Cc Meeting - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

all right ladies and gentlemen call meeting to order seven o'clock um we'll have roll call dr johnson Mr. Kitchen? Present. Mr. Banks? Present. Ms. Copeland? Present. Mr. McLemore? Present. Mr. Grizzard? Present.

Is it working now? Is it working better?

Is it still fuzzy? It's fuzzy, okay. Ladies and gentlemen, please turn off your cell phones and if you'll stand and join me if you're able to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, whose republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Before we go to citizens' time, I want to recognize some people in the audience. We have former Mayor Johnson in the back over here. I'm looking around. We have Uh, the treasurer from, um, from Lancaster County, Ms. Bonnie Dixon joined us today. We have two members of our school board. This, uh, Ms. Dorothy Boone and, um, I lost him. And Mr. Allsbrook. There you go. So I think if I, if I missed anybody, I'll. Former Councilman Oscar Babb. We have more, more, more, uh, distinguished guests than normal. Um, we had, um, a very short, uh, uh, Work session meeting, so we have a nice break between times. It's citizens' time. We'll start with Genesis Powell. Genesis, you'll come up. You'll have three minutes to speak. Please start with your name and your address, and the lights will tell you when the red light goes off and a little buzzer goes off, your time is up.

Good afternoon. My name is Genesis Powell. I live in Dorchester, 1698 Dorchester Street, apartment D5. For me to be a young man coming up here, which is highly rare for what I've observed and what I've noticed for a very long time, I come up here because I see a lot of things that need to be changed in our community. And this is not coming off of a piece of paper, but it's coming off the top of my head. I sit around and I observe a lot. I feel as if most people wants to run for big things, but they do not want to take accountability of the things that they did that was small, like owned up to a lot of things that they've done, show respect to their leaders that's current. And I want to say that the people that I sit around and look at, I do say that I look and see that most of you are doing a good job and a lot of you are playing two sides. Now, I do want to say I am happy to be standing right here because, like I said, it is really, really rare for somebody to allow a child like me to come up and say what I got to say, but I'm going to say it. I thank you all. I thank you for the ones who's trying to help us, and I thank you for the ones who heard out for our children's humble cries. I thank you all who tried, and I thank you all who succeeded. I thank you all who looked at us and said, you know what, these children need a lot of help. I thank you all. I thank you, Mr. Mayor. I thank you all who took the time out your days and not just to you up here, but to the people out here in the community that took the time out your days to stop what you were doing and came to see about us. I thank you. And it's not easy thing to do because when you talk about certain things, you know, you have people that looks at you that you want to look up to and look at you and say, no, no, no, I don't want you anymore. It's not hard. Oh, this is like blushing at me.

You're good for a little while.

So, like I said, right now this was just a little test subject to show my appreciation to most of you all, but next time I'm going to have something that I really do need to address and I really do need to say, but that's all I'm going to say. Like I said, my name is Genesis. I'm getting ready to go head on.

Thank you, Genesis. Thanks for your time. And Mr. Ricky Sykes.

Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, City Attorney, city manager city attorney okay listen um last year sometimes I think back in August I came before you guys about with the concern about a citizen review board other people call it police advisory committee but I really do believe that we need to look further and deeper into this matter Two weeks ago, you guys had a young lady up here that was complaining about how she was treated. And, you know, to me, it kind of like broke my heart. But I will say this. A young lady approached me today about a dog mauling her daughter. And she wanted to kill the dog. So she got arrested. There's no logic in that. I don't see it. Now, there was a little more to it. She and her husband, they did knock the door in a bathroom, I believe they said it was. But like I say, she wanted me to speak on this thing. And like I said, there's more to that story. But again, I don't believe that this young lady should be going to jail. over her daughter laying up in a hospital bed with over 200 stitches from her face, her body, her arms, legs, over a dog, and now she's locked up. If I'm not mistaken, they told me that the animal control put the dog down themselves. To me, it's unbelievable. But anyway, young ladies are crying about this thing. So that's something we need to look into. And like I say, the Citizen Review Board, however you guys want to do that, but I think that we really need to push that issue. Something you guys need to look into. So with that being said, now we talk about some of the issues that I came in with. Mr. City Manager, I really appreciate you getting that work done that I inquired about. And also, if you guys can look at that field on Borden Street, the grass is waist high. and yet it hasn't been cut this summer. I had reached out to Carl Heck several times, showed him a picture of it, showed him a picture of my dog beside, behind, up there beside the field in the high grass. He assured me he was going to get up, you know, since what, out to cut that grass, and he has not. So if you guys can do something about it, it'd be great. I appreciate it. And thank you for your time. Thank you.

All right. I have a motion to approve the agenda. I have a motion and a second.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. Being none, I'll start the vote with Dr. Johnson. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

All right. Thank you very much. We have a presentation from the Children's Center, Ms. Christy Daly. I think something's gonna come up.

Yeah, I was hoping you were gonna have this PowerPoint.

Wrong one.

There it is.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and each of you for having me today. I'm excited to be able to share with you the great things the Children's Center does. I am about to say brand new executive director, but tomorrow will be one year. So I've been here a year, still feel brand new, but excited to be here to talk to you about the great things that our agency does for Franklin and the community. All right, do I push it or you push it? Okay. All right, so we're just gonna be quick. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about our history, the programs that we have, and share some data with you. So the history of the Children's Center. So years ago in the 80s, some women were working for Edmark in downtown Suffolk. Edmark is hospice for children. And this new thing came about. It was the Special Education Act, IDEA, for infants and toddlers. For the first time, they were gonna provide special education services for babies. And we had not had this program in any of the states brand new, and they needed someone in each locality to take this on. So these ladies said to Edmark, can we do this? It seems like a great fit. So many of the children that we work with have special needs. Edmark said, no, we can't take this on, but you leave. You do it, we'll partner, we'll work together. So a few ladies, including our original executive director, Barbara Meese, left Edmark and started the Children's Center. So in 1983, we were incorporated as the Children's Center. We worked in one room of Suffolk Presbyterian Church, and these ladies bought their own children to the church started a little classroom for the children with special needs so they created their own inclusion and back then it was called mainstreaming uh... and then they grew they served sixty three children in that first year and needed more space so in nineteen eighty four we we moved to five oh seven that's what we call it which is a house in the picture which is right beside s p morton so that was our first building we still own this building now it's offices At that time, they had classrooms for children with and without disabilities, and they continued to grow. And so in 1995, we built this building that you see in this picture, 700 Campbell Avenue in Franklin, and we had community childcare. So this was childcare for paying families with and without disabilities, so it was still that inclusion setting. 1998, we acquired the Early Head Start Grant in Franklin, which is a federal grant to serve 100 more children. We expanded to Suffolk and Smithfield, so we became Western Tidewater. We moved out of just Franklin. And in 2012, we acquired the Head Start Grant for Western Tidewater, serving 250 more children. So lots of growth over the years since we were incorporated in 1983. We moved from one room in a church We now have seven buildings across Western Tidewater, across four cities and counties, including Franklin. Over 200 employees. a budget of about $15 million, and four amazing programs, which I'm gonna tell you about. It's a pretty awesome agency to come into. So one of our programs, Early Intervention, this is how we started. This is the special education for infants and toddlers. Look at little Nico right there, he's precious. So Early Intervention is a state program, serves children birth through three. The day they turn three, we can no longer serve them. So a huge part of our job, while we have them, they have a case manager called a service coordinator. They can get special ed services, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, whatever they need. to continue to grow and develop but when they turn three we can no longer keep them that's a state regulation so a huge part of our job is to transition them at the age of three to the next appropriate placement many times that is the local school system so we work closely with our local school system for special ed sometimes that's transition just a head start so we keep that inclusion model But research shows that early intervention works. So this is the heart of our agency, where we started, and very important to us. Community child care, so paying child care for families. We also have a lot of subsidies. So if a family doesn't qualify for our Head Start programs but can afford child care, because child care is very expensive, we have subsidies through Department of Social Services and the state that they can apply for that help. So good quality childcare. We have that Early Head Start program. Early Head Start is a wonderful program. So it's federally funded through the US Department of Health and Human Services. It's a poverty-based program. Most of our children live in poverty, though not all. We serve pregnant women and children birth through three. But it's comprehensive. It is not just daycare. It is an amazing program. So we work with the moms. We get them the prenatal care they need if we get them that early. We offer classroom settings for free. So they get to come. They get to learn and socialize. They have two healthy meals and a healthy snack every day. But also... We have to find them a medical home. Every child in our program has to have a medical home or a doctor, a pediatrician, and a dental home. If mom or child has mental health concerns, we help them get the services they need. We do developmental screenings twice a year. We do hearing screenings and vision screenings twice a year for our families. And the family has to be engaged. They have to participate in one way or the other. So it's not just you send your child to daycare, Though that's a great part of it, because come to daycare five days a week and then we help you with your goals, mom and dad. We help you get a GED, get a job, get a license, whatever it is that you need. And we can help with the transportation to those things as well. It's a pretty neat program. And then we have Head Start. Same thing pretty much, federally funded, poverty-based program, but it's for three to five-year-olds. This program focuses heavily on kindergarten readiness. So we are getting these babies ready for kindergarten. I'm going to tell you a story about the family you see on the screen. Mom is Ja'Kayla. I worked with this family before I was executive director a year ago. I was a special ed teacher, so this is very close and dear to my heart. This family is amazing. So at the time when I started working with Ja'Kayla, I was going to work with little Keon, which is a little guy all the way to the right. So mom had a two-year-old daughter. Kion was one at the time. There was an infant laying on the bed beside mom when I went for our first home visit, and mom was pregnant. Single mom, has her hands full. At the time she was living in Suffolk, home was a hotel. So I went into the hotel and, I mean, it was exactly what you would think of, two beds, a dresser with a TV, a small refrigerator, and then the bathroom for this family of five. A few toys, not a whole lot, but a few toys in the room and the TV was on. And so I say to mom, what do you want to work on today? What do we want to do for little Keon? He was referred to us from his pediatrician with no language. So what do we want to work on? And she said, well, I don't know. And she didn't know. She didn't know what he needed to work on. And so I started talking with him and playing with him. Well, he was sitting on the bed shaking his head from side to side over and over. Never even noticed I walked into the room. And so I'm like, OK, what are we going to do? Well, he had a chicken tender sitting on the bed beside him. And he picked it up, and he starts scraping the chicken tender on the inside of his teeth in the weirdest fashion I'd ever seen. So I said, mom, does he always eat like that? And she said, yes, he doesn't know how to bite. It's like, huh, can I look at his mouth if he'll let me? Look inside of his mouth, his poor little teeth were rotten. Behind the teeth, and you couldn't see it from the front. Long story short, I worked very closely with Ja'Kayla. I immediately said, we've gotta get this baby, all of these babies into Early Head Start, right? Because we can get them into childcare, we can get them a pediatrician, we can get them a dentist, we can get them everything we need. We did all that. All four of these babies came through our Early Head Start and Head Start programs. Then we got Ja'Kayla a driver's license. She got a job at Bojangles. She got her GED very recently and was able to do that because all of her children were with us. Keon, I don't know if you can tell by his teeth, they had to pull those front teeth. They pulled them all, but he had some dental work and was healthy. The child was so unhealthy. Dental concerns can really impact your health. He started talking about three months later. He didn't have a speech delay. I think some of it was medical for him, but also mom is very quiet, very shy. I don't think she talked to him a whole lot. We did some good parent education with mom. She started talking to him. He got into the classroom setting. and they are thriving. One of these little guys is still with us at the Children's Center. Three of them are in Franklin Public Schools right now and doing amazing. And that's just one of many stories of what the Children's Center does for the families in your community. So these are some numbers. This is data from 2024-25. We saw 1,600 children across all of Western Tidewater. And then I pulled just Franklin numbers. So the bottom part of the screen is children we've served in Franklin during the 2024-25 school year. So 50 children in early intervention, 44 got in pediatric therapy, which is speech occupational physical therapy, 93 children in Head Start, 24 in Head Start, and 41 in community child care. Pretty impressive for the city of Franklin. And just some interesting data you can hardly read in those little things. So every dollar we spend in early intervention before a child turns five, there's a $13 return on that investment, which just makes sense. 90% of the brain develops when a child is five, up until the time a child turns five. So that's when we need to get them into our setting and really help them grow and learn. 100% of our early Head Start and Head Start children had medical exams and vision screenings that year. So lots of good work done. I'm going to end just saying there were so many ways of, the city manager asked me to talk about a lot of things, but I had 10 minutes. So I didn't have much time, so I just kind of picked a few. We really work closely with our community. Actually, the city of Franklin, we work very closely together. When we acquired Early Intervention many years ago, they came to us and said, you're a nonprofit. You need a fiscal agent. We can't just send you money, this money that you would receive from Early Intervention from the state. So the city of Franklin works with us. They send you the money for early intervention, and you send it to us each month. So that's one of our collaborations. We work very closely with the school systems, both for early intervention and special ed, but also just kindergarten prep, getting these babies ready. That's always a collaboration I would like to strengthen. I would love to have some field trips for our babies to get to those kindergarten classrooms, meet the teachers, that kind of thing. Volunteers, we take volunteers. So anyone, including the community, is always welcome. Retired teachers, high school students, Pauley Camp students, we will take anyone we can get. So refer people our way. We did donate some buses this year. We had two buses that were just, it was gonna cost too much to fix them. So we reached out to the local fire department. They took both of them. One of them they actually fixed and used to transport firefighters to and from trainings. the other one they're like do you care if we burn it and practice like no go for it so lots of um that's another way that we've collaborated we work off of donations and grants a lot 13 million sounds like a huge budget but most of that is designated money from the federal government for head start and early head start we have to spend it the exact way they tell us to it's not enough to run a good quality early child care program as long as early intervention so donations and grants we work very closely with these that you see listed and are always willing to hear more opportunities if you know of any so please share us tell families about us tell community partners about us we are happy to be here and happy to be a part of your community any questions thank you very much yes thank you

Thank you so much, I'm sorry

On the regular agenda, we have a presentation from Ms. Dixon, treasurer from Lancaster, to come and presentation from our treasurer, Donna Ban. Welcome.

Good evening, council members, mayor. I appreciate a few minutes tonight to take care of some Treasurer's Association business. Again, thank you for allowing me a few minutes of your time to recognize one of your own. This is the second time, and I can't look at her, so. This is the second time I've had the honor of presenting your treasurer, Donna Babb, with a special award from the Treasurer's Association of Virginia. The first one was a few years ago, was our Commonwealth Award, which recognizes service to the association. And the fact that I consider her a personal friend has made these moments even more special. i'm here tonight though to present ms babb with the 2026 treasurer of the year award as i'm sure you are aware she is the kind of leader who never says no whether they're called upon by staff city or treasurer's association of virginia she gives her full commitment and energy of which she has a lot She has been president of our association and knows what it takes to be a leader. She has also been the co-chair of the Continuing Education Committee for the past three years. Continuing education is actually a very grueling job. Some of those responsibilities are planning our spring and fall district meetings, which we have two of the four this week that we are traveling to. We have a legislative conference in January in Richmond and meet with our legislators. She plans that. And then for all of our newly elected treasurers, she also plans the new officer training and education and takes part in planning the education for our annual conference every year. She has done an amazing job with all of this, and without her, I hosted our annual conference this year, and without her help with the education, it would never have happened. She has actually made several innovations with our district meetings by incorporating teachers who are also treasurers or deputy treasurers, and this change has been very well received by attendees, and reviews for the district meetings have been overwhelmingly positive under her leadership. Few other jobs that she takes care of, she serves on our Education Oversight Committee, the Sponsorship Committee, the Scholarship Committee, the Nominating Committee, and several ad hoc committees. Her commitment to TAV is unwavering. She's attentive to the needs of the entire TAV organization, and her positive attitude puts everyone at ease, whether you are a seasoned treasurer like myself, that still feels like a newbie after 20 years, or a new treasurer. And so I am beyond proud to present the 2026 Treasurer of the Year Award to your Dinah Babb. which reads, in appreciation and recognition for her years of dedicated service to the Treasurer's Association of Virginia, from the TAV.

And ladies, if you'll stay right there,

I have the honor of presenting this resolution or reading the resolution for tonight. Forgive me if you hear the congestion, but here it is. A resolution honoring and recognizing Dinah Babb, treasurer for more than 21 years of dedicated service to the city of Franklin and for being named the 2026 treasurer of the year. Whereas Dida Babb began her service to the city of Franklin on March 1st, 2005, and for more than 21 years had faithfully served the citizens of Franklin with professionalism, integrity, dedication, and an unwavering commitment to public service. and whereas throughout her distinguished tenure with the City of Franklin, Ms. Babb has diligently fulfilled the duties and responsibilities entrusted to the Office of the Treasurer while providing courteous, efficient, and responsible service to the citizens, businesses, and taxpayers of the city. And whereas during her more than two decades of service, Ms. Babb consistently demonstrated the highest standards of professionalism, accountability, fiscal responsibility, and public service, earning the respect and appreciation of her colleagues, fellow constitutional officers, city officials, and the community she serves. And whereas in recognition of her exceptional leadership, professional accomplishments, and distinguished service, Dinah Babb has been named the 2026 Treasurer of the Year, and whereas this prestigious recognition will be presented by the President of the Treasurer's Association of Virginia, reflecting the high regard in which Ms. Babb is held by her peers throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. And whereas being named the 2026 Treasurer of the Year is a testament to Ms. Babb's dedication to excellence, her commitment to the citizens she serves, and her many years of exemplary public service, and the distinguished honor, brings great pride and recognition to the City of Franklin. And now, therefore, be it resolved that the City of Franklin City Council hereby proudly recognizes and congratulates Dinah Babb, Treasurer of the City of Franklin upon being named 2026 Treasurer of the Year and extends its highest commendation and sincere appreciation for her more than 21 years of dedicated and distinguished service to the City of Franklin and its citizens. Be it further resolved that the Franklin City Council recognizes Ms. Babb for her, I believe this is a lot, it's redundant, so I'm just going to say Ms. Babb, we appreciate you and thank you for every single thing that you've done over the last 21 years. Can we stand and give her a round of applause again?

I'll take the vote now. Do I have a second? I have a motion and a second. I'm sorry, the proclamation I thought was the motion. I'm sorry. Do I have a motion?

Yes, so moved. Second.

Anyway, motion to second. Being, hearing no discussion, I'll take the vote, Dr. Johnson. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

And I. All right. Thank you.

It's my pleasure to serve the city and the years that I have. And I hope I have a few more years to serve you. But it's been my pleasure. The citizens of Franklin mean a whole lot to me and as well as everyone in the audience today. So thank you very much for this honor. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Dixon did drive a long ways tonight to be able to give me this award, and I greatly appreciate her as the president. It is a grueling task to have a president, and they do a lot. We have to do a lot, and as she said, we'll be traveling throughout the week. So, anyway, thank you.

Thank you very much. And now we'll have a resolution for Constitution Week.

14th, 2026 marks the 239th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention, whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary and to patriotic celebrations which will commemorate the occasion, and whereas Public Law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America, designated September 17th through 23rd as Constitution Week. Now, therefore, I, Paul E. Captain, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Mayor of the City of Franklin, do hereby proclaim the week of September 17th through 23rd as Constitution Week and ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals of the framers of the Constitution headed in 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us in this guardian of liberties, remembering that lost rights may never be regained, Witness thereof, I have hereunto sent my hand to cause the seal of the City of Franklin to be affixed this 14th day of September of the year of our Lord, 2026. GREG BRUDNICKI. I have a motion.

So moved. Second.

GREG BRUDNICKI. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? I'll take the vote. Dr. Johnson, if you'll start. AYE. GREG BRUDNICKI. AYE. Aye. And aye. And we have Brucie Standall and Tricia Miltier here from the DAR to accept and to say a few words.

We represent the Constantia chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and we invite all of you to come right out here on the steps of City Hall on Thursday just before 4 o'clock. At 4 o'clock, we will be ringing bells. So bring a bell. All over the country, there will be ringing bells. We'd like to hear ours. Thank you very much.

On the city manager's report It was probably left out of your book too.

And I have to turn my mic on. We're sharing mics today. Sure. One of the things I did want to mention to the council members.

I don't think we can hear you.

I did want to mention to the council members just a gentle reminder that if you could submit your candidates for utility advisory board, and we can try to get them on the next agenda at the end of the month. I believe it's the 28th is our next meeting. So if you can get that to myself or Shannon, we'll work hard to get that on the agenda. And then also in your packet, I've included an update on the paid channel. So you should have that in your packet. And then there's, and I think there's also something about the urban archery program. I'll talk to council about that a little bit more, but the important thing about that is this is a service that we'll be providing that is 100% technological. It doesn't involve having to go to a human being. And so our IT director worked with a few folks and was able to get this onto our city's website. And so now the folks that want to become a part of that, they literally can go to the website and reserve uh the uh the space and uh we've only heard but wonderful comments and it's we did a trial run kind of floated the balloon there as a trial run and we've received some very very positive feedback from the folks that uh normally do this so it's 100 automated it doesn't require anybody so we'll be looking in the future uh how we can automate certain certain city services where it makes sense to do that where you can just go online and do it and uh and get things done so i just wanted to bring that up as well you'll hear more about that later all right any questions all right thank you very much we're on to boards commissions and upcoming events

Yes.

The jail board, we had a meeting last Wednesday and we covered some things. One of the things that we covered was improving the jail cells, basically. There's a problem with some of them sometimes that when the guards are passing and so forth,

come out and attack them and so forth.

So we're, we're working to eliminate that. And that's about it.

GREG BRUDNICKI Thank you very much. GREG BRUDNICKI Thank you. GREG BRUDNICKI Mr. Ketch, anything?

BILLY RADER Upcoming events September 30th, 2026 at 7 p.m. Ward 1 Town Hall meeting at Hunterdale Christian Church.

JENNA HALIGAS Are we submitting council comments?

GREG BRUDNICKI No council comments.

no they've been taken off the agenda so we have um monica vaughn i believe who is the new assistant principal at sp morton did post and i believe it was posted from the franklin city public schools website the after school tutoring registration is taking place and it reads help make a difference in a child's future franklin franklin city parks and recreation is now accepting registrations for after school tutoring starting october 2026 so if there are students in the community that need help please and if there are volunteers they are asking for help and i thought that was a worthy cause i was reached out by titus reached out by titus moeller from the tywood news in reference to franklin city public school boards recent leadership changes and I wanted to address that tonight because I have constituents asking questions. I've also contacted the city manager and we never had a joint meeting so this is the only time I would get to ask during council comments. I was not aware that they were taken off of the agenda and I don't know Did we vote on that as a council? Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and do it. So my response to Titus Moller was I commend the school board for holding the division accountable and for being willing to make a difficult decision when they believed a change in leadership was necessary. At the end of the day, our students deserve effective leadership and accountability has to be a part of that process. The academic data cannot simply be ignored. Yes, we can acknowledge the impact of COVID-19 and what it had on student achievement across the country. But during the last meeting, Brandon Lilly presented scores from both before and after COVID. And there was a significant decline in the scores. What stood out to me even more was the acknowledgment that other school divisions have been able to recover from the academic impact of COVID while Franklin City Public Schools has continued to struggle. We have to be willing to have an honest conversation about why. I also believe we have to acknowledge valuable teachers and staff members we have allowed to walk away from the school division. There are educators and employees who genuinely cared about our students in our city and could have continued to be assets to Franklin City Public Schools. When communication is unclear and there is a lack of proper strategy, planning, and support, we risk losing the very people we need to help move our school forward. However, as a city council member, I have to look at the bigger picture. I have expressed my personal concerns as well as concerns brought to me by citizens in Ward 6 about the financial implications of the decision. At the last meeting, it was discussed that FCPS could face a deficit, that enrollment could decrease, which could result in a reduction in state funding. There are current projects that require funding as well. And there are financial obligations associated with the agreement reached regarding the separation of the division and the former superintendent. So the question I believe we have to ask, was the financial cost of removing the superintendent worth it? And are our citizens going to be OK with the financial consequences that may follow? this is not a question i ask to criticize the school board it is a question i ask because i represent citizens who ultimately will be impacted by the financial decisions made by both the school division and the city from the beginning i have stated that i believe a joint meeting between city council and school board was necessary i wanted us to have an opportunity to sit down together look at numbers and understand the financial obligations and have an honest conversation about what this decision means for the future of our city and for our school division. As a city council member, my responsibility includes helping to fund Franklin City Public Schools and appointing members to the school board. That responsibility requires me to celebrate progress and accountability, but it also requires me to ask difficult questions when taxpayers' dollars are involved. So while I support the accountability and I want to see our schools improve, I also believe we cannot allow celebration of leadership to change and overshadow the significant financial questions that remain. Accountability and fiscal responsibility have to exist together. Our students deserve better academic outcomes. Our teachers and staffs deserve strong leadership and support. Our citizens deserve transparency and our city deserves a school division that is both academically successful and financially responsible. There are still questions that need to be answered and I believe our citizens deserve those answers before we move forward.

Thank you. Good evening. I would like to publicly thank Mr. Smith Mr. Clinton Smith for assisting me with the cleaning of debris within Ward 5. Your kindness is greatly appreciated. And also Ward 5 meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 16th, 2026 at 530 PM at the Dr. Martin Luther King Center. The guest speakers are Kent Grant, Ward 5 school board member, and Chad Brown, our deputy city manager. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments earlier, and I'll take a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion? Being none, I'll take the vote. Dr. Johnson, you'll start. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

And aye. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.