Boma - workshop

for September the 8th, 2026 for the Board of Mayor and Alderman meeting. We're going to call the meeting to order and we're going to call the roll. Alderman Barnhill. Here. Alderman Blanton.

Here.

Alderman Caesar. He's here. He's here somewhere. Look underneath the desk. Alderman Peterson.

Peter.

Alderman Berger.

Present.

There's Alderman Caesar. Alderman Brown. Present. Alderman Potts. Present. And Vice Mayor Baggett.

Present.

And the Mayor's present. So everybody's here. Great. We're going to go to, I have no citizen comments on, or any items not on the agenda, so we'll go straight to Annual Development Services Advisory Commission Update, and I think we've got the Chair here with us, Ben Crenshaw.

Mayor Moore, council members, planning commissioners, thank you for your time. This is the yearly update for the Development Services Advisory Commission this year. And I want to thank Alderman Brown especially for being a part of the commission. And we've had great participation so far this year. And I don't know who is, if I'm doing this. We welcome, we have a pretty good cross-section of members from architects, planners, landscape architects, people from the private sector, public sector, and we've been really well attended this year. We're welcoming one new member who is actually here tonight. Victoria, if you want to raise your hand if you're in here. There she is. Victoria McCoy, this is her first meeting and first meeting last week, so we welcome her. Meetings are held at the Eastern Flank Advisory Area event facility first Tuesday. We take four months off, but if y'all ever have a question or concern, we have plenty of time to hear you. We'd love to see your faces and happy to add you to the agenda. If you ever want to reach out to me, if you have a concern of anything that we're doing, just let me know. So far, this project's in progress. We've provided feedback for the Franklin Development Dashboard, which is a really useful tool if you all haven't looked at it. And even for the members of the public, it's a very useful tool to see what's going on in Franklin. We've been providing some guidance for the format and implementation of the development customer survey that's going to be conducted, which will be a really great feedback that the staff will be getting from the development services community. We're providing guidance on the recent state law changes. Staff has been extremely helpful in helping us understand react to give some advice on how to react to the new changes in state law. Provided feedback and recommendations on the city's process for sureties and parkland impact fees, which is really streamlining the city's processes. And we've provided feedback on the city's amended construction plan review fees. As I said, we're welcoming a new member. We're working with staff on the development customer survey. Ongoing discussion and analysis of the city's development process. We've invited developers and people in the community to come. We've done our own informal surveys, but also we're open invitation for all of those in the development community how to make the development services process a little more fluid. And then we're supporting the city staff to ensure quality and development growth. We're not asking for any resources. I hope that's not a surprise for y'all. And then we'd love to have any questions. And again, this is an open dialogue where we have had a quorum, I believe, at every meeting, say maybe one. So we've had great participation and always look for any input from you guys. So that's it for me.

Alderman Brown. Well, first of all, thank you. Doing a fantastic job chairing this group. You know, I think I just would say two things, Mayor. One is I think it's a timely that we're talking about this now because we're going to talk later on in the work session about some new state policies around Predictable processes and the reason that this committee really largely exists is to make Franklin a more predictable and consistent process and the second part of that is it's not just about Development and in terms of large-scale development and developers, but it's homeowners building pools and Putting on decks we talked about all of that kind of stuff anybody who enters into Permit processes and all that are things that we've talked about not only making sure that the process is easy and understood, but that there's high satisfaction coming out of it, and as you've seen from the development reports, we have high satisfaction scores, and people consistently say that Franklin is one of the easiest places and most consistent places to work from, and I think that has a large part to do with the committee that you've put together, Mayor, and the reason that this exists.

And I would agree with somebody that works across the country. Franklin is predictable, professional staff, and it's held as a really high standard across the country.

I would just say to the board, if there's other friction areas we've addressed, I know we've tackled things like fire safety and all that too, but if there's other areas that you hear of that we should tackle as a committee, I would ask you to send that on and we'll continue to look at other areas where there may be friction. Thanks, Mayor. Alderman Berger.

I would just say thanks, Ben, by the way. I'm really very appreciative of this commission that was formed years ago, because before we had that, the word predictable was not so predictable. And we sort of smile and chuckle a little bit about that, but there were areas for improvement in predictability and smoothness and getting it done and working on that commission and addressing some of those really helped our administration and our staff to help develop those with you all through the years. So it's been very, very important and I think this is an extremely important commission that we have going forward as well because it makes our city more desirable to work with rather than to, you know, butt heads or find that things, you know, don't move and progress as well as they should. And y'all have worked very hard with our city administrator and staff to get that done. And I just really appreciate the commission.

Thank you. I'll pass that along.

Yeah, it's very helpful.

Amen to that. So we'll go on. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, everyone. Item two is ordinance 2025-19, an ordinance to rezone 20.33 acres from a state residential district. In the light industrial district, the plan PD 9.2 per 75,000 district property located east of Franklin Road north of Harpeth Industrial Court located at 318 Franklin Road, 1117, 1121, 1123 Harpeth Industrial Court, Harpeth Village PUD subdivision established public hearing on October 13th.

Joey. I would like to take these two next two items together. They're the same development plan. Sure. That's great. Take some remarks. Yeah, so this is for the Harpeth Village PUD subdivision, both the rezoning and the development plan for this brand new mixed-use development. The buildings range from two to three stories and includes 187 multifamily units and 75,000 square feet of non-residential space for commercial, retail, restaurant, etc., So this property is within the Factory District design concept as outlined in Envision Franklin. This concept or this area really revolves around the landmark that is the factory at Franklin. So the proposed uses for this area include vibrate uses that would complement the factory and also extend to Harpeth Industrial Court, which is where this project is located. So key characteristics of the district should include high-quality architecture, plaza, outdoor dining areas, public art, tree-lined streets, and pedestrian and bicycle amenities. Division of Franklin further states that uses along Harpeth Industrial Court should be a mix of local, commercial, light, industrial, institutional, and multifamily on upper floors. So established light and industrial uses are encouraged to remain, and uses related to arts and culture are also encouraged. So overall the plan does meet the recommendations of the Factory District. They are also providing walking trails for that hill just north of the Harberth Industrial Court as well as signage interpreting that area's history and importance during the Civil War. And with this plan there are four modifications of standards. The first three relate to signage. MOS number one is to permit irregularly shaped signage. This has been brought up in the past and been approved by the board in previous requests. MOS number two is to allow one canopy sign per tenant and allow signage to extend above or below the canopy. MOS number three is request to allow one vertical blade sign per commercial mixed-use building where residential exists and permitted if other hanging signs are present. MOS number four is to do with the requesting to have buildings to front at an angle from the road. This is going to be limited to just one building in the plan, and part of the conditions of approval is to really kind of show how they're going to upgrade that plaza space, make it open for pedestrian use. So overall, STEP is recommending approval with conditions, both the rezoning and the development plan. The majority of this property also lies within the historic preservation overlay. So the plan has received a preliminary certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Zoning Commission and they have reviewed the MOS request as well. So we are recommending approval of the plan as well as all four of the MOS requests. We are recommending approval with conditions of MOS number four just to hash out some additional language to get that further defined. So happy to answer any questions.

I do have a speaker, but go ahead, Alderman Brown. Go ahead. You can do that first. Mr. Reeder, come on up.

Thank you, Mayor. My name is Drake Reeder. I'm a landscape architect and land planner at Kimley Horn. I just wanted to talk a little bit about this project. I also have 906 Studios with us tonight. Meredith from there is going to talk a little bit about architecture. I'll try to keep it brief because I know we've talked about this project. For us, it's been a long process, nine months. at Historic Zoning Commission to get that preliminary recommendation for massing and scale of the site. I printed out a handout because some of the architecture comments will be easier to see through looking at them on the page. The first page is a master plan that kind of shows this mixed-use development. And I wanted to echo a little bit of what Joey said about the key characteristics of the factory district, although you all probably don't need it because a lot of you all are very instrumental in creating that. But high-quality architecture, plazas, outdoor dining, art, tree-lined streets, and pedestrian... and bicycle amenities, and I just wanted to talk tonight about some of those qualities that we feel like are are important to the overall plan. It's about 20 acres. We're preserving a little over eight acres. Not only have we gone to the Historic Zoning Commission, we also went to the Franklin's Charge to present to talk about The Redan there on the hill, which was facing north, our client had a historian go out there and do a metal detector survey looking for items on the hill, and we presented that in the past about what they found. We were able to meet with Friends of Franklin Park, Battle of Franklin Trust, and Franklin's Charge to get letters of recommendation to how we're gonna preserve and honor this hill. It is a conditional development plan to make that hill a park and amenitize it in a way. You'll see all the buildings here. It's a mixture of for sale and for rent product. About one third of the 187 units are for sale condos and then 75,000 square feet of commercial. And those are intended to be Kind of like what the factory and Jamison Station were, that style commercial that we don't have as much in Franklin anymore. And that kind of got, as the factory has changed and as Jamison Station has become full, those are the type businesses that we would like to see promoted here. So Meredith, do you want to come up and talk a little bit about the architecture?

Hi, as Drake said, I'm Meredith Buchler. I just wanted to briefly go over kind of the style of architecture and how we've designed this development. So if you turn to page two, it kind of gives you a little bit of a bird's eye view of the development. You can see the first building has kind of an industrial two-story look, but still has a gable, so it's you know, a nod to the residential. The longer building against the railroad tracks, that one has kind of a more traditional character, and we'll get into that in some of the later pages. And then there's a small two-story retail in the center that's more industrial, and then a more industrial building towards Carpet and Industrial Road and leading towards the factory, and that's kind of how the buildings evolve throughout the site. So if you turn to the next page, it gives you a little more character of the building, the longer building along the railroad tracks. This is the one we had quite a few meetings with historic zoning about, and they were very sensitive to the scale and massing. So we have a lot of step downs, two to three story kind of masses here, and then changing that character as it moves along the streetscape because it is kind of three longer elevations and varying the window style and as well as the parapets, providing some gables and some kind of flat parapets along this elevation. And you can also see the plaza in front of this as the street bends that Drake was referencing earlier. And then the next three pages just kind of show more of a head-on view of what the center buildings look like. And then we're transitioning down to the south towards the factory. Well, the next slide, page seven, just shows that center retail building and the small one to two story scale there because it is sensitive to Morningside Drive that's adjacent to the property. Page eight also shows that transition there with the two-story building and then the longer three-story traditional residential elevation. And then page nine shows the very south building along Harpen Industrial and how that relates to the factory and the more industrial architecture there. and how we've kind of stepped that building. We're dealing with a lot of grade for this building, so we're stepping that down as the grade kind of moves down the street.

Joey, are you able to show these slides up there? We don't have those.

Oh, you don't have the pages?

We have the pages. She just wanted to see them on the... Oh, I'm sorry.

And then... Page 10, which is getting towards the end, sorry.

You'll refer to the page that would be helpful.

Yes, sir. Page 10 shows the southernmost building, three stories, and this one we've kind of pulled that back to create a plaza, and this is really intended to maybe include some artwork as well as have some restaurant indoor-outdoor space and really have a nice character of the plaza there.

Which building is that?

That is the southernmost building along Harpeth Industrial. Drake can kind of point to where that's showing and creating that plaza. So the idea there is that this building relates to kind of the longer building along the railroad tracks there, but is also relating to the character of the factory. I'm going to turn it back over to Drake.

Just a couple of comments on the modification standards. The first one being the irregular shape signs. We found that a lot of our tenants like the ability to have a little bit of flexibility with their signs. The second and third modification have to do with canopy signs. Currently the zoning ordinance doesn't allow, they allow one per, building facade. And if we're going to have multiple tenants, our request is that we're allowed to have a canopy sign per retail and tenant or commercial tenant. Could be retail, could be F&B, food and beverage. And then the other modification is for it to extend below or above the canopy. These were two of the ones that were vetted through Historic to review. They just said that we can bring them a COA packet for signage, which we'll have to do before we can get a final COA. So nothing that's shown in here necessarily means that we'll get it approved through Historic, but it grants us the ability to bring it before them. And then the vertical blade sign is not allowed as long as there's any other hanging signs. And we wanted to modify that so that there could be one in a mixed-use building when there's residential above so that we can highlight both the retail tenants, they have their signage, and the residential neighborhood there. And then the last is what Joey talked about, and that's this building here. that's not technically parallel to this road. And so this is the building we're asking for modification standards so that we can activate this plaza. And I think Joey's comment was providing more language about how the activation will occur. But we think that's important to create this moment as you're coming off of this street from Harvard Industrial and Franklin Road. I think it could be a special moment for the developer. And with that, we're here to answer any questions.

Not a lot of question on the design because I think I've seen enough of that. My question really is around Franklin Road and what required road improvements are required from this development on Franklin Road. Do we have that? Do we know that at this point? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Yeah, so as part of the plan, there were traffic analysis and road impact improvements. I would just have to defer to our engineers to see what specifics, because again, I just wasn't part of those conversations, so.

I can show a little light on that. So we are required to extend the three-lane section that's currently on Franklin Road to Harpeth Industrial all the way north to our new entry off of Franklin Road. We'll be creating a right end northbound to our site entry off Franklin Road. So we'll create that full three-lane section there with a designated right turn lane. Coming from the north, Franklin Road, we'll be installing a right turn lane onto Harpeth Industrial Court. And then at Harpeth Industrial Court on Franklin Road, there will be a left straight lane as well as a right turn lane. And then... I believe we'll create that three-lane section all across the frontage of our site along Franklin Road, which is that full build-out of the three-lane section of Franklin Road.

Down to the church?

Down to our property line there.

What's your assumption on traffic flow? Are you assuming most traffic's coming through the factory, or are you assuming most coming in? Because right now, factory hits most of their traffic off of Franklin Road. This could potentially mean that that entrance into this development takes the brunt of most of that traffic now, as opposed to hitting all the way down to Liberty. And so I'm thinking that maybe that extension of that three lane to the church may or may not be sufficient, especially for stacking if we think, in fact, this is going to bear more of the traffic flow coming in off of Mack Hatcher from Franklin Road. We've had some time now to watch traffic flows. We've had some time now to watch how traffic is flowing in and out of the factory. It's not coming from Liberty Pike from Mack Hatcher. It's coming Franklin Road still. Do you have statistics, or that's just... Well, we're seeing it from the parking perspective, especially. This is where they're stacking up in there. And so I would want to... We can certainly measure that, but we're seeing it where we're seeing the biggest parking burden. And so I would think we would want to make sure that we're... understanding where that traffic is coming in and whether or not we have enough stacking room, enough room coming off of Franklin Road. There are houses coming down off of Harlinsdale Court, for example, still not able to get out on a lot of days on weekends.

We were not allowed to take into account the future connections to the factory. which there are three with the development plan, that will be future when industrial Harpeth, the south side, develops. So our traffic study had to take into account if that never happens, what improvements will be required in order for this development to be able to move forward. I think From a regional perspective, when that happens, there will be a lot more cross-access between the two instead of using Franklin Road, but we weren't able to run that study because they don't exist today. And so Jimmy and David said, let's not run that for now and not review it as if there's any traffic that's kind of cutting through the factory off to Liberty Pipe.

Okay. So this assumes all of it's coming off of Franklin Road. Mm-hmm. Or Harpeth Industrial. That's right, yeah.

Alderman Potts, and then I'll get Alderman Caesar. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I did have just a follow-up question as I was trying to follow along in the packet, and I may have miscounted just based on how the balcony and the canopies are looking, but are any of these buildings exceeding three stories? No, they are not. So it's just three stories with a pitched roof on some, and that elevation is not going to exceed any of our, we'll say any other historic buildings that are in the area, correct?

Historic was very clear about our... Heights being below the factory 42 11 I believe is what the factories height was so a lot of our massing and scale has been to Take some of those three stories down to two and recess them to create a little more variation so that it's not a full full three stories along there so that did go into into play when when 906 was designing the architecture and

For sure. Thank you for the clarification on that. And then one other question, and this is for staff. Since this is currently in a zone to state residential and light industrial, I know previously this board has talked about restricting vape shops and such to light industrial, changing this to planned district. Does that allow for vape shops in this area, or is it because of the historical area that we're in, it's going to prohibit them.

So as part of the development plan, they do have a list of proposed or I guess authorized uses and light industrial uses is part of that list because part of the factory district design concept is to keep the light industrial that's already existing on Harvath Industrial. So I guess it is theoretically possible to have I guess the vape shop as a light industrial use within this list of uses that's for this putt in particular. So whether it's rezoned or kept as is?

That is possible? Yes. Okay. The last question that I've got regarding the zoning is, as the gentleman shared, these could be both for rent or for purchase. Do we have any, regarding the zoning, could you comment on any short-term rentals such as VRBOs, things such as that, if that would be an option for this? It would not be.

Okay. Because they have to be owner-occupied, so with the multifamily housing type, it's kind of impossible to do. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Thank you.

Holden Caesar. Thank you, guys. My question is, I think these have already been discussed, but just to restate for the public, parking garages are going to be inside of these buildings. They're essentially parking garages that are wrapped with the buildings.

That's correct.

On the south and kind of the northeast section. And then while I can understand the frustration that staff can't project what happens if the property below you, between you and the factory, is acquired and... Is there connectivity there? That doesn't mean that we're not intentionally planning for the likelihood that connectivity could be there in the future, right?

That's correct. And our road connection onto Harpeth Industrial takes into account where that connection is currently on the factory's plat.

If we think about rezoning this, which is kind of what we're discussing right now, one of the main things that kind of pops into my head is traffic. And Alderman Brown was talking a little bit about it. I think we probably have a little disagreement on how most of the traffic is getting to the factory. But the reason I think that maybe that disagreement exists for me is because not only can people not get in maybe as easily off of Franklin Road, they certainly can't get out of the factory on Franklin Road. And because of that, I think most of the traffic is using Liberty Pike as a way to egress and ingress that property. I worry about Franklin Road. Is there a traffic signal anticipated? We're probably too close for it to be merited, but is there a traffic signal as part of your... projection or as part of your impact?

Not at Franklin Road and Harpeth Industrial. We studied multiple scenarios with Jimmy and David. We looked at a couple of different options of because it's so close, if we did a roundabout, which It was just a study to make sure that that is something that we could, if we wanted to propose it. We projected, based on our density, what could happen along Harpeth Industrial. So we went above and beyond and did an extra study with them about if this whole property were to develop out, whole property meaning all of Factory District along Harpeth Industrial, what would merit a light. Our development does not trigger a light there at the factory, or sorry, at Harpeth Industrial and Franklin Road. I will say factory in the works right now are installing the light there at Daniels Drive. Daniels Drive was one of the intersections studied with a future build out of the light there along Liberty Pike and Daniels Drive. So once that gets realigned, I think that will help. Some it's hard to tell right now because they're in the middle of construction, but that is planned in the immediate future.

I just would express my frustration, I'm sure as a future potential visitor to this location, that you only are able to turn right because traffic would almost prevent you from turning left. And to make the block there is a huge way around, right? You go to Mack Hatcher and you take Mack Hatcher all the way around to Liberty to make the block. So I worry about public safety and transitioning this without, and maybe the third lane does that, but I would just want us to be intentional about how people who want to go south would get out of this property.

And we have committed to, we're prepping the intersection for a light so that the next development along Harpeth Industrial is the easier process to install that. So we're working through our share of how to best account for the future growth of Harpeth Industrial Court.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you. So we're really seeing the It's very important for a few reasons. We're seeing the future of hardwood industrial take shape. And what is it going to look like? Because make no mistake, the highest and best use if this happens is not going to be light industrial anymore. And so we've got a, I've said this, I said this in the zoning ordinance, we were updating it at Vision Franklin, we've got a light industrial, in my opinion, in a lot of opinions, lack of potential zoning for light industrial, and that's going to squeeze businesses. I know for a fact on this street right here, You've got light industrial buildings that are baking for donut shops. You've got a lot of different uses in here that are supporting local businesses, and we're squeezing out that use type. And it's a real concern. And you might say, oh, well, they can go somewhere else and do it. Well, yeah, but you can't forever. You can't have a city long-term without the ability to have light industrial. And this is one of our main areas now of it. And you say, oh, you can go do it in regional commerce, or you can do it off seaboard and some other places. Well, that land's getting more expensive as well. So I am a little nervous about this is the future for urban industrial, knowing how much around their supports, but that's important. This one apartment complex is not in historic zoning, so did you apply the same height standards the historic zoning applied on their portion to this? Did you keep it consistent with the other apartment complex? So, like, the three-story... its heights are in line with what historic approved. What I heard was historic said this was all okay or the heights were all right. But they didn't have the opportunity. In fact, it was all blurred out in there. They may not even know that there's a 187 unit or whatever complex. So what about the heights?

Right, so we were sensitive to that, too, and actually the grade, if you look at page 9 in this little packet here in the long elevation at the bottom here on the left side, so we actually stepped all of that down because the grade steps down so that that, I think that's like 36 feet or something like that in the smaller two-story portion, then it steps back. and it's not any taller than 4210 at any portion of this street here.

Because we were also... 4210.

That's right, because I think 4211 is the tallest at the factory, so we were like, we wanted to be below that, and we were sensitive to that for this elevation as well.

Do we know, and I would be curious what the... middle eight height was, too. You don't have to answer that off the fly.

Okay.

But I would be curious to know before the voting meeting what middle eight's height is compared to all the rest of these. The other things, you know, for me, the points on traffic and such, you know, I kind of said on this, you know, when doing a PED, we get to expand kind of what in some ways, considerations for the rezoning of a parcel. This is a developable base zoning now. We get to examine a lot of the impacts of the area. This is in line with the factory district, in my opinion. I think the uses, the way it looks, all that is in line. What I'm hung up on, and I'm hearing it from some other comments, is just the flow of traffic. and how we're jumping a line or a whole block phase of buildings that are in between the factory and this, and in doing so, yes, maybe they will one day be developed, maybe they won't, but in doing so, we're kind of creating two spaces separated by and not connected in roads or otherwise that is going to cause a lot of unintended traffic. And I'm curious to see the traffic study. I didn't see that. I'd like to have another conversation on this if I may be the only board member. But I'd like... That is so important in the success of the factory district is that these roads connect and people can get in and out of this successfully. And we do not add... I wouldn't even say unintended because it may be intended. Like the traffic is going to be what it is. We have a right to try to do this right now without doing the other side of the property. rezoning something specifically for this kind of use that is what we desired, but not anticipating or requiring that connectivity that really needs to happen. You make great points about right in and right out. And if I'm wanting to come here, but if you have that connection between the factory and And this in Harpeth Industrial, it really does solve a lot of, I think, the traffic concerns that residents will have. And I think that I've heard from the board that property is not in before us. And I understand that. I appreciate that. That isn't supposed to be under consideration. But it is because it's a PUD. And we are looking at the long term, should we rezone this property to allow for this? And we can take into consideration that Well, there's no way to get there except probably less optimal ways to get to this location. If those people up here want to go to the factory, they've got to hop in their car. They've got to go and play chicken on Franklin Road, turn left against traffic, and then they've got to – that's just – I play that chicken a lot. So that is a concern I have. It has always been a concern. It doesn't mean I don't actually, this does meet the vision of the factory district. It's a great job. I think this is what the factory district was supposed to be. But I still have that concern and would love to see it resolved. Alderman Berger.

Well, Patrick, not if you do it right. Because I hear you, and the right thing is when you want to go out and you've got to ride in, ride out, You go right in. You go right out. That's it. We get it. And here we go again. You know, I love roundabouts because I do believe they work exceptionally well when they're built right. And even if they're not, they can be mitigated. But if you drive up Franklin Road... just getting people in and out. If you want to come out and go left, you can go out and go left. You can just go round the roundabout and take a left without having to play chicken. All those things are easily mitigated if we plan correctly. We've got to start thinking outside the box when you bring things to us about these things because I think in planning, gets together better with our developers and start thinking through these things because we've got to quit stopping traffic all day long and sitting idling at these traffic lights constantly when we can be moving traffic and also mitigating and addressing these issues of right in, right out. in trying to, how do we take a left-hand turn? This would be probably an ideal area for it. The other thing is, I think somebody brought up the vape shop thing, but I think we have ordinances that say about the lighting as well. That you can't put a vape shop in there and just put all that crazy lighting that a lot of them have in these areas. I think our ordinances have been changed to address that. Right, Joey? Yeah, I think...

I believe so. I just don't know the specific language off the top of my head.

Could you check on that? Because if we need to tweak any of that, now's the time to do that. But I think I remember us addressing that, and I thought it was supposed to be changed. Yeah. Shaking her hand, yeah. And then the other thing is, you asked about the height. I did have it in my notes. 57 feet was the maximum height for the middle eight, and the lowest was 36. 36 feet and 57 max. Thanks.

Well, I really like the comments that were made. I'm totally puzzled about traffic on Franklin Road now. In fact, it's scaring me to death. You've got so many cuts coming off Franklin Road. 87 units in there. You've got businesses. I think whenever you come back whatever that is, we need a lot more detail, better diagrams so we can understand better what your vision is for this traffic. And I kind of have trouble even imagining a fire engine turning in some of these streets that you've got there. They've got some pretty funny looking angles to me. I assume that y'all have looked at that. But yeah, I just need a lot more information.

I'm at the factory six days a week, and because Market Street is closed right now for the building of the parking garage, Franklin Road is not. I don't know when you did your traffic study. It's Liberty Pike is where most people are coming in because they can't get down market and there's only one entrance in anthropology before it opened. It was all blocked off too. So that might change. I hope so because it's much better to go down marketplace to get to where I need to go than it is traversing around the factory. The other thing that I'm concerned about, Drake, is, and we do have the finished plans, if there is connectivity through Harpeth Industrial where this cord is shown or this dead end. Cul-de-sac. Cul-de-sac. That's what that thing's called. I am looking at this right here up on the screen. Okay. Thanks. So if there were to be connectivity coming across Harpeth Industrial, I don't know what's going to happen with those other properties on the south side of Harpeth Industrial. We do already have the finished plans of where the factory's hotel is going to be. I think it would be interesting to see a little bit more of an aerial so we can predict what's been approved, what's wanting to be approved, and what's in no man's land. So that there's a little bit more of a vision. We don't know what's going to happen to these properties, I have a feeling, unfortunately. I'm with Patrick. There is light industrial here that doesn't have a lot of opportunities other places. And I think it's going to be a domino effect for that. But I would like to see in the next iteration, Drake, a bigger aerial so that we have some good comps of the potential for connectivity.

All right, we need to move on. Item 4 is Resolution 2026-64, approving a revised development plan for West Haven PUD subdivision 1 modification development standard surety bonds for the property located at South Highway 96 West-West of the Board of Middle Pike. Established public hearing on October 13, 2026.

Good evening. The applicant is proposing a revision solely to request the modification of standard to allow surety bonds in lieu of irrevocable standby letters of credit. The proposed revision does not request any changes in entitlement and therefore no zoning was required. West Haven's vested within the July 1st, 2018 zoning ordinance, which does not allow for surety bonds as an option. So the applicant's utilizing the development plan revision process to go ahead and request the surety bonds through a modification of standard. Staff is not concerned with this request and recommends approval of MOS number one. FNPC and staff recommend approval with conditions of resolution 2026-64. Any questions?

Item 5, Resolution 2026-81, a resolution establishing applicant meeting attendance policy for consideration of vested rights extension request. Alderman Caesar.

Yeah, this item was brought before our board a few weeks ago by one of our concerned citizens, and I think not only was that citizen here to complain, but they were here to offer solutions. And we took that recommendation to heart and ran it through our law team, and I think the recommendations make a lot of sense. If you're here to ask for an extension of a vesting right, you should show up in person. Additionally, and equally important, not only should you ask for the extension, but you should also communicate to our staff the timeline at which you anticipate completing the next steps in those projects so that we can plan accordingly. It's not lost on me that we're issuing things like water SFUs to these different projects, and once we issue those, we can't take them and apply them somewhere else. So if someone doesn't have a plan to complete the project, they shouldn't be asking for the extension. If they don't have a plan then it would be hard for me to support issuing that extension. And for that reason, I'm grateful for our community for stepping up and making recommendations, identifying areas where we can hold development projects accountable and issue vestments extensions when appropriate, but also not place that burden on our staff to defend the vesting extension request as we've done in the past. And I don't know if there's any other questions or comments or discussions around this, but I'm grateful to present this.

Mr. Mayor, if I could, I would just add, appreciate Alderman Caesar bringing this forward and working with him on drafting this. It does help a lot because frequently you all ask questions or there's questions about why is the vesting needed to be extended, and sometimes we're pretty knowledgeable and staff can answer that, but other times it's much more... in the realm of that developer's world, whether it's financing or other topics or issues. And so we're a little bit limited about how to describe or speak to that. So I think it brings you better information directly from the most appropriate source. So I think it'll help your process significantly. And it's the kind of requirement you could put on and ask somebody to do if they're going to work with you that this is how you want to have the dialogue and help facilitate the decision. So appreciate it very much and glad to help in any way we can.

You got a question, Vice Mayor?

Go ahead. I support this. The only thing I would be curious is what we mean by describe the proposed project timeline. I don't know that we ask for that when we initially approve something. And we don't ask for, well, what's your Gantt chart for development on this? And that's kind of what I read. When I read a proposed project timeline, I think in terms of that. And so I guess I just want to make sure that we're not creating some more gray area, maybe some different language that would kind of maybe further clarify what we mean by that. Mr. Mayor, if I could. Go ahead, Alderman Caesar.

The expectation is that we're going to be needing services from the city to come online at some point, right, whether it's a new road or a new sidewalk that's going to be built, and we have to anticipate not only potentially capital investments or connectivity, and for us to say, well, sometime between now and four years from now or three years from now or potentially five years if you move dirt, we might need an adjoining sidewalk, or we might need the road widening project that's offside, outside of this to be done. I think it would be helpful, and I'm thinking back to a number of development projects that have come before us and said, hey, this is when we think phase one is going to be finished, this is when we think phase two is going to be finished, which will help us plan for everything from sidewalk connectivity to potential sewer upgrades or additional maybe police and fire restrictions or services.

I would add, I think it's a reasonable request. I see where you're going in terms of how much detail is the right amount, right balance. You are extending it up to three years. And I think it's a reasonable request to say, what's going to happen between now and then? Because you've already had a period of time where you had expected some movement. And it didn't happen to the level at which the work could continue under the original vesting. So I think that's a reasonable question. You may want to put it in the parameters of what's expected to happen within the requested vesting period. Maybe that's helpful to narrow it a little bit. I think it is a reasonable ask to get a little more detail and understand what is going to happen in the time frame you're granting it. Because you could choose to, instead of three, do two or something like that. So I think that will facilitate good decision-making for the board as well.

Alderman Caesar. I think what underlies all of this is that we're tying up resources that could go somewhere else during this three-year period. And so if someone's going to come and ask, they missed on the first, they didn't do what they said they would do, they're asking for three more years, we should potentially hold them a little bit more accountable and say, okay, you missed on the first, now tell us when things are going to start to get done so that we can plan for it appropriately as a city. I hear what you're saying, Alderman Baggett, on maybe it's a little bit too gray. And I would welcome additional shaping as this goes forward, maybe staff support and legal support. What we could put forward is a demo plan or an example plan to help them clearly communicate to us which of our resources we're going to have to turn on at what point.

Mayor. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Again, I support this. I do. But I think we need to think through, too. We have, what, 11,000 approved, not yet constructed units. You're now putting, which I'm okay with, but I think the board in the future has to really be cognizant of this. When you put a strict deadline, you actually probably will end up seeing some development speed up. It will actually probably, they will move faster. If they know that they're coming to a vesting period at three years and that we might not extend it because we're not good with their timeline, you probably would have seen more units built than the 11,000 If they knew, because the historian Alderman Barnhill said this the last time we didn't pass one, that he'd never seen us not extend a vesting. What you're going to, I think, see, one unintended consequence is probably, is that you're going to see some developments speed up faster because of the uncertainty that we might be providing in this. I'm also saying that it is adding a positive, which is that we should have some guidelines for why we extend. But I want to make sure that we're not this... We saw it with impact fees. We saw people rush in to do things to not hit the higher impact fees. I think there could be some of that, so I just think we need to be cognizant of that and understanding when they come before us because I don't think we want this to be a hard and fast deadline or else we are going to see some development speed up faster than I think we would have seen otherwise. Okay, item six is...

But I'm for it.

Also, a lot of things come into play with these vesting rights that we can't ignore the market. No one's really actually talking about that. Market plays a lot. I remember 2008, 2005 was boom, boom, boom. 2006, great boom. And then all of a sudden we went into 8. And had a recession, we had a downturn, and things limped along. Then we know what 2020 did to everything. You talk about the Wild West. That was the Wild West, 2020, 21, 22, 23. People finally started to get back at it and building back. And the financial markets play a huge play with these people. These are the risk takers. These are the people out there trying to get their loans, sign up their tenants, sign up their investors. A lot of that plays into a lot of times when they have to come back and get reinvested. So I think we have to remember and be cognizant of the fact of the market and how it plays out. So thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. All right. Item 6, City of Franklin Contract 2026H0094 with Franklin Moon Rotary for Rotary Plaza at Jim Warren Park. Any questions about that one?

I do want to acknowledge the current president of the Franklin Newton Rotary is here, Ms. Christine Wilson. She's here. I just want to recognize that she is here. Could you stand up?

It's hard to see.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

We appreciate their partnership. We're excited about the program and what is taking place at Jim Warren and it will just signify the history that that program has had in this community. So it's exciting and we'll see it come to life in October.

So how about why don't you stay right there, Lisa, and we're going to do Resolution 2026-13, approving a concept plan for Carter Hill Battlefield Park.

Can this change from here or do I have to change it from here? Okay, thank you. Let me switch gears for a second. Before you is the Carter Hill Battlefield Park. What's before you this evening is a resolution. It is not, we plan to bring this back. The resolution that's in your packet was constructed when we started the concept plan when the Battle of Franklin Trust and the Parks and Recreation Department went jointly into a concept. That kind of began the conversations about road closures, partial road closures, the amenities that would go into this park in the future. And what I heard from the Board of Mayor and Aldermen was the fact of taking a look at, of reclaiming of what this would look like in the future. And so what's before the screen this evening is just quickly September the 25th, we reclaimed that view shed by taking the depreased property. Franklin's Charge owns the property and still does to this day. We will transfer that property this year. And that demolition took place. Part of this discussion was the viewshed between the existing Carter House and the DePriest property. This gives you an idea of now that the structure has been removed of what that looks like and that we would repurpose this as the city will own both sides of the road on the battlefield within the next three months. This kind of gives you an idea of what traffic looks like. You've probably been in this, and it might be you. But it is really a trying to turn into this property or come out of Straw Street at certain times of the day is just unbearable. So our suggestion would be is to continue the sidewalk. We would close this portion. We would, as part of the master plan, as you will see shortly, the concept is to create trail systems because we did hear from the neighbors they do want a to be able to transverse through Straw Street for those that this would be a neighborhood park to get to Columbia to come downtown go to the coffee shop across the road or wherever their destination may be. This shows both concept plans together, one that KVD, Kaiser Vogren did many years ago and then the new conceptual on the property. And what we concluded as part of this master plan that should be included in the resolution is you would have park access, park access, circulation and connectivity, pedestrian ADA improvements, trail circulation, amenities such as benches or picnic tables per se, just a couple in this area for residents or visitors to the park, historic preservation considerations, road realignment and partial removal, and maybe combine some of the parcels as there's 13 individual parcels that make up Carter Hill Battlefield Park. So one of these would be is to for access circulation is we would as I was sharing just a second ago this would all be site located but we would work it would mimic what is on the current side of Carter Hill that is there today and we would meander these trails the trails will be made of the same surfacing and would age over time with that river walk that river rock brown look as we have at our historic parks. This shows you where all of the parcels are. We may not be able to combine them all into one, but we would work with our planning department to make sure that we combine as many as possible, but most people don't realize 13 actually make up the whole property. So one of the things, and I know this is hard to see, is the short-term and long-term goals for this property. So we broke those down into two things. Some would be shared as part of these goals with Battle of Franklin Trust that they would actually pay for some of these improvements and then the city of Franklin over time. and we would budget for these items if things that I could cover within the existing budget, the general fund, or we might look at hotel, motel tax in the existing budget or in the future budgets. There are some long-term goals here, and part of that would be one of the things that we shared is I met with residents and also the Reddick Senior Center. They were very kind, again, to allow me to come into their homes and share the concept plan with them. They were not in favor of Straw Street being repurposed but they did ask at this time they would like to wait until maybe the park is developed before a as they mentioned a cut through as we would have an entrance into the park so they would utilize the existing sidewalks or the new trail system in order to access the park. If they decide to come back, let's see what they would like to have and then we can reevaluate it. Granbury Street and Claiborne Street realignment project. I spoke with engineering as well as planning. This is something that there's not a specific Which way should we go here? This would probably need to be included, do a study in this area. What makes sense, what does not make sense of where the alignment should take place. We are saying where that traffic light is today and the flow of traffic, there just needs to be some consideration in what that would look like. And so there should be a focus, more of a focus study on that particular item, but not just tied into us developing the the part that's existing of the property. And then finally, we did meet the planning department as well as parts, met with the Civil War Commission on the property to take a look. If we were to repurpose the cannonballs. I know that has been part of a discussion. Because that was a commemorative type of piece of art, it was not based on something that took place there. It was placed once the piece of HUD came down. Then we could actually move that either to this site or to another site as long as it stayed within the same theme of historic. So one of the places we talked about was even with Roper's Knob is the Hillhaven property, which is the 14 acres the city will be acquiring. That might even be another location that, hey, this was part of the Civil War at that time of the Battle of Franklin Trust. We might want to consider that. Or you can leave it where it is or move it someplace on this property. But there's just a process to go through, and we do want to reuse it. It's just a point of wear. So we don't have to leave it where it is. So I'm here before you tonight to hear your concerns, your ideas or suggestions for the resolution. We will take those suggestions back and we will redraft that resolution to bring to so that we can begin to finish Carter Hill master plan. Mayor, thank you.

Thank you. Any comments, questions? I made them. We'll go on. Resolution 2026-42, resolution assigned naming rights to Bicentennial Park Pavilion.

Thank you. I would love to be as efficient as I think I am, but I am not, so let's just be. So let me switch gears again. This is such a wonderful recognition but it's also sad at the same time so I just want to share that. It's when you're assuming naming rights that means someone has passed and we're considering at Bicentennial Park to name the pavilion the Ralph E. Drury Pavilion. Ralph was part of the original leadership Franklin class that was an advocate to purchase this property when the Georgia Boot Factory was there. He also proposed it before the Board of Baron Alderman at that time, and he was just one member. This is not just about the Leadership Franklin project. This is about the many contributions Mr. Drury made within his career and his life at Ford, the city of Franklin, for this community. And I think that's important to share with you all is, yes, he had a – there was a hand in – in fact, there's a shovel that was part of this that we displayed during the leadership 30th anniversary of Leadership Franklin. But – That's before you tonight. We do have friends and family that are here with us in this audience, and we are very thankful that they chose to show their support for this resolution. This is an important piece of our history, and it's important of where it is. And so I bring this before you for your consideration.

Well, I appreciate your recognizing Rouse family and appreciate them being here. I want to recognize Alderman Blanton.

Yeah, so about three years ago, Eric, the mayor, and I got an email from Alderman Dan Klatt, who's no longer an alderman, obviously. He'd be sitting up here. Dan said, when can we name this after Ralph? Of course, we know that around here we have to wait, I guess, three years to make sure somebody's really gone. I don't know what the reason is. And so Dan sent an email this week. Has it been enough time yet? Last week. So the family, who I am friends with, of course, they're very humble people, and they're like, you know, there's other people that this could be named after. And what I tried to explain was it's really not as much just about the park itself, which is a great opportunity. If you looked at the legislative text or if you knew Ralph, This was just a dip in the bucket of the things that he did for our community. And some of those are Vintage Affair, which is still in existence today. That's raised almost $4 million for women and children charities in our community. There's Leadership Franklin. He started Mercy Children's Clinic. There's the 100 Club, which honors our policemen. So what I tried to explain, it wasn't just about Bicentennial. It was about all the things and the fingerprint that he left on our community, and this is just a prime opportunity to memorialize that. And I think it's wonderful, and I appreciate the Parks Department and Alderman Klatt

um coming up with something that i should have done myself but i am behind this 100 and i would hope that if the board approves this that whatever signage is there to name it after ralph would also include his contributions to the community which brandy just uh

Yeah, and I will say I reached out to Paula. The other people that helped with Bicentennial with Ralph were Danny Anderson, another longtime Franklin Knight that's done a lot, and then a lady in Marilyn Webb who was at the time the principal for Oakview Elementary on Hempeck Lane. So that was their project group that came up with the idea for us to make that what it is today.

Sounds good. So we'll go on to...

So, Mr. Mayor, just to be clear, we have a naming policy. And so if the board's comfortable, we'll move into that process. It does provide for an open time frame for public comment, et cetera. I think it's a 30-day... It is. So we would start that process, if you're comfortable, and then bring that back to you after we have had that time frame and then have the board take more formal action from that point on. So if you're comfortable, we'll start that process and go from there. Sounds good. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 9 is discussion concerning the inclusion of Mack Hatcher-Del Rio Pike improvements in the Mack Hatcher-Hillsboro Road intersection project.

All right, so when the board funded the last CIP and we did the financial model, you included $3,950,000 in the capital program to widen the intersection of Hillsboro Road and Mack Hatcher. And so during the initial scoping of the project, and I'll show a picture of it, We talked about what was feasible, what we can and can't do, and with the goal to try to deliver it as fast as possible given the huge delays. Sorry, not sure how that happened. The huge delays that exist at that intersection. And so I'll put it into presentation mode. And so what we were ultimately able to accomplish, and TDOT actually just recently is issuing the permit for it, was to try to get two through lanes through the intersection as you go westbound. This will reduce the queue substantially at this intersection, but during the scoping process, we had discussions of, well, where does that queue go to? And really that queue essentially ends up at Del Rio and Mack Hatcher. And so are we correcting one problem and creating another one was a lot of the discussion that we had. And so what we did was added to the scope, at least for the design only, to widen Del Rio so that the board could potentially have the option, if you choose to, to also include that project. And let me pull that up. And so again, it's the same concept of where we're putting double through lanes through the intersection to move traffic through the intersection, which is generally your choke point. And so we said, let's just go ahead and do the design. Let's get the estimate and let's take it to the board as an option. And so again, you budgeted in the capital funding model, we had $3,950,000. We're estimating each one of these projects to cost around $1,250,000. And so we can really do both of these projects for what we had initially projected in that CIP model. And so with that said, we are ready to bid. We actually have it out to bid. So if you said today you did not want to do Del Rio Pike, we would issue an amendment and remove that from the project. But our recommendation right now is to proceed with doing both of them. But of course, before we open bids and finalize that, we really need to have your approval. And again, we've been pushing this as fast as possible, just knowing that the delays that we have out there. And so we're trying to get your feedback. Our recommendation is to proceed with both. But if you certainly want to stick with one of the projects, That's what we'll do and proceed that way. And right now, as it relates to project schedule, this has had no delay. Unfortunately, we're going to hit the winter months. And so either way, this is towards the early spring is when we're hoping to have these projects done. So at this time, open up to any feedback or comments.

I would just add, you ask us in the CIP to be opportunistic. This is one of those opportunities, and we can do it within the dollars that were allocated for the one project at 2DUN, and they will work in tandem. That's to compliment engineering staff for thinking ahead and seeing how one improvement might lead to some impact literally further down the road and seeing what else we could do.

Well, I don't want to influence the board's thoughts on this, but go for it.

I was hoping you'd say that because it's out the bin. It's less paperwork. Okay, thank you.

Silly question. It probably is. Mayor, can I ask a silly question? Sure. How did we miss so badly on the original budget at $3.5 million and now each one's $1.5 million to do?

We jokingly say they're napkin estimates. You're asking us to estimate 30, 40, 50 projects, and we have to – Make worst case scenario assumptions like we're going to hit signal poles. We're going to have to relocate traffic cabinets. Now, ideally, we don't have to do that, but we generally try to overestimate.

I'm a big fan of overpromising, but I also, is there any state dollar supporting these expansions?

Unfortunately, there is no state dollars.

Okay. Local spot improvements. The good news is we do own all the right-of-way here already. There's significant grading that already happened when the project was originally done. So there are things that make this easier than a typical project in some ways. So that may help us with the cost as well.

Sounds good.

Thank you, Alderman Peterson. Put that in the record that Alderman Peterson said it sounds good. And we're going to move on to item 10, which is fire department schedule analysis.

Mayor, I'll kick this off. We have several people joining us to help speak to this tonight. One of the things that came up in our budget process was some ideas and alternatives around scheduling of our on-shift fire personnel. And so one of the commitments we made going into the fiscal year, the new fiscal year, is that this would be part of our work plan, that we would work through that, look at options, et cetera. And so we've formed a team. You see a number of the members of that team between our fire department, our Office of Budget and Performance, and our Human Resources Department to do some digging, do some more analysis, and provide you with the best objective assessment we can of what those options might be, how they might work, and what, of course, the cost implications might be. So this is the first of probably several updates you'll see in the next several months as we work through different elements of that process and we'll walk through what we've done thus far and what is to come. And we do that out of a desire to connect with you and give you an opportunity to understand where we are, what we're learning, ask questions so we know we are helping you the best way we can in terms of considering this and the options before you. But also keep the members of our Franklin Fire Department informed, and we are all about transparency as we work through complicated or challenging topics, and that's something we're working through tonight. So let me start off. We've got the presentation, and I'll touch on that. You guys okay standing? You can take a seat. Okay. Let's walk through. So what we'll cover tonight is the scope and purpose of the work that we're doing and talk about our current operational model. We've done some examination of pure cities, cities that we think have some similar characteristics to Franklin both in terms of performance expectations, bond rating, ISO rating, etc. Also look at the potential financial impact, talk about some other considerations in our next steps. So when we do this, we'll be evaluating the various schedule opportunities and options that are before us. There's a specific interest in looking at a shift to a 24-72 schedule. but there are also other options that we see used out in different fire departments, and we want to study those as well and be thinking not just about immediacy, but long-term needs, et cetera. So, you know, the outcome overall, we want it to be comprehensive. We want it to be objective analysis, fact-based, and assist you as policymakers in making the decision, understanding those implications, and thinking long-term about where we want to be. This team between FIRE and HR and our Office of Budget and Performance has met probably about three times since July. And let me touch on the members of that. So you just get a sense of the many perspectives they're trying to bring to the table to provide you with solid, objective, complete information. understanding as we look at this overall. Our Fire Chief Glenn Johnson, Assistant Chief Jonathan Jenkins, Deputy Chief Andy King, our Fire Information Systems Analyst Daniel Donegan, Captain James Gamble, Engineer Alex Enochs, and our Fire Department Fiscal Manager Joanne Finn. From the Office of Budget and Performance, you actually get the entire Office of Budget and Performance. Michael Walters-Young, our Budget and Performance Analyst, Sky Gerhardt, Norma Lockney, Catherine Harrelson, and our Management Fellow, Joe Parsons. And from Human Resources, our Human Resources Manager, Sean Groves. And, of course, I'm part of this team as well. So one of the things I want to touch on is an overall focus. There are three primary components we want to look at. We want to look at the impact on service to the community. We want to look at the impact on our fire department team. And I'll just stop there to say that component may be a little less quantifiable than some elements, but it's no less important. We look at implications around work-life balance for our team members. We look at physical and mental impacts of a 24-hour shift and the way you have to work and the way you have to respond at a wide variety of times and situations. Adequate recovery time for folks working those shifts as well are all considerations that we'll weave into this. And then finally, of course, the financial impact of any decision that we make. So there are these three components. And I would compare them to the three legs of a stool. They all have to be solid for this to make sense. So those will be the three elements we kind of return to throughout this as we look at it and provide you with information. So we want to start first where we are and some important elements of understanding that. And members of our fire department team will walk you through that. Daniel Donegan, our fire information systems analyst, and Captain Jay Gamble will provide you with that. So take it away, Daniel. Good evening, Board and Mayor.

Here to present our current operational model. Most of you are probably aware that we have 160 operations personnel that work for the fire department. The rest are in administration. With that operations model, we work 24 hours, beginning at 6 a.m. to the following 6 a.m., and then you're off for 48 hours. Within that 24 hours, Each shift runs roughly 33 incidents per shift, give or take, because every day is a different day. But that's on average 33. There are 49 unit responses that respond daily. And if you break all those numbers down from last year of 2025, there were 11,727 calls and 17,437 unit responses. When we talk of unit responses, that's important for us to acknowledge because that's every time someone has to get up and get on a truck, and that truck goes down the road. So on average, each of our units have three personnel. Our battalion chiefs in our districts, they're single units. So for our fire-related calls, that's a higher volume of personnel, medical calls that... decreases the amount of responses there. But 17,437 there. Current to date, we're at 8,164 calls and 12,278 unit responses. Our rate of increase is continually increasing at a 3% trend. We did have a slight dip last year, but that has accumulated for itself again this year with the ice storm and other factors. But that dip was also related to we reduced some call volume at some large hospital facilities to help reduce load on our shifts and put some of that load back on EMS. Our next is a breakdown of the call volume four, 2025. You will see that a large portion of that call is EMS related. So we try to make every incident within 320 seconds, which is just over five minutes. That's from the time The tone goes off to the time we arrive. So we currently, our times are below that 320 seconds, which is awesome for our 160 personnel and the shifts there. But we want to continue to improve upon that and the way That will all work out through all the communication we have. My last slide here is the operational model. So we based our operations time from daytime and nighttime. And through the group, we considered nighttime from 9 p.m. times of sleep. So 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. because at 5 a.m. people start starting to get up because they're getting off shift. Other people are starting to come into the station and waking them. And so... Through that nighttime hour, we continue to see that 2.5% increase in call volume as well, which you can see in the chart there. We all have to point it out, but the big dip is COVID. And then I will hand this over to Jay to go over the schedule types that we have researched for future.

Good evening, Mayor and Aldermen. As Daniel mentioned, I'm just going to walk you through some of the schedule options that we're looking at. Administrator Stuckey has already mentioned that this is kind of early in the process. So we identified some schedule options that we would take a look at as part of this process. Administrator Stuckey also had a slide early on that there was particular interest about the 2472. If I had to guess, that's the biggest reason that we're standing in the room with you tonight. So I'll walk you through exactly why that is here briefly. So the first schedule you see on there is 2448. That's what Daniel just described to you. That's our current work schedule. We come on for one day. We work for 24 hours at a time. We're off for 48 hours for a break, and then we come back. If you were to compare that to an eight-hour work week, just so you can start to understand some of the background of where the passion for this schedule change is, if you divide that into three eight-hour days, which is what most Americans work is an eight-hour day, that would be working three days in a row. Going home for two and then back on that fourth day. So if you add up, that's the same as working in every day, I'm sorry, eight hours a day every single day of the year. So as part of that, a firefighter works about 800 hours more per year than a 40-hour employee. So the first thing you'll see on there is the modified 48, 2448. That is taking our current model and kind of stacking your 24-hour shifts. So you work one on, one day break, one on, one day break, one on, and then you get four days off. It still rotates around about nine days at a time, which is a way that we can break our current rotation into. So it works off the same three-platoon model, which is what we currently operate on. The 4896, similarly, that's where a firefighter would come to work for two days at a time or 48 hours at a time. They would have a four-day break, so 96 hours off, and then back again for another 48, and that again rotates on six days. That follows the three-platoon model. as well, so no significant reduction in work hours. 1323, that's kind of a hybrid between the modified 2448 and the 4896, so that would have you working one day on for 24 hours, a three-day break, and then coming to work for a 48-hour shift, and then a three-day break. Again, that's on a three-platoon model or three shifts, which is what we currently have. The 2472 is the final one, and that's the one that I'll spend just a couple more minutes on. Again, this one does require a pretty impactful investment. This would require hiring a fourth shift, which we'll get into in a little while. But the biggest thing is it would bring down the average work hours of a firefighter down to the 42 hours, which is right in line with what the Department of Labor has an average service employee working in a year. So again, it would require hiring a four shift, but it would also fix some of those disparities in hours worked. The other thing that we believe is gonna be very impactful for is just the health and wellness of our employees. Administrator Stuckey's slide on impact to city employees, that's where this one really hits home and where a lot of people are interested in it. So there is a lot of data out there that we are pulling right now, a lot of research that we'll dive into as part of this process. But some of the proposed benefits that we believe we'll see from it are by giving everyone that extra day off, you have more time for rest and recovery. We're going to have a reduced exposure to carcinogens. Currently, firefighters have an elevated risk for cancer throughout their lifetime and following into retirement. Additionally, I'm sorry. We're going to hopefully reduce workplace injuries. There is a lot of study out here about the time that it takes your body to fully recover after being on a shift and on a work schedule like this. And what we're finding is that 48 hours, especially when you consider that as part of that 48-hour break you're actually ramping up for your next 24-hour tour, your body is not having enough time to adequately recover. then we're hoping that as well, this is gonna potentially reduce workplace injuries. It's not just about physical recovery, it's about mental recovery. Our brains literally take a bath as we rest and relax. And my final point to this is that when Administrator Stuckey mentioned that it's a little bit hard to quantify the impact, we have to pull numbers. We have to do our best to look at data. What's a little bit harder to describe to you is the night that I come to work and I don't run a single call. because logic would tell you, well, you've got a full night's rest. But our subconscious doesn't work that way, and so, unfortunately, the nights that I come, if and if I don't have to get up at all during the night, I go home as if I've been up all night, and I get to choose whether I want to have coffee with my wife and children or go take a nap, because 20 years of doing this, I... your brain just can't turn off when you're at work. So unfortunately, even if we do get to rest a little bit, that is not the same restful sleep as being at home. So we're looking at one of these options considering could we put our work hours more in line with what most other service industry jobs do throughout the year.

Thank you, Jay. As Skye's coming up, I do want to note this is a broader national discussion around how fire departments and firefighters are scheduled. So we're part of that in terms of understanding it. So I thought it was particularly interesting to look at some peer cities that may be looking at this or may be looking at other schedules and how that might apply to our experience. So Skye, take it away.

Thank you, Eric. Good evening, Board of Mayor and Aldermen. My name is Skye Gerhart, and I come to you from the Office of Budget and Performance. As a budget and performance analyst, I have the pleasure of working closely with our fire department and I'm happy to be here tonight to help them talk through the beginning stages of this. So what you're seeing on the screen now is the list of 10 peer cities that we've compiled. Various sizes and various locations, you'll notice, both inside and outside of Tennessee. We tried to stick to a general population range of about 75,000 to 200,000. I'm sure you can point out a few on the list that don't fall within that range. And in those cases, we felt like they still had important things to discuss and be included on the list. Outside of just population, we also tried to look for cities who hold a AAA bond rating, as well as cities whose departments hold ISO 1 certifications, just to make sure that we're maintaining that performance standard that we all believe in. And then we've also tried to look at a variety of schedule types amongst these peer cities. So we'll kind of go through them group by group in which cities use which schedule. So jumping into our 2448 cities, which is what we are operating on now, we actually only have one on this list that is just in the basic 2448. That's going to be Murfreesboro, Tennessee. They have a current population estimate of about 171,000 and approximately 25,000 calls per year for their fire department with 275 sworn personnel. They do not currently run ambulance transport service, and that's something we also compared cities on as we were going through this. Something else I wanted to note with Murfreesboro, they are actively reviewing alternative schedules that they might consider using. We don't have a whole lot of insight on what that process looks like for them, but it is important to consider as we continue on in the process. You'll also see here Johnson City, Tennessee, population estimate of about 75,000, and they are working on that modified 2448, so that alternating 24 on, 24 off, followed by the four days consecutive off. And then approximately 10,600 calls per year, 123 sworn personnel, and not currently running ambulance transport. Two more modified 2448s in Apex, North Carolina and Olathe, Kansas. Apex, North Carolina has a population of 85,000 and are running about 5,400 calls per year with 102 sworn personnel, also not running ambulance transport service. Olathe, Kansas with 150,000 in population, about 16,000 calls a year, 176 sworn personnel and also not running ambulance transport. So we have four 2448s or variations of them just to make sure that we're understanding the baseline, where we're at now in comparing ourselves to these cities. Then moving over to 4896, you'll see Brentwood on there at a population of about 45,000. We felt it was important to include them on the list as our neighbor and understanding the trends in the region. Last year, they ran 4,674 calls and operate with 75 sworn personnel. And we know they do not run ambulance transport service currently as they're on the same model as us. One other thing we wanted to mention with Brentwood, on the 4896, they're currently using the FLSA 7K overnight exemption, which basically means that for any shifts longer than 24 hours, so they're running a 48-hour shift, sleep time is deducted from the employee's compensable hours. Would you like to comment a little bit more on that in the industry?

I can.

So I just wanted to clarify just what the FLSA 7K exemption was, just in case anybody's not familiar with that. It ties into our schedule change conversation. The Fair Labor and Standards Act does not require us to work any particular schedule, but obviously schedule changes could impact. how we pay overtime standards. So the seven K exemption, uh, was from 1975 and it was last addressed in 1977, uh, as part of the fair labor and standards act amendment. It allows municipalities to raise the overtime thresholds for public safety, uh, personnel, uh, as well as balance their hours over long pay periods. Uh, so what that means, um, It's just that where most people would accrue seven days a week, if you work more than 40 hours a week, you get overtime, right? So for the fire department, our overtime thresholds are a little wider. Ours are at 53 hours per week for FLSA. And the city has elected us to have us on a 28-day pay cycle. So those are basically averages out. It kind of recognizes that we work a weird schedule. And so it balances those hours out over a 28-day period, which has some good fiscal benefits for the city. It has some negative impacts on the employee. All of that will be looked at as part of this process. I mean, again, FLSA does not mandate any thresholds. This is just an exemption that allows cities to kind of average our hours over a longer work period, and it raises our overtime thresholds just a little bit.

I also just wanted to comment on that. So a lot of what Captain Gamble was just saying, we do utilize here at the City of Franklin. The only additional thing that Brentwood is doing here is using that overnight sleep deduction because they're on a 48-hour shift compared to a 24. So that's something we'll analyze throughout the study as well. Then moving to Carmel, Indiana, population 103,000. We're still waiting on some data confirmation from them. They've been going through some hard times recently with some recent flooding, so our hearts go out to them, and we look forward to working with them as well. Moving to a city that we use a lot in looking at different elements of local government and comparing ourselves to is Greenville, South Carolina. They utilize the 1323 schedule and they've actually just begun piloting this schedule in January of 2026. So they're on a one-year pilot and at the end of this calendar year, they'll decide on whether or not they're going to stay at 1323 or move back to their previous schedule type. When I spoke with their assistant chief, they had just run their six-month survey And they're experiencing great benefits from the firefighters. They're all really enjoying it. So it's looking like they may stay on that schedule. Outside of that piece, Greenville runs about 15,900 calls a year and has 150 sworn personnel and also does not run ambulance transport. We analyzed three 2472 cities. So this is just a general overview of those. We'll go a little bit more in depth about their implementation process in just a second. Kissimmee, Florida has a population of 85,000, runs about 15,300 calls per year, and has 160 sworn personnel. You'll note that they do run their own ambulance transport service. Greenville, North Carolina has a population of 96,000, runs about 330,000 calls a year, excuse me, and 180 sworn personnel also running their own ambulance transport service. And then Plano, Texas had a population of 300,000 running about 39,000 calls per year and 420 sworn personnel, again, running their own ambulance transport service.

Can I ask one quick question?

Absolutely.

I got a little confused because you're talking about calls and the statistics we saw earlier showed calls, but also unit responses.

Correct. So all of the data you see on our peer cities is their calls. Unit responses is more of an internal metric. So that's what we have for our own department. I can go ahead and note that we can get those unit responses from our peer cities as well if we ask them. I'm sure they'd be willing to provide that.

So the comparative would be the 11,700 that we talked about as calls. And it's a decision that the individual community makes about what they deploy to what type of response. So calls is a good baseline because there's a commonality there. But that's something we can try to refine with these other cities as well.

Awesome. So looking at some of the implementation programs for the 2472 cities, Kissimmee, Florida implemented their 2472 program in April of 2026. And they generated the revenue through a special property tax assessment used directly for their fire department. Because of this new revenue source, they were able to hire all of the firefighters that they needed for that fourth shift in about one or two years and were able to quickly start the 24-72 method. I did want to note that currently Tennessee law does not allow for a special property tax assessment specifically for our public safety departments. So that's not necessarily something that's on the table right now for the city of Franklin. Greenville, North Carolina implemented their program in March of 2026, and they hired their firefighters over multiple budget years in order to get to the amount they needed to switch to that 2472. From my understanding, they hired them through something similar to a PER process that you would see in a typical budget cycle. They cited their main reason for switching to 2472 as a solution for a retention issue. Greenville is one of the only municipal fire suppression departments in North Carolina that also runs an EMS department outside of their county. So they were struggling to keep paramedics that were deciding to go to EMS divisions that were already working 2472 models. And so that switch has helped improve their recruitment and retention there. Then moving to Plano, you'll notice on the last slide it was a lot larger than we are here in Franklin, but we felt we could still learn a lot from their implementation method, and so they stayed on this list here. They have a five-year implementation window and are currently in year two of that plan. The switch to 2472 will actually happen in year four, so they're still about two years away from that. They are hiring 22 firefighters per year to get up to that level that they need to staff all four shifts. And we found their plan was interesting because it identified a few avenues for cost savings through salary freezes or overtime reductions and looking at the FLSA overtime thresholds that Captain Gamble was just mentioning. Any questions there? We can hold questions to the end. We're going to shift gears on you a little bit and move to financials. So we wanted to give you guys kind of a baseline. These are the actuals for the entirety of the Franklin Fire Department personnel in FY26. So that number was $27,963,173 last year. And you can see that broken out in regular time pay, overtime pay, and then benefits and workers' comp. One thing I want to note before we move to the 2472 costs is that this is the entire department, so all 179 positions in Franklin Fire. Anything we're looking at numbers-wise for 2472 only takes into account the on-shift personnel. So it takes out that, I think, about 19 admin staff. So just keeping that in mind. Then looking at our potential financial increase for 2472, or just the addition of a fourth shift overall, these numbers reflect the addition of 53 personnel, which is what is currently budgeted per shift. And we've broken it out again by regular pay, overtime pay. benefits, and other operating costs. Regular pay, we are expecting a range of increase between $5 and $5.5 million. Overtime pay, $750,000 to $1.25 million. Benefits, $1.75 million to $2.25 million. And then you'll see a $500,000 estimate for any new uniforms or other new hire expenses for those new 53 personnel. A few caveats I want to make here. Overtime pay is kind of our most flexible number right now. There's a lot that goes into this that still has to be decided on if we were to move forward, such as sick time accruals, vacation accruals, that overtime threshold piece we were considering. So all of those things dramatically affect this number. So that's why you'll see a pretty large range there. So totaling all those together, you see a first estimate at approximately eight to nine and a half million. A majority of these costs would be recurring as their personnel costs. And these figures currently do not account for any kind of inflation or any kind of raises in salaries of our current on-shift personnel or if the pay grades were to change or anything of that nature, as well as it does not account for any benefits, cost increases, or other operational changes needed to actually get 2472 going, whether that be changes in admin staff or just other operational needs.

So we provide you with a range here. There's still fine-tuning as we talk through, and there are some other options that may impact the cost somewhat. But the primary driver is you're modifying the overall scheduled hours, but you're maintaining the general base pay over the course of the year. So essentially, your rate of pay would increase so that you keep Are on-shift firefighters roughly whole in terms of what they get paid in over the course of a year while modifying to a schedule and the use of four shifts as opposed to three?

With that, I'll turn it over to Eric and Chief Johnson for some comments.

So you saw this chart earlier in the presentation, and I want to touch on, Chief, come on up, touch on this other element that we want to fold into this review. EMS transport is something we need to look at in terms of long-term needs of the community. There are a couple things that help us, push us to having that, doing that analysis. And I want to qualify up front. This is not out of a dissatisfaction of the current system, but it's a recognition that some of those elements might change, and we need to be thinking ahead. And so, you know, currently today we are a first responder department, and transport happens through the ambulance and paramedic service that's provided through Williamson County and Williamson Medical. So there are a couple factors that are causing us to have a different potential look or potential longer-term future related to that, and that is the potential sale of Williamson Health and what could that mean in terms of the approach and delivery of that service. We don't know that that's going to change, but it could, and so we want to be mindful of that. And there have been some activities in the state legislature over the last couple years. Legislation hasn't been passed yet, but there's study that could push costs onto cities as opposed to counties. The way the law works right now is the delivery of that ambulance service is a county responsibility. It does not specify the level of service, but it says that's a county responsibility. There has been some legislation that talked about a prorated share or charge back to cities based on population or call load or something, some basis there. And so if costs are going to start shifting to us, it might behoove us to look at what other options and models are out there for us to consider. So, Chief, you have some insight on this, too.

I'll let you speak to it as well. Yeah. You know, we started seeing some of these changes, especially with the MS legislation, and our job is to plan for the future. And that's to protect our taxpayers and also protect the level of service that we're providing our citizens and our visitors to this community. And like Eric said, this is no dissatisfaction with the current service that we're getting. This is a way to protect the residents and the visitors of this community while ensuring that the community health care that they're given is not diminished in any way.

So you see that call load, two-thirds of our current calls are medical-related, nearly 8,000 in a given year. So it's a significant component of the workload. If we were to get into the transport business, that creates some other dynamics in terms of staffing, equipping, how that might work, the nature of calls, the duration of calls. Certain calls would be impacted. So there's a lot of ramifications. But the thought is, while we're digging deeper and looking at options and ideas, that we ought to think this through, too, with information. I don't know that we will propose a change, but we ought to be thinking through it, and that's another added wrinkle to this process.

Chief, anything else? Like I said, there's no dissatisfaction here. We're in the middle of our strategic planning. Captain Gamble and our analysts down there are a very vital part of that. And so as we develop that, we're trying to look at all the different scenarios. We're trying to build contingencies on contingencies in the event that we have a disruption or we have to make a move, we have a plan built in place to ensure the vitality of this community.

So our next steps in this process will be to continue to refine those cost estimates we talked about, look at are there options for narrowing that cost, reducing it, or look at funding sources that might align with that. Continue to look at the experience of pure cities, and if there are other cities that make sense to look at, we'll dig into those as well and look at other trends that are out there. And then, of course, this final component that we talked about, what are our options for delivery of EMS transport over the long haul, and just to understand what that could look like if we needed to explore alternatives there as well. So that's where we are. Glad to open it up for other questions or other guidance. Our plan is to come back to you fairly regularly with updates. There's a little more here tonight to set the stage, but we'll come back on some elements and speak to it and get your guidance. And let us know if there's other information you'd like to see, and we'll work to get you that.

There. Thank you.

Go ahead, Alderman Brown.

Yeah, a couple things I think would be good. I mean, first, thank you, first of all. Certainly I think the one leg of the stool we really haven't really fully established is really the impact on our firefighters. All that data, I know it's out there. It would be good to start building that. I don't think it's part of a national conversation because there isn't an impact on families and our firefighters, and I think I want to see more of that, certainly as we continue to understand this. On the cities, like comparable cities, I'd be really curious on those cities that we picked, what their budgets and what they spend on public safety. That's got to be part of public record. I would be curious on that. Sure. as part of the data set. And I guess one of my other comments would be just, I wouldn't certainly, not saying that we are dismissing this, or minimizing the conversation around recruitment and retention. Certainly if I was a middle Tennessee city and had a smaller financial impact to going to a 2472 and I could compete against Franklin, who was training all the firefighters in Middle Tennessee, I'd probably move to a 2472 and start pulling laterals like crazy because of nominal impact or less of an impact than what we would have. And then we would be training and incurring a pretty significant cost just to continually refill our ranks. And so I would not minimize the impact of that of other cities going to a 2472 given the push. Those are my three comments for now.

I'm just glad that we're having a conversation and looking to see what best works for our fire department. I think it's interesting. Franklin is known for the leader in so many different arenas, and I'm not saying we're behind the eight ball on here on this subject per se, but... When you talk about the stool, I'm with you, Matt. I don't know if it's standard across other municipalities because I only work in this one, but you think about all the firefighters that are retiring at 25 years. Is it because they have their next career? I don't know. Or is it because they're tired? I think that probably has a lot to do with it. So I applaud this team that's been assembled and us doing our due diligence because at the end of the day, public safety is very important to a citizen. Regardless of whether they know it or not, you want them there when you need them.

And I would look at us being proactive in this. Absolutely. I've been in this business for going on a little over 36 years. When I came on, it was 24 on, 24 off. Well, then the conversation about 2448 came up. And all you heard was, well, you know, we can't do that. It's not going to happen. I remember, yeah. So now we see a national trend where other departments are going to 2472. All we're trying to do is create a road path to moving to that schedule because it's eventually going to happen. We may not be the first in Tennessee, but we can't afford to be the second or third. But it will have an impact on our recruitment and retention.

Well, and that's the other side of the coin you have to look at, too. When we talk about pay studies and compensation and trying to be relevant, this is going to be part of one of the things they tick off. It's like, well, I can make X amount of money, but I'm working however many hours more to get that money. So I'm looking forward to the conversation.

You want to be recognized, Vice Mayor? Yes, sir. Okay. Go ahead.

See, I pulled back a little bit on the eagerness there. I'm trying to wait for you. I got the timer on you now. So I wanted to look at data from other cities. By the way, I think this board has done a tremendous amount for quality of pay and for our firefighters and quite frankly for all. We're the 90th percentile. So I want to know from these peer cities, like, are they at the 90th percentile? Look, I mean, this is the bottom line. I think everybody probably would love for this to happen, and it would not cost us a dime more. And everybody wins, right? But that's not the reality. It's a big number. In fact, I think it's probably the largest – it would be the largest single – vote that I've been a part of from a financial standpoint, higher than even City Hall debt payment that we signed up for on that. I mean, it's a major... This is not a small decision. The fire department realizes that, that this is a big number, what we're committing to, or would be committing to, and that's what we're going to study. So I don't want to take that for granted either. Well, of course, I would like that to happen. I want to look at the numbers. We've got to solve for... the medical only long term. I think, you know, there's got to be other ways or ways to mesh this with looking at operationally how we respond to 7800 medical calls more cost efficiently. And that's not just people. That's capital on our vehicles and whatnot. And I know we've already started doing a lot of that. And I appreciate y'all taking action on that. But those $3 million units running around 7800 times, And now it's changed up because we have different response units. But, I mean, that adds up over time, too, to cost. So there's lots of different ways we could, I think, get our net cost down, dollars, while still acknowledging that there's a cost that exists that isn't dollars that we've heard from you all tonight about and that Alderman Brown brought up, and I believe it's true. But it really isn't just a – it is somewhat a math problem because then you bring the county into it – By the way, we need to be advocating if we do or are required by state to contribute to EMS services. I think we'd do a whole heck of a lot better doing it if we were able to manage some of that ourselves and do it our way. I trust this department to figure out how to manage that better than us contributing just funds somewhere else. So all that, I just would... Really looking at the one, two, three, two, three. I mean, it sounds like that one city is going well. I want us to all keep an open mind. And I know that we'll end up with Franklin. I think a change needs to be made. But the main point is to just reiterate that this is not just a big, big dollar decision. And well worth it as well. Armand Potts.

Thank you, sir. First, thank everybody involved for putting it together. Eric, I appreciate you sharing everybody's names. It shows how we're all operating in a transparent manner. You're bringing in the right department leaders. You're bringing in multiple people within fire. And I think that's how we lead with excellence. We talk about being driven by excellence in all that we do for preservation and progress, and I think this is one of those progress moves is Alderman Baggett's looking forward, this is a significant, significant change. And so getting more history and learning more about this is the current model, how long or when was that first model put into place? When did Franklin actually implement that model? And since that time, how many times have we actually looked at changing the model? And why didn't we make changes to the current model? So those are some of the questions that I've got. I'm also looking at... I love the executive overview regarding the slides, but I'm all for digging into the, doing data mining into Excel spreadsheet where everything's listed because there's a lot of questions that I had on slide eight with the pros and cons of each one of those municipalities. where I want to be able to compare apples to apples. And in one slide, it's really not digging into all those details. So I think that's something to look forward to in the future. As I'm also looking at this, I didn't see anything about are any of those municipalities ISO 1 rated. And that's our threshold, perfect, because I want to make sure we're maintaining that. I don't want us to take a step backwards. That's a requirement for me. As I'm also looking at this, relying on this focus group, this committee that's been assembled, is how many years would it take to implement any of the suggestions that were listed there? Not just the 2472, but some of the other options, because it is a significant financial investment. And then I do have concerns about what's happening with the hospital and if we're going to be required to provide EMS services. And I know, Eric, you and I have spoken about that, and how are we going to have to retrofit any of the existing stations, and how many staff members that's going to be, and how this is going to impact a fourth shift. So there's a lot of data points that I'm going to be very interested to see in the near future. Owen Berger.

Thanks, Chief. This has really been very enlightening Interesting here, I'm looking at, excuse me, the large fires. I'm looking at this and thinking, major accidents, large fires, explosions, hazardous condition, do we allow when something like that happens, and sometimes there's a really bad accident that affects our firefighters mentally, emotionally, can really take a toll. So how do we adjust for time off right after an incident?

Well, thanks to this board and our city leadership, we probably have one of the best behavioral health programs in the state, not the country. This board and our city leadership realized that our EAP program was good for most employees, but there were certain things that our people saw that... needed specialized services. We worked with our chief now is not with us anymore, but engineer Emily Nelm. She was very key along with Dr. Amy in putting this team together. We have probably 20 something different counselors that are geared to deal with specific incidents that specialize in that area. So we have a very well-rounded team that, you know, some people choose one type of counseling over another, and so we've got those avenues for them.

Well, do we also allow for, like, if they're on a shift for two days, do we also allow that time to be shifted off?

We make adjustments based on the counselor's recommendation.

Okay. We have a professional recommendation. Right. Okay.

And that's why we have a great FMLA program.

And then real quickly, I've got two other points. Slide six, you talk about the different calls, current operational model. I'm interested if we are recouping anything from our false alarms.

We are not from our false alarms.

And is there a method to recoup some of that? I mean, I can understand one call.

Right.

But if you have multiple calls in a six-month or year period from a resident or a commercial building, there's false alarms. Is there a way for us to implement those calls? I mean, implement them. a recuperation for those.

We do have a mechanism in place to deal with numerous fossils.

I think we ought to look at that because as Patrick brings up, that's probably a minuscule amount compared to what we're talking about with shifting and everything, but it still impacts us.

It does. And right now our philosophy has been that we follow up with a daily report to our fire prevention staff, look at that every single business day, and respond to people that we start seeing trends. So if we see one or two or the guys on shift send us a message that there's a specific problem, we'll go follow up with it. But as far as defining goes, we actually would rather them spend their money on fixing the problem and not have that versus trying to be heavy-handed and...

discipline per se for really it's about compliance and education and trying to reduce those unnecessary responses and then you work with them on that yes ma'am okay great and then the firefighters and brandy brought up you know some very valid points and you know it's a very physical job uh this career uh i don't know what the average retirement age is for this career but We must expect that it affects the additional recruitment because this is a very taxing physical job. So you get to a certain time in your life where if you're actively participating every day, On shift, that's, you know, you have a threshold there. So I'm looking at the 24-7. Does that give our firefighters more productive years under those stats? I don't know. I don't know if that comes into play or not.

I'd like to... That would have to be something we'd have to look into.

I would like for you to look into that because I don't know how that would play into it. And then the only last thing I had was... You mentioned they're more susceptible long-term for cancer because of the job. I get that. Are we doing, and this is just a question I've got, are we doing anything at all to mitigate that or to maybe that average risk to bring that average risk down Are we spending money? Is there different methods that we could be using that we might not be using, even though it might cost us more money? Because I think we deserve to protect our firefighters from those things.

And we have a team that is constantly looking for new changes and new ways of doing things in the fire service. I'll give you a couple really quick examples. We have a plymovent system that's in the bay. Diesel has been defined as a carcinogen. And so the apparatus are connected to this exhaust so the exhaust is not going into the bay anymore. It's actually being exhausted out through the roof. All of our stations are fully equipped with that. And in a lot of areas, we also exceed what the recommendation of NFPA, National Fire Protection Association. Each one of our members have two sets of gear. so that when they go out and they fight a fire, they come back, they're able to take that gear immediately. It goes into a wash that cleans it, and then they have another set. We used to not have that. I mean, we used to go shifts without washing our gear. But, you know, those are just a couple of the things that we've taken proactive approaches on. But we have a team that is always looking for ways to improve. We have a health and wellness committee, and part of that subcommittee is our cancer initiatives.

And finding ways to mitigate that.

And finding ways. And Chief Jenkins is heading that committee up. And I know he's got subcommittee looking into things continuously.

Well, thanks for sharing that. Yes, ma'am. Because it's really helpful for us to know. Thanks. Yes, ma'am.

Alderman Caesar. Thanks, Mayor. And I would encourage this board and the committee that's looking into this to remain curious. And so that curiosity in me shows up asking a few questions. On slide six, it shows the almost 8,000 EMS and rescue calls. Are there ever EMS rescue calls that fire is not deployed on? Not in the city of Franklin. So that's a big number. And with the transition that potentially could happen later this week, taking steps toward that in this room, we need to be looking into the hospital because that could change the way that your team is working in concert with the existing and maybe something could change in the future. And the reason we're spending a lot of time on this is this is nearly a quarter of our workforce for the city. This is a significant number of individuals that serve us every single day and I appreciate the leadership here and also the members of our fire department that have shown up today because they care about this and we do as well. Some of the numbers and maybe some of the more specifics that I would ask this group to evaluate as we look forward is that the percentage of overtime that we're currently paying given our current 2448 schedule is not an insignificant amount. And I would hypothesize that if we went to a different schedule, you could see some savings in overtime. I would also, so I'd like to see what that might be. And if other communities who have looked at this or have studied this have experienced a savings there, maybe that could help steer our decision or at least soften maybe the impact to the bottom line. Furthermore, if your firefighters hypothetically are better rested and able to go home and fully recover before coming back to work, perhaps you would also see a reduction in some of the workers' compensation because the workers' compensation payout is also a very significant amount of money. And not only does it cost us money, but it's impacting negatively the lives of someone if they were to encounter some sort of an injury that was acquired on the job. And if you could reduce that, hypothetically you could create a better working environment and less money out the door. So if we can look at those elements, I think those are the big blocks economically that I would want to understand a little bit more. And then finally, on the economic side, it's already been said a number of times, this is a significant undertaking for our city, and it shouldn't be something that we take lightly or expect to be implemented overnight. I think that the group that is studying this has communicated that they expect this will be an evaluation and an implementation. And what I would want to know from other communities as they've transitioned through pay structure shifts or work shifts like this, What does it look like and how does compensation really change? Meaning, does everybody who's already on board, do you get a reduction in work hours and hold your same income level? Or is there another model that has happened for maybe not the existing employees, but maybe new firefighters that come on, enter in through a different pathway? And those are some of the things that I would want this group to study so that we could fully evaluate The economics of this. The human side of it is another important area that I think it's already been talked about enough tonight to study. So thank you for bringing this forward. I would encourage continued interest and engagement here because this is, and also just a word of thanks for bringing this update in steps or stages as opposed to doing all the work and then bringing it to us with a comprehensive solution.

Well, I will say you've got a great team working on this, and they are really putting the work in to address these issues and concerns that you have because we do realize the impact that it will have, and we want to make sure we get it right.

Okay. Just one comment. When we do this, we probably need some data as far as how much each of these cities are spending, where we've got, because we're looking at eight and a half to, what, eight to nine and a half million. We need to know how much some of these cities are also spending on that, because they're When we look, and none of them, when we're doing this, none of them are providing ambulance transport or whatever. So who is providing that service to some of the cities where it says it does not provide that? Because I think it makes a difference. We are looking at the sale of the hospital, but I can tell you that both of those organizations that are looking to buy the hospital are well aware that that's part of the service that they're undertaking and whether or not they do that and whether or not that's agreed once they sell it. But right now, those two organizations are looking at the hospital sale. or buying it, also aware of what the transport that they're responsible for.

Yeah, I just wanted to note, so all three of the 2472 cities that you saw on the screen there did run their own ambulance transport. This peer cities list of 10 is by no means exhaustive. It's always open to be added to, and we're always looking for any cities as well that are moving to 2472. and maybe don't run ambulance transport service like we do right now, or like we do not do right now, and might be comparable to us in those other aspects as well, like population and ISO certification. So we're always looking.

All right, we need to go to item 11, which is update on public chapter 1044 and development review changes.

against the clock aren't I I'll keep it short then so state law made some recent changes on us with public chapter 1044 let me pull this up and it's part of a public yeah public chapter 1044 whoa

Mine is sideways too. You can flip it.

Sarah is going to be amazing and change that for me.

I'm going to keep talking. So what does this do to our development review? There's two major changes or two major impacts to our development review. The first is that it's going to affect the timelines of development plans and site plans. The second is that it's going to impact how we have to respond to requests for surety releases. So I'm going to start with development applications. Development plans and site plans now must be approved or placed on an agenda within 60 business days. State law also limits us to two reviews of those plans, two written reports of deficiencies. So we can two times tell a plan, you're not quite there yet, here's how you need to revise it. And that's it. And then if the government fails to take action on an item, yeah, I know, big deal. I'm glad you comprehended that. And then if the government fails to take any action on it within that 60 days, then it is deemed approved. So what's the implications of that? We as cities are going to have to make sure, and by cities I mean we as staff, are going to have to make sure that every item that is a development plan or site plan gets on an agenda within that 60-day timeframe. We'll make sure that happens, but that will be something that has to happen, which means that we're going to have to hold our development community to a certain timeline. And by that it also means that we do not have the ability to defer projects anymore. We have no opportunity to slow down a project if it needs it. Right now I think staff works really well with developers where if we find a hiccup in the project or something unknown midway through that needs to be resolved between different departments, we slow it down, we ask them to meet with us, we try to resolve the issue internally before we put it on an agenda or bring it to this board. Unfortunately, we don't have that opportunity anymore. We'll have to do it within 60 business days. So what we can do is think through what it means to be a submittal because that's when the 60-day clock starts. So we're looking at what it means and how we can flex how we have our requirements now to provide more opportunities for those two review cycles to happen. State law does say, though, that if a project goes through the process, gets those two reviews, gets on an agenda and still gets denied, they will get their 50% of the review fees refunded. So there's that consolation if they just get pushed through and it just wasn't their time, I guess, to get an approval. So what is staff proposing in the zoning ordinance to adjust to these new rules? Like I said, we're going to track the 60 days. We're going to hopefully put it on the review cycle calendar so that when an applicant submits, if they submit on a certain day, it'll show what that 60-day window is. So right from the start, they'll understand how long I have to get through the process. Unfortunately, like I said earlier, if a project isn't ready, if staff is providing comments within that 60-day timeframe and trying to get them a second review, and there still is unresolved issues with the plan, we're up against a 60-day window, and so you may see some more recommendations of disapproval. We will explain why if we are at that point, though, so everyone understands why the disapproval is there and not approval or approval with conditions. Yes? Oh, I thought I heard a question. Sorry.

Okay.

I know, it's a lot. So what staff is looking at, like I said, we're looking to find ways to help an application move successfully through the process, we're proposing that pre-applications are now voluntary. If it's a voluntary process, then the clock doesn't start. Staff will still provide as many pre-applications as we do now. We will provide the same level of review. It just won't be required, and so a clock doesn't start. So that's ways to continue to help projects get the level of service we provide today without getting stuck in the 60-day calendar. So, let me keep going. I apologize. This is a little small, so if you can't read it, I'm sorry. This is the two processes that we have today in more visual form, the steps that they take. We're still going to have plan meetings required for development plans. I think that really sets projects off on the right course to understand where they have to go first, if they have to do any extra steps. We're still going to require neighborhood meetings. That's allowed. It's very important to our community. Again, we just won't be requiring the pre-application meeting. The nice thing about this schedule, if you look at where initial submittal is, initial submittal to resubmittal to being on a planning commission agenda today is 33 business days. So our current process works within these rules. So projects that submit and follow the process and get their comments and respond to them, this is not going to be a problem for them. It's going to just be standard procedure. I think the only time you're going to see this become a hiccup is when it's a complicated project or one that doesn't respond well with our comments for whatever reason. There's confusion or there's a client pushing a developer, you know, a design professional to submit incomplete plans or whatnot. You know, who knows? But that's where we're going to see this happen. kind of bubble up as an issue. But for the most part, I'm hoping that it doesn't change current process today. And like I said, that 33-day window that we have today as our process, because it's so short and because we're efficient, it actually allows for a potential to get two rounds of comments and get sort of a second review if needed within 59 days. So even though... 60 days is tight. Most of our review cycles allow for two rounds of comments like state law allows. So kudos to us for having an efficient schedule that already allows for this and that we don't have to change things up significantly. So this is just more of the same. I think there's some other opportunities for us to look at what we do today, like doing completeness reviews and using those in maybe a little bit different way. Completeness reviews, state law did clarify that those don't count as these written reports. So that could be a way to look at a plan and say, you know, it's incomplete. We really can't make good comments on this plan set, it needs to be considered and complete, let them come back one more time, and then perhaps the clock would start with a better submittal package. All of this we're gonna wrap into zoning ordinance changes, planning commission bylaws, update websites, update calendars, so the information's gonna be out there. I also plan to have a meeting with the design professionals in late October to go over this as well, so it's not a surprise to them either. Okay. Trying to move fast. I guess I can ask for questions now so we don't have to switch gears if sure it is. You want me to keep going?

Okay, I do have one public speaker, too. What does the board want to do? You want her to keep presenting and then ask?

Keep going. This section has questions before we jump to the next one. Okay.

Board, go ahead, and I'll get the public speaker after the presentation is over. Go ahead, Alderman Berger, please.

Thank you really quickly. So am I getting this right, that the pre-app is not required now? It is required today. I mean, will be. Yes. We're going to make it voluntary. So if it's not required, am I understanding this right, then it doesn't start the time? It doesn't start at the hourglass. That's right. So you could be talking to them and helping them to get everything together and then it's not put into the rigid timeline.

Correct. And the nice thing about that is if they get some substantial comments at pre-app because the clock hasn't started hasn't started, they could take their time a little bit to work with us to get the issue resolved in a way that when they do submit, that plan is moving smoothly through the process.

But it's not required, but I would make sure that we tell them, this is your opportunity to not start the clock. Yes, highly encouraged to continue to do it.

Thanks, I just wanted that clarification. No, thank you. Anything else?

Alderman Barnhill. Yes. I would just like an example of what your 60 business days are. Okay. My project starts September the 1st.

Okay. You have submitted your site construction documents. Let's use a site plan. No, let's use a development plan because that's going to come to you. Okay. You have a development plan. You submit it September, I'm going to say 10th because that's typical of our calendar. Okay. We're going to review it as staff, get you comments back in approximately... Man, I wrote this down. Today we do it in... 12 business days. I'm going to give you comments. You have eight business days as a design professional to address those comments, fix your plans, and resubmit them to the city.

I have almost two weeks.

You have almost two weeks. You have like a week and a half. Yeah. Once you resubmit, city staff is going to look at those plans and provide, hopefully, conditions of approval. We're going to do that in nine business days. Okay? And then within Another week and a half, it's going to be placed on a planning commission agenda for recommendation. So that all in total from when you submitted through that review process to being on a planning commission agenda for recommendation is 33 business days. So great, that meets the requirement. And what we're looking at based on the state law, it's for interpretation. So there's a lot about this that is... hard to understand so we're doing the best we can we're having to make assumptions we're talking to other cities but what we've decided is that based on how the state law reads that clock you have to get to the planning commission agenda within 60 days and then you've met state law yeah So it impacts you only in a way that you may see more disapprovals. And I can't guarantee that. I don't know. But because of now this timeframe that I have to move it on, If there can't be a resolution in the design, I might be coming to you and saying, we have to recommend disapproval. The plans are incomplete in these ways. Or they don't meet your development standards in these ways. And we can't in good faith have you entitled this project. But that's still up for you to decide. But you're going to hear, perhaps, more staff reports like that.

I'm sorry. But if they finish the planning commission in that 60 days, could they not make changes prior to coming to us that would then make staff approval possible, even if we would then go back for reconcurrence?

Yeah, that's a great question. We thought through that.

Okay.

State law still tells us that we can only give them two days. Reports of deficiencies. Okay. So if it comes to you and it's had those two reports already, not conditions of approval, but two times staff has turned it down and said this is not ready for all of these reasons, you looking at it and sending it back, I can't do anything with it. Okay. If it doesn't have that, then there might be an opportunity there. And that was something that we can explain, you know, if we're bringing you a disapproval, we can make that clear. It's had its two reports of deficiencies or it's only had one. So we can help in that way, have you understand what to do with it. Yes, sir.

Fox Mayor's got a question.

Yes.

When you look at, I'm just, I'm wanting to think about, like, why, I mean, I kind of know why the state probably did this. And I don't necessarily disagree with that because I think there's lots of different scenarios across the state of municipalities that probably aren't doing things like we do it. But how many times, I'm curious to know, Is it, like, a scale? Mm-hmm. Do we... Is it... Is this normal? Are we going from, like, a six-month typical, like, back and forth from a pre-app to on a planning commission meeting to now 60 days? Like, what is, like, an average... I don't really know. We don't see that beforehand. Right.

Yeah.

So I don't know if this is, like... I haven't done a data dive.

I know what you're asking, yeah. I would say on average we have probably 15 to 20 applications in a review cycle that we're looking at. PLATS, site plans, development plans. Of those 15 to 20, probably a third of them, that first time we look at it, we say, whoa, you have gotten a lot of comments. We're going to warn you, you know, you better get your act together because if you submit again, we might deem you incomplete. And then sometimes even in that list, We say there's so many comments that don't have enough information in the plan, we couldn't even give them a full review, so we make them start over. Now, that might be one every third agenda.

And I would also look at, because I've seen a lot of the, we see the list of comments, and sometimes I've seen them earlier in iterations, and there's a lot there, and rightfully so. I just also wonder if there's somewhere else in the process, some of the comments that various departments are putting forward are not necessarily 100% required to be tied to this stage of the plan. There are things that Maybe later on in the process it can be handled. Maybe Paul Holzen has some engineering little caveat that he just has really got a little ant in his pants about.

Paul.

That happens a lot. It is valid, but I guess that could be maybe addressed differently administratively if it's not one of the main things. There's a lot of comments in there that we don't even know about. And it has nothing to do with why we're making the decision if this is here and that's not there. And so that's kind of what I'm wondering. It may help a lot.

Yeah, I hear you. And we've already had discussions about that, just sort of how are we going to... deal with this new time frame. I think part of the reason those are in there is because we don't have a time frame later. So it's like, let's get the plan possible and get those details finalized. I think we're going to have to start rethinking our comments. I mean, if it's needed, it's needed, but to what level? I think we'll also be thinking through what can we make a condition of approval that It's maybe a little bit more substantial now, but it gets it to continue through the process.

Yeah.

And that might be part of our staff report, too, is that we've got some substantial conditions of approval here. So, Boma, are you okay with that?

I've got one more quick thing. Sorry, because I know the mayor's... I'm getting anxious. I know. Sorry. But I would encourage us to look back at our anonymous survey and then we're about to do it again. And I think that we'll find that maybe a lot of those concerns can be addressed, the concerns of, well, You know, we had all this time before, and so maybe some people didn't put a comment in before on the first one, and then they came back later. There was a lot of comments about, well, the comments were one thing this iteration, the next one it was a different comment, but I did the one before. I think this is a great opportunity for us to... I know it's a challenge, but I also think that using some of that feedback we've gotten can ultimately be positive for the process. Yes. Although I know it's hard. And thank you for all the work you all have done on this.

Yeah, of course.

You want to finish up on your slides?

Sureties. So in terms of sureties, now they put a clock on surety when a person has asked for a release of their surety. We did not have a timeline before. We did it pretty well, I think. But now we have a timeline. We actually have two different timelines because they've introduced an independent inspection. There's not a lot of information in the state law about this, so this will be something that we learn how to deal with over the next year, whether we get any of them or not. But now we have to essentially respond to a release request within 20 business days or 30 business days. That is not what we've done in the past. So as part of the adjustments, we're going to adjust our calendar so we know we meet those deadlines because, again, if we don't put a release request on an agenda, it will be deemed released. We don't want that to happen if we need that money as insurance. So we're going to make sure we meet the deadlines. I think there are some positives actually that come out of this situation for sureties. Now we are going, if we're not ready to release a request immediately, if there's some discrepancies on the site that still need to be resolved, Now we're going to give them a punch list. We've always given it to them, but just as an explanation of why we extended them and not released them. Now they have an opportunity to respond to the punch list. So I think that hopefully will be a way that more sureties ultimately do get released because if there's seven dead trees, they can go plant the seven dead trees in two weeks and then boom, they're released. They don't have to wait a full year. So we're also going to try to put our applications online. That's been a request from the development community, and we've found a way to make that happen and actually help us in this situation, so we're going to do that as well. Yeah. I think that's the gist of it. To wrap it up.

clarification. What is the 20 to 30 days? I mean, where does that start from when? It just said defined period to time.

When they've submitted it to us, so when they've submitted that request for release, so we're going to post it on a calendar when we're going to take those in. Yeah, but it's done.

Their development is finished.

They are saying that it is. Oftentimes they are not.

Oftentimes it takes like a season or something for these things to be approved. I mean, you know, go back and look at these developments and go, this stuff isn't done right.

Right. It's months later or a year later. Right. It's a developer's decision when they go to release. So if it takes them two years to put in the streets, they don't have to do it. Yeah, that is up to them when they come to us.

So they feel confident they're ready. Okay. They do, yes. That's what I'm looking for.

Yeah, there you go. Okay.

Let me get Rachel Blackhurst to come make her comment. She's waited so patiently.

Sorry, and I'll talk fast. Rachel Blackhurst with the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. We were very supportive of Governor Lee in his effort to streamline the permitting planning process across the state this past legislative session. We do recognize, however, that this is... just the first of its kind law in the country, and there is a lot of unknowns how it's actually going to work both for local departments, but also for the folks that I represent in the private sector. So we are similarly talking with our folks, but we want to say we're very committed to working with local departments on this rollout and trying to mitigate as much of the clunkiness as possible. One thing we've discussed with some other cities and I've discussed it a bit with Mr. Denton is a formal memorandum of understanding that among other things we will encourage our membership to please pursue always an administrative resolution to this rather than any kind of legal recourse that this state law creates at least again while we're trying to figure out how this is actually going to work. But lastly, please note, we hold up, as our membership, I know, holds up Franklin as this is a place that it really has clear expectations in its planning, permitting, inspection processes. So we are not expecting a lot of difficulties here, especially based on the amount of analysis and effort that you've already done, and it's still a good four months out until it goes into effect. So thank you. Thank you so much for all your work, and please know we'll be in touch with departments on how to make this a smooth-ish process. Thank you all.

Thanks, Rachel. Ten minutes. We're adjourned.