Yates facility to that place. And then we would just have the short, once they get mixed and aerated and there's enough of the detention time, then we would move them to store at the Carter's Creek site.

So when Michelle referred to Todd, Todd is Todd King, who manages the city's compost site. It's not a governmental abbreviation. It's a person. So just want to make sure you know. Certainly could be. Some of us know who that is. He's a wonderful guy. Does a fantastic job learning that compost operation. And that the combination of those materials together is what we think could be attractive to the market.

The step in all of this is going to Incinerator Road. then that then it is truck bus whatever to a different location and then and what we're looking at here is the 113 would is one of those locations is that what is that what you're well there would

There would potentially be a couple different options. Depending on if you were to select one of these other locations and the size of it, the entire composting facility could move there. That's not what we've not evaluated that yet. If that's the direction that you would like me to move, then we can look at those phases.

You've got 50-something acres off of Mack Hatcher. Before you get to Hillsborough Road, depending on which, going west, you've got 50-something acres there. Not all of that is in, probably most of it, the biggest portion of it is probably in the floodplain. What does that do to this operation then, if you wanted to go to that location?

Are you, when you say back hatcher, do you mean the one, this one at the plant or the one that's by the church?

I mean the one by the church.

This one right here?

You can't operate this facility in the floodplain. Okay, all right. You cannot. So then that's not a legitimate orange circle there then?

You'd have to separate out the small portion that is out of the floodplain. Okay.

It's about five to six acres. So Carnage Creek right now is about two usable acres, I believe. Is that right? Three usable acres? Okay, Mark Hilty is correcting me. But if we combine that with Incinerator Road, which I think is two or three? Six. Okay, I am way wrong. We could look at that. I could look at the site that's obviously the one that's right behind the plant. The first one right here would be fantastic is proximity to the plant. But I don't know that that's in the board's wishes.

Well, let me just make maybe one statement or two. What the board is looking at, I think, is two objects, two items for two locations. And if we let the alliance go to 113 Carter Street right, you and the area have to tell us where you think the second location is. It's not necessarily, I mean, I don't mind looking and picking, but I want to know what, if we decide that that's the location, where are you going for the second location then? You understand what I'm saying?

We're walking through options with you now.

Fine. Okay.

Can I ask a question? Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. So you mentioned storage. What does that look like, storage? Is it in something?

Yeah.

So explain storage, please.

Yeah. So storage is inside one of those. I don't want to. What's it? It's concealed. How about your next slide? Yeah, like a two-sided, either a two-sided storage or a three-sided storage that would be covered.

Like ice, like we do with salt.

Yes, that's a good description, yes. So just some cheap prefabricated buildings that we could put up that we could keep it dry, right? Because that's the whole point of the product being blended. So one of the things that we've also looked at is that a lot of places that we look at, like sod farms and other harvesting places, don't want solids throughout the year. They want a bunch at harvest time or when they're getting ready to seed the fields, right? So that's our problem, is that what do we do with the solids in that interim time period to keep them all together?

All in Brown. Understanding this, other than right at the plant, every option would require keeping incinerator because you don't have enough land area and so you'd be trucking down to come right back up on a few of these options.

Probably, yes.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, every option except for... Every option requires a trucking except for Carters Creek going back and forth unless you build it at the point. Yeah.

Is there any rule or any law or anything that says we have to stay within the confines of the city limits?

There is not. For property? I mean, I think it would just... It probably makes sense, you know, fuel-wise, but I don't think there's any rule that says that, no.

I mean... You'd have the consideration of purchasing property when we're looking at property we own at this point.

Yeah, right, right. But also... Yeah, I was just wondering if there was something close to the city limits that was available as well that might... And you're saying we need probably, for something like this, we'd do it two-sided or...

Excuse me a second. Why don't you go to the next slide, because everybody keeps talking about a building and a building.

There you go. But you're talking about two-sided. You're not talking about an enclosed building. No. Just something sheltered.

Yeah, just a shelter to keep the rain weather off of it.

So we'd have to build something like that and get some land, but how many acres would we actually need total? to make this work and to not be out of land in a year or two or five.

I'm going to stop you right there, if I might, because I think some of these questions you're asking, if Michelle can continue with her presentation, you're going to answer.

Oh, I thought she was finished. I'm sorry. She's not.

Yeah, sure. So we did a very preliminary site design here, so a build out of two of two clear span buildings to allow for covered storage of the mixed material. An office place closest to utilities, so we say an office, but it's really just somewhere to house paperwork or some sort of transactional exchange. The white boxes are the, so we would have the piles of those, that would be the storage, and then the blue area would be the growth and expansion, so being able to grow the facility. And this is where the existing compost facility on Incinerator Road would be maintained and then the Carter's Creek site would be just for storage of the material. So the site, so just getting into this, I know that Kevin has talked about this quite a bit. So water and sewers accessible, sewers obviously across the street. There is an ATMOS, there's a natural gas line on the front part of that property that is easily workable. It is a gated property and we already own the property. So just in general, kind of our, we are looking at about, it's about $250,000 per year. for an acre of land inside the city is kind of a general rule of thumb that we've looked at. So estimated increase in compost storage capacity would be about 55%. The initial investment would be about 285. So we did talk about removal of the water tank storage facilities. So the initial capital cost can be offset in three to seven years with the cost diversion from non-landfill costs. So we, if you remember that slide before, it's about $350,000 in landfill cost, right, that we said just a year. So we would be able to divert that cost and recoup some of that initial capital outlay. The potential increase in operating expenses depended on the new plan of operations. So we do recognize that there may be another employee or additional equipment, but that's really hard to determine at this point. And then We did not calculate an increase in revenues because it's really dependent on customer demand. We've had great success in getting rid of the product that we've generated thus far. We've had some folks who have just come in, they get trailers and trailers full. Not residents, but these are more farmers is a better word. So the action items that we're working on right now to kind of continue this is we have a composting user survey to understand the demands of the blended material. So as someone purchases compost, we have a QR code where they could take a survey and be like, hey, would you consider biosolids in your material? We're anticipating a similar purchasing methodology, similar to how compost is purchased right now, so either online with vouchers, and then you bring the voucher to the compost facility. Currently selling in bulk, but there's the potential for bagging it. I know that that was a question that was asked as well. Taylor and I next week have a call with DC Water. That's the last line that I have. They produce a product called Bloom. So they have DC Water has the largest can be installation in America. They produce, they bag their solids and similar, you know, they have a woody blend and a sandy blend. So very similar to our blended and non-blended compost that we have right now. They bag it and they sell it to residential and landscaping as well. So that could be, that's obviously a little bit more in depth than we're going right now, but it could definitely be a pathway that we end up at some point. So this is the end, so happy to answer any more questions.

Alderman Potts. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think the question we're being asked is, how interested are we in exploring putting the biosolids somewhere in one of the potential sites as Carter's Creek Pike? And how much more direction do we need to give Michelle and her team to move forward one way or the other?

Yes, sir. Thank you. I did have just a clarifying question for you. You said that approximately $250,000 is what the value is per acre. On slide nine, when you show the site design, remind us how large is that site

So this is about, so this is a three acre site. This is a three acre site with about two acres of usable land.

So it's three quarters of a million dollars then.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Alderman Brown. Almost two different things here. One is you support a transitional housing project and if somebody was bringing us a transitional housing project somewhere, we would have that discussion and But we also have a taxpayer asset that may have a use but could also be somewhere else. And so the answer is I don't know that I have enough information to know do you haul from here back to here? What's that cost? And I think before we can say that this taxpayer asset should be used for one thing versus another thing, I think I have to know more. I think I have to know. if you were to haul from a plant to an incinerator road to here versus building a whole new facility and a whole new incinerator road at the plant. I mean, I just don't know that I can make that decision on an asset that we have. We don't have a lot of these assets, quite frankly. And I think that's the bigger decision, a bigger decision on what you would use a taxpayer asset like that for. And so not to further delay a project like this, but I think we have to know a whole lot more to rule out which of these assets would make the most sense for sure. So yes, I need more.

I don't even know how to tell you at this point. And I think the question is, is there enough interest for us to continue with a lot of questions?

The answer is we have to find a place for it because I think we've all committed. We've already said, I mean, we built the facility to do it. We've already committed that we're going to do it. So yes, we've already made the commitment. Where are we going to put it is the next logical question. I think you've already said there's a couple places that we absolutely cannot do it. And so if we're going to use land that we already own and not go out and buy land, which seems silly to me, then I think we need to understand where the best possible land that we already own is. That's my two cents. Alderman Caesar.

I think we don't have to do this. We could continue to hold it and spend $300,000 or $400,000 a year to do it. But I do have a question about that. The objective you talked about earlier, Michelle, was that we could get it to 95% dry before we make it this meaningful, valuable soil replication. And are we getting it to that level before we haul it? Because how dry is it before we haul it? Do we know?

I'm sorry, before we haul it to the compost or before we haul it away?

The landfill.

Before we haul it away, yes.

Okay, good.

Wait, I think I said you wrong.

Yeah.

So it is hauled to the landfill right now at 21 to 23% solids. So that means that there's- 80% water.

Yes. And we're paying to dispose of liquid. Maybe it's not water. Correct. Yeah. Water's heavier. So the drying piece could reduce some of the cost of moving it to the landfill. I think it's silly to take something that can be reused and throw it in a landfill if we can have a meaningful purpose with it. And what you're asking for is to say which of these orange dots we think is the most appealing. I agree with Alderman Brown. We don't necessarily have all the information because I think At least one of the dots in my mind is an absolute no-go, and that's the one that is surrounded by a ton of floodplain, because I can't think of a better or a worse situation for us to put mobile soil alongside a river and have the potential for a flood to come up and carry some of this downstream. So I would, if you're looking for clear guidance, I don't think the parcel, the 50 acres that has five or six acres of usable non-floodplain land is a good and prudent use of it. It's the one that is in the top left, if you will. I also am not a big fan of putting it in the treed area in Harlinsdale's. There are horse trails that are used back there by people. I think people like the natural aspect of it. And if we're going to fence this area and put solids there, you've already identified the areas that cause some concern for me. There's no utilities there. We'd have to build and place utilities, which adds substantial cost to get the piece up. And then you build... the structure, whatever that structure looks like, and then you have traffic kind of bringing it in and out. Where there's not, I would question what improved road would support trucks carrying tons of biosolids material to either of these locations. So if you're looking for more direction, I'd probably move those off, and then it focuses us a little bit more. So I hope that helps.

Thank you. I think one question I might have for you is whenever we were going through the integrated water resource plan and we visited to look at the biosolid treatment processes, we looked at a place that was drying it and it had an arm that kept it circulated and so on. I think we should be looking at that also if you're looking at some kind of storage facility or at least part of that equation to look at it.

That facility looked a lot kind of like a greenhouse.

It was the solar dryer, yes.

It had a solar component, but it looked a lot like that. It had a mechanical piece, but it also was assisted greatly by the sort of the plexiglass or the ability to bring the sun part. Which would keep the smell out, which is why it was enclosed. Yes, yeah, that helped.

I'm sorry, Vice Mayor. I think just looking at these options, I agree with what most of the aldermen have said. I think if we're going to do this homegrown, then the Carter's Creek makes the most sense right now, based on what everyone said. But just doing – I think there's so much – there's a ton of opportunity. I mean, I think you – we all realize – I don't know that we know the scale of the revenue opportunity yet. I don't know how far we – how far away we are from getting – doing an RFP or something. I mean, if someone knew that they could get 5,700 tons of our waste – I think that is a very, and that can make all of this kind of a non-issue because they probably want to take into their place. Or there's a whole business model out of that. So I do think if we're going to do this homegrown that Carter's Creek makes the most sense. But I mean, just some rough math, I'm not going to share it because, you know, sometimes a fat finger is zero or something like that. But I do think it's a substantial revenue possibility, and we really need to prioritize if we're ready to take this kind of out to market. But just see what the... And that might be why you're having the call and all those things, just exploring. But, I mean, millions of dollars potentially.

Let me just add to that a little bit. Part of what we've learned in the market, though, is that it needs to be drier than it is now. We can't just... haul it to that, somebody's just not going to take that highly liquid substance and that's going to work for them. They generally need it drier, a higher, and so that's where this storage, laying it out, allowing it to dry, that process in the mix with the existing compost helps us get it to a better state that is more attractive to the market. So you're right, but it has to have some lead time between when we produce it initially to when it's at a state that is more attractive to the agricultural market.

And then would there be a public-private partner, too, to get it to the scale that makes sense for them? For us, can these two parcels do it? Or could one parcel do it? I think those are all questions that we all are exploring this now.

Right. We need more capacity because the existing compost site is pretty well at its maximum. So that's just going to be something. And we're storing it there now.

We are not. We are composting. But I mean, it goes, I mean, but if people don't bring it.

It's going to a landfill for the most part, or we'll get somebody that will accept it.

Yeah, as soon as we make it, like we'll make one or two loads a month just to see so we can run some samples. And as soon as we can make it, it's gone.

But that's when it's processed with the compost?

With the compost, correct.

So you're taking it from the plant to the...

The compost facility. And it's just a load, so it's not a tremendous strain on them. Got it, okay.

And that helps reduce the... Make it more solid. Right. And that's more attractive to these end users.

The other piece, if I may, the amount we produce in a year is on a relatively low scale. So you look at Nashville, and it's very difficult to get a broker to to work with us in order to sell it. So that's also one of the issues.

That makes sense. All right, I've got, I want to wrap up so there's time before the next meeting. I've got Alderman Blanton.

Go ahead, Alderman Blanton. So my perspective is if we can make it happen by the water treatment plant, that makes the most sense. I would like to explore the opportunity there so we know Because then you're getting trucks off the road. Everything's happening in one area. You're having all your employees dedicated to a mission in one area. Does Todd have the opportunity or the ability to move his operation in the same place? To me, that's what I would explore so we know. I mean, Incinerator Road, in my mind, is closer to where this 113 Carters Creek Pike, but it's still a little bit of a... It's not a great drive to get up to where Todd is.

Well, especially from Claude Yates.

Yeah, but I mean, even bringing it, whatever. So I would want to know, to me, my main objective would be to see if we can move everything over by the water treatment plant, whether we explore the greenhouse opportunity, drying it more, working with Todd, to see... And then we know, and then we can retrofit a different one. But to me, having it all under one area makes the most sense. Especially when we know that Aldersgate Way, with our other property we own, probably won't ever be developed because there's so much wetlands. So, now, the opposite of that is, when you talk about Carter's Creek Pike, it's backing up to Vulcan. I mean, so which is the better opportunity? I would rather see it drawn out, if it works... More so than spitballing it and really putting it all under one roof, so to speak. Just thoughts.

I think Alderman Potts has said he doesn't want to speak now. All right, you've got one minute, Alderman.

First of all, I was interested to see how far Harlinsdale Farm, that that area is even away from horse trails. I have no idea. I have no idea how that's situated. I'd like to know that. Brandy was talking about that area over Aldersgate. I think we originally had like 10 acres that were, eight to 10 acres that was out of the floodplain. So we have six. So six is sufficient and plenty, I think, for what we need. And I totally agree with you. I think it makes more sense to be right there by the water treatment plant. And then, again, we never said how many acres we really do need, but I would think six, five would be sufficient. I don't know. And then I'm interested where this bloom is located. How would we work with somebody like that? I mean, do we have companies nearby who would work with us who would want to buy this?

Yeah, so D.C. Can you bring that back to us? Yeah, we can bring back some numbers. I mean, that's from D.C. water, so that's all of D.C. creating those solids.

Okay, if we could have that information, too. Sure.

All right, we're going to shut this down, and we'll see you back at 7 o'clock.