City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, we've got the recorder running. So, the first thing I'd like to do is start us with the invocation and ask Danny Ricker to come up and lead us in that. and then Tom Tim will sp will help lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you as always for time to come together, God. It'll be about your business to take care of our people, Lord. Father, as always, God, we thank you for our leaders. Ask you to keep your hand upon them. Keep Greenville and Green County safe, Lord. And we give you all the glory and the praise for it in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. If you'll face the flag. I alian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. As far as the mayor's comments go, really I'm not going to comment today. We're going to invite all of the directors, uh, department directors to come up and talk about some of the, um, activities that they've been taking for the last year. So, I'm going to let Kathy invite them up and let them spend a couple Oh, first I think we'll invrot somebody. Yes. I'm gonna ask Brandy Fan to come up first. Brandy Fan is our new wellness coordinator for the town of Greenville and she started with us last Monday and I'll let her go ahead and share a little bit about herself to you all.

Um so I am Brandy Fan. I am local to Greenville Green County. Lived here my whole life. Um I've been a registered nurse for the last 17 years. Uh served our community here. Um different aspects of the hospital uh setting. Um this is my first time venturing out of that. Um, I've done women's health, um, emergency medicine, ICU experience. Um, al also done, um, education and informatics, um, and different roles there within the hospital of both, um, Tacoma, Laughlin, and now Greenville Community Hospital. Um, I still work there, uh, PRN, so you'll see me out and about there as well if you come to our local emergency room. Um, I'm excited to be here. um excited to share my knowledge of just overall um health and wellness uh to the employees of Greenville. Um I just want to extend that um it's not just about people's weight and stuff like that. I want it's a holistic uh approach to it. So not just about your health, but your overall mental health and and spiritual health as well. So that's kind of what I bring to it. Um last week was my first week. Um was very excited. Um, everybody was very welcoming and I look forward to serving our town of Greenville employees.

And she's she's uh took off and rolling. She's been sending out emails to all the employees to get us on track for 2026 and um just getting all kinds of newsletters and information out and so I' I've already heard great compliments about how she's uh moving forward quickly. Yeah, I look forward to it. And uh there'll be lots of activities coming out for the the town of Greenville employees. So, everybody seems excited. So, well, welcome aboard. Yes. Thank you. And then we'll just go ahead and have some of the the department heads come up.

Um, actually, I have my own, but I'll borrow yours.

We have this inside joke. Should I tell? Anyway, sometimes we don't have our glasses and we have to borrow someone's whether they match or not. Um so, um with human resources, um we uh was able to finally we had a fantastic open enrollment this year um over a two-day period and as as usual it was successful. We also uh was able to improve our benefit offerings to employees when it comes to uh uh dental insurance. Now employees have many many dentists to choose from. So um excuse me HR along with finance completed the transition of local government. We did an upgrade or mostly finance was uh involved in that. Uh of course it affects HR2. So together we worked on it was an upgrade from doll space to window spaced. So we've really graduated into the new age. Um and it's been a very smooth transition. It's a whole lot simpler to deal with in windows base. Um, also we had a good um workers comp audit. It went very well. We don't have the final report yet, but I was told that it it was very good. Um, we currently have 194 full-time employees, 62 part-time for a total of 256 employees uh current day. And uh to mention too that in the last quarter of 2025, we only had two

full-time employees leave town employment and one went back to a previous position that would allow more family time and the other went to work for ICE. So I I thought that was really good. We only lost two in the last quarter. Uh and uh also uh we've helped transition the full-time and part-time employees at the airport and continue to assist when needed to for them because they were able to transition as of January 1st. So there's a pretty much the basics. Any questions?

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Good afternoon. So, an update on the accomplishments for the Roby Adult Center. Uh, we have recently started, well, I shouldn't say recently, back in Janu July, we actually started taking the insurance for Humanana United Way, United Health and Blue Cross and Blue Shield and that has been a huge revenue generator for us. um we're just really much kicking it off just to make sure that it uh goes smoothly. But not only does that help boost our revenue, but it also gives incentives for our um members to boost their um insurance incentives for them as well. In 2025, we have 293 new members just for the year of 2025. My goal was 200. So uh with 293 that exceeds 146.5% of our of our um membership. In 2025 we also offered 33 new programs um that some of those are duplicated um multiple times throughout the year but that is only one count counted once in that number. We uh are fortunate enough to be able to partner with Netrans to maintain our transport uh transportation without signing the agreement um that they originally had asked us to do and that was to um keep our expense down for our members um that depend on net trans. We have also uh been marketing the Roby Center which uh several years ago you would probably know that the ROI center was not mentioned a lot. Um and we have our marketing person the Greenville Sun. Uh she also does our social media WGV WJ DHL and all the other uh news outlets. We have 64 volunteers and that consists

of the volunteers at the Roby Center in addition to my ride and meals on wheels and they had a equivalent of 3,549 volunteer hours um that they gave in 2025 and we are um proud recipients of a couple of grants this year which has helped with our budget means and uh so I'm um grateful Kathy thank you for helping us get those and then our options counselor as you know she actually goes into Greenville Green County. She started the year off of 2025 with 74 cases. She ended the year with 119 cases. So she's a part-time employee, but she actually has a full-time case load. The Myroide program, as you know, is part of the Roby Center. In 2024, we had 15 riders. Now we have 26 people that depend on those services. Um thankfully we have u more volunteers this year than we had last year as well which is an increase from 10 to 16 and we offered 303 rides for the my ride program last year which is a huge benefit. Um and a lot of those medical rides have been paid for by the expense of the ETF grant that agreed to pay for those um that transportation for our our clientele. The meals on wheels program that is also hosted out of the Roby Center. We um feed 93 different families every day um for throughout the year. And so we're extremely grateful for our meals on wheels program. And then we also have um a partnership with the CEP program which is senior employment with through FTH and we have one CEP employee also at the ROI center. So and lastly uh a notable mention is the ROI center was voted the best of the best activity center in 2025. Thank you. What else? There was one there was one big thing. Also are a bunch of little things that are gone now.

Well, they're not gone. They're just resting. So, yes, the the bats um is great to work with. They came in and removed all the guano. And I will say we had 18 pounds or I'm sorry, 18 bags of 6,000 pound. So, that attic was actually um separated to be another floor. So, I got to climb up there and see all the fun things in there and they put new insulation down so fixed a couple of our windows. So, um hopefully the bats will not reside at the ROI much longer. Thank you. I'm going to have Laura speak next because uh that kind of ties in with local government on the software upgrade.

Yes. So, um we were using two a DOSsbased system and

come on up here. You're next, Steve. You want to Oh, you go ahead and talk about PD if you want to. Okay. Yeah. Mine will be short and sweet. Um, it is not as extensive as the previous two ladies, but it was quite the undertaking to go from is the same accounting system, but we went from a DOSsbased to a web base. So, we only have one more module left and they are at we we may very well be their beta testing site um for that part of our accounting. But uh we now have um online payments. So we have on our website the ability for um our citizens to pay for literally just about anything any town service that they need. Um even purchase they can even purchase a residential trash can and and not have to drive to town hall to to fill out a piece of paper. So um that's a great thing that we've done. part of that um online payment system also has allowed us a more streamlined credit card system and we have those at remote locations like the landfill. Um East View Rec Center and the library. Um Roby has a credit card machine. So that's helped out a good bit as well. So uh members, all of our citizens can pay for just about anything with a credit card or a debit card now as long as they want to. One of the great services things about that service is if you are paying your property taxes online, this is the same portal. If you are like myself who is a city and a county taxpayer, um I could actually pay both of my property taxes through the same portal at the same time. One other advantage that you have to paying online is if you have a commercial garbage account and um where you can pay that on a recurring draft, a bank draft. So, we do have those. The newest option that we have that we just did back in the summer was our payroll services, which again, to Paty's point, has streamlined so many things. This

will probably be one of the last the last year that I actually print over 300 Ws for our employees and seasonal um people that come and help us out to serve our community. Um they'll be able to get that online um through our they already are able to see their payubs online. So, um that'll be forthcoming as well. Um of course, the biggest accomplishment that I think we had as a finance department and even as a town um was we had um another year of no audit findings. And that's that's just a big deal.

Chief Spano, will you please come up now? I want I want Chief Shiffley to be next.

How is everybody today? Uh our greatest accomplishment is always being able to fulfill our mission which protect you, your family, and our community. So um in order to do that in 2024, we answered 21,712 calls to service through the police department. Uh in 2025, we answered 23,980 and which is a 2268 increase uh for our department. But more than that, when you look at the manpower that is used in these calls to service nowadays, we were almost well, we were at 41,277 individual units sent to each of these calls. So that that is 41,277 individuals that go to the all these calls that we answer. And that's not just those are just the calls that come into 911. That's not everything we do throughout the daytime, but talking to the population and and doing whatever else needs to be done. Um, of all the calls to service that came in to the 911 system, the Greenville Police Department answered 35% countywide of all the calls that came in. Um, and we do that with 59 officers. There's five admin and the rest are are working the roads. We've got seven man shifts at work. And on top of that, we did it while hiring 11 new 11 new people last year, which is a feat in itself. We've never had to do that. Uh people retiring, people decided they didn't want to do law enforcement anymore. So while we're training basically two shifts of people, we answer 35% of the calls of all Green

County, our people are working. Uh and that's all I can ask them to do. Our men and women of our department are professionals. We get um out of boys all the time from the community and we are extremely proud of it. uh everything else that we've done as far as in the community, the community outreach that we have. Uh but those are just a few numbers and know that uh last year was really trying because we we always we we went to a new testing process to where we test twice a year now. We want to be able to get the best candidates for our city that we can. So we test twice a year and then we also had promotional interviews as well. which added in on top. And then on top of that, we had our reserve uh interviews, applications, and everything that we had to go through. And we we hired four new we thought we had five uh new auxiliary that were going to come in. Four wound up coming in. The other one never showed up. So, um, we're in the process now of going through that interview process again to get some more reserves in because the amount of work they do for us with the with all the things we do downtown with all the sporting events that the schools need us at and and everything, uh, they're they're a huge asset to our department. So, we're we're still trying to add on to it as well.

Thank you.

But, you want to come up next? because I talked to you in the last meeting about ladies classic and things about four $100,000 grant that we got for LPRF going to make those renovations in Harden Park. Finished the pickle ball project uh that was a in conjunction with the Rotary Club and that's been a big hit downtown. Uh obviously we had some successful tourism events, sporting events between the uh volleyball and and the basketball. And then uh and kudos to my staff. We won the TML uh award for excellence for parks and wreck and I attribute that to all the staff members and things and and some of those other events. Uh got to give credit to the other departments that helped us and especially our sporting events, police, fire, public works, business office. They all make things easy for us. So that's our four.

Thank you. Bert, would you like to come up next?

I'll list three items so I be brief. Um we had um and I'm viewing these as big successes. Uh we had two employees retire after many years of service. And it's uh you know it's nice to see employees happily retire. We also had uh with that retirement we had two new inspectors hired uh uh Mr. Robertson and Mr. Kerry. Uh and they have both exceeded their expectations. my expectations on their training, their skills, their uh their obtaining their federal certifications which are uh difficult to do. Um and then also building planning and development was successfully split into two separate departments. Um with the addition of um Mr. Randy Brules as the town engineer position. Uh the splitting our departments was something that we identified was going to be necessary back several years ago. Uh it was just finding the right time, the right point to staff it uh so that we can better serve our community, our building community and our infrastructure uh especially at the rate of growth that we we're experiencing right now. So, that's that that was a very positive thing that's that's really going to help our citizens. Uh, the building department completed uh 1,739 inspections uh on on projects. Uh we issued 600 or excuse me, wrong, we issued seven or city limits. Um we collected roughly $166,000 in permit revenues. um which Laura I know we're going to have to make some changes to our fee schedule due to some state requirements but that's that's something for another time. And then we issued certificates of occupancy. And again, we talked about

this in the last meeting. These are completely new structures. Um completely new. There was an empty lot there and now you've got a new structure. So, we we issued 10 uh certificates of occupancy for brand new commercial structures and 85 for new single family re residential homes that's been added. And um thinking about population numbers, if if you say that's roughly three people per house, two uh 85 houses, that's 255 people. That's probably a pretty good mark for us, I'd say, average wise. So, you know, possibly in 2030 census, you you may be looking at an increase of 2500 to 3,000 for our population. Could be, you know, that's that would be reasonable. I think probably within the parameters.

Thank you. Andy, would you like to add to that in

Well, I had a big challenge this year coming on board just trying to set up this department Bert's talking about and we're still working on it, but it has been a big challenge, but it's been successful already. Uh, trying to figure out what development services is and how we're going to implement that around the town. I mean one of the major focuses was trying to consolidate engineering design reviewed um trying to identify infrastructure elements that we have in the town to try to be more proactive and how we're doing approaching development, how we're trying to steer that development, fruits of that labor pretty soon as we've got a lot of that information compiled and I think it's going to be very beneficial to the city and also to the partnership and to others are trying to recruit new investment into the town. Um, one of the other things been doing is focusing on a lot of the capital projects have been going on. I sort of got that uh dumped on me. Look, and I'm glad to take that role, but we've uh we had a lot of challenges there trying to for me trying to figure out the process with bidding and things that were done with um grant monies, but I think I've got a good handle on it. We've got we've had some big successes um the repaving that Summers and Taylor did. We worked with um with public works with Scott and with with everybody over there and with William and we got all that done and we got it done quickly. I mean their original timeline for that was going to be all the way till the end of the year and which was like a eight or 10 week turnaround. We worked with them. They got that whole thing done in like four weeks. So that was a great success. So we didn't have that much impact to people on the roadways. But some of the other projects been really

trying to identify how we improve these going forward and we improve on our end scope of work we want from the beginning and a comprehensive scope of work how it fits into what the town needs and the town's goals going forward. So we're not just out here executing this grant and we don't get our maximum benefit out of it. So that's been a big challenge with some of the ones that we've already been awarded that some things just weren't not thought about that could have made improvements in that. So I'm trying to put a process in place so that hopefully we won't have those issues going forward. And then uh the other thing I've been working really hard to try to promote some inter governmental and and local interaction more with uh with the water commission with the light and power um with the county as we can with the other utility providers uh telephone company with the atmos the gas company which has been proven very difficult to do but I think we are on the right page now we've Everybody's already came together. We've had multiple meetings. We've got a lot of stuff already straightened out. We have one little project that was just a somebody mentioned something to me and I just started took off with it where I think I might have mentioned this before, but there's a lot of utility poles around town. If you noticed where the GA has replaced the pole and the old pole still sitting there. There's one right behind us right over here. There's a couple over in front of town hall. I worked with Stacy at the light and power and we just sort of got started on that and I was able to make the connections with those other utility. It's not the GA's problem. They're done. We're waiting on the other utility providers from the telephone from Comcast to to move their thing their services. And some of those when we started looking into it had dated back to the requests

were made by GA back in 2015 almost 10 years ago and they still hadn't been moved. But luckily I was able to get that moving forward and we've already we identified there's 301 polls in the town that needed to be completed and they had been basically going at a snail's pace. They've already since I've been really pushing this in the last six weeks they've already got over 75 of the polls completed. So hopefully they'll get this thing knocked out this first quarter. I'm really pushing them. This was ridiculous. Uh and hopefully Stacy's pushing them too. Hopefully we get this thing done. But got a lot of good things coming and u there's a lot of opportunity out there. We've had a lot of calls and a lot of people interested in Greenville and I think a lot of the things we're setting up are going to be a great toolkit for us to try to market things and invest and for investors that are coming in hopefully in this next year.

Great things. Thank you sir. The resurfacing of Main Street, Church Street, Old Shiloh and Irwin Highway. That was big accomplishments I feel like for the town for 2025. Um, Chief Shipley, where did he go? I can't see him. There he is.

I think uh the fire department is kind of echoing what the police department's been facing. Uh the increased calls for service. Um we are now doing that with a a younger workforce. So, um I think we look back and we've lost about 200 years of experience uh over the last uh few months with retirements. But, um in that uh of course uh all the disciplines from hazmat to uh the medical side to now the technical rescue side, it's just uh it's having us to to train more. And I asked Kendall, I said, "What are we looking at for 25? How many hours training hours do we have?" a little over 13,000. Uh so uh so our folks are working hard. They're working hard in all those disciplines uh to keep that uh our calls for service uh where it needs to be. Uh something else that I wanted to to mention I think has been a huge success for us is the partnership with EMS. Uh we're currently now doing our own EMT and AMT uh classes. uh we host them there at station 2 and uh along with our instructors EMS provides instructors and it's just been a great program uh in that level. So that has just been a a really good partnership with them. Um the Northeast Tennessee Regional Fire Training Academy, that's something that um Greenville hosts the spring class, Kingsport does the fall class. So, uh, fire departments everywhere from Bristol, Tennessee to to Morristown, Jefferson City, um, we train our own personnel, uh, instead of having to send them to the state school. Uh, it's it saves us about $3,000, uh, per firefighter a year. So, uh, since we've been doing that, a little over $45,000, uh, savings that we've we've had there. Uh like I said, the the training aspect

of it on the technical rescue side is something that we continue to work along with the rescue squad in uh in ensuring that uh when an emergency call comes in, we're able to uh to handle it. Uh, one other quick thing that I'll mention, and of course I'd mentioned it to the board before, but uh, the addition of the in-house fleet maintenance program that we've started, um, is just been a really, really good successful program for us. not only getting those apparatus uh fixed in a timely manner and getting them back in in in uh you know on front line but uh we're saving between I think to date 25 to $27,000 has already been been seen and we just got a a notification that the out of town folks that we use their rate is going is going up so uh that savings will continue few things there thank y'all

thank Thank you, sir. And I know we have I'm going to ask Christina and then Erin to come up. I'm saving the airport because they're actually on as an agenda item. So, I'll let them say their accomplishments during that time frame. Hi. Hello.

So, I've got a few things listed here. Um I'm sort of a department that supports the other departments, so I've hope that I've been very helpful to all of them. Um, one of the things that Kathy and I spend a lot of time on is the uh special event process that we work with with the community. So, we've continued to refine that process. Um, the street closure events and alcohol events were about the same number this past year as they were in 2024. It was 22 street closure events and four alcohol events. The year before it was about 20 um and four. But I think what's happened is a lot of the events have shifted to Depot Street. So we're spending a lot more time on some of the details of Depot Street. The with added convenience comes more planning that has to be done. So sometimes it feels like being a wedding coordinator or something like that, but um uh we happily do that for our community. Um the town also had some su successful town events. Uh American downtown had close to 7,000 people. So I thought that was a good increase in the attendance. And then midnight on Maine, it seemed a little more spread out, but it was still around 2,300. So, um, we had a good turnout for that as well and lots of smiling faces at both events. Um, as far as social media, our Facebook followers have increased 20% over the past year to 18,000. And Instagram followers has gone up 18% to about 3,800. Our goal was 10%. So, and the goal was 20% on Facebook. So, we're hitting our targets there. And then I feel like um communication, we've continued to try and improve that, get more things out on different channels. We've partnered with uh the water commission, T DOT, and some others in making sure that their street closure information and things like that get out to the community. So, it's all just one big community. We're trying to share information, and we hope not to hear uh

I didn't know anything about that. So, we're hoping to solve that problem, but it's it's a tough one. Um, I think that's about it. I also tried to help as I could fill in for our administration department and for uh wellness when we didn't have a wellness coordinator. So, always willing to step up and fill in some roles if needed. So, thank you. Thank you,

Aaron. Hello. Hi. Um before I bore you with statistics, um I the one and it's not really an accomplishment, but we celebrated the Tailmer Cox 25 year anniversary um this year and we also celebrated 50 years at the main library of being at at the Main Street location. Um we had some events to celebrate that. Um so statistic-wise um the library um circulated over 128,000 items both digital and physical items um this year alone um we had 400 not 400 4,400 um individual uses of people coming in to use our computers um during 2025 we issued um 1355 new library cards um and currently as of today we have 18,45 58 library card holders, which is just about 25% of the entire community of Green County, which I'm really pleased with that. One in four people have a library card. Um, so we had our annual community book sale um at Green Valley last year. Um, it is an accomplishment because it takes um an incredible amount of labor. Um, we had 85 individual volunteers give over 4,000 hours of volunteer service to make that happen. Um, and that doesn't even include all the donations that we get every year. So, the D people that bring donations to the library are also kind of volunteers. Um, and I don't have statistics on how many books we take in and then redistribute through the county, but it's tens of thousands. Um, so we take people's old books and then we redistribute them um to people who want them. Um, so that's great. Um and the book sale um raised over $31,000 this year to help support li the um library

budget. Our summer reading program um which we do every June um we had over 300 children registered um individual children registered that came over the six weeks. Um that's another big project that takes a lot of volunteer time. We had 22 individual volunteers and they gave over 180 hours over the six weeks. Um, and for the summer reading program, um, none of it came out of our regular budget. We got $4,000 of community support to make that happen. Um, the Bule and Mildred Brooks Foundation, the U Fox Foundation, Greenville Women's Club, and the Andrew Johnson Women's Club. So, that was a really nice uh support community support for that program. Um, we also received I mean in addition to the $4,000 we added $27,000 of of other grants to support um adult technology classes. Um a grant to preserve and digitize the James Harden collection at the Tilmer Cox. Um, we we received a $16,000 Tennessee 250 grant to purchase u materials, not materials, but shelving um and necessary item preservation archival um preservation items for the Cox Library. Um and I think that's all that's a lot. We do all of that with three full-time employees and six part-time employees.

And don't forget the friends of the library. and the friends of the library who um support us. Um and we couldn't make it without them. Um so we have a really good relationship with them and they give us support in the amount of $12,000 $16,000 at least every year with their um campaign. So anyway, um thank you. Thanks.

That is it other than the airport, but they're going to speak to theirs in their agenda item. I'd just like to thank everybody for the hard work that they've given this past year and all the activities that we've got going on. Um, I've questioned sometimes why we get more people. Our our population hasn't grown very rapidly, but we've been adding people in other jobs. But a lot of it is things like the MS4 we've got to start doing. There's a lot of paperwork and things that we are doing that we didn't have to participate in the past. So bureaucracy is it's here. I'll just stop there. So thanks. Thank you everyone. Any mayor or public comments? Okay. Unfinished business is consideration to approve the minutes from the regularly scheduled meeting held on January 6, 2026. We got those out last week, so had a chance to review them. Do I hear a motion to approve?

Second. Have a motion and a second. Any further discussion or or changes? All those in favor say I. I. Those against like sign. Motion carries. Item 7.2 Two is consideration to approve moving forward with formal planning and partnership development for the revitalization of the Robi. It's 7.1. Crap. Item 7.1, excuse me, I'm sorry, is consideration to approve an ordinance on first reading to amend the fiscal year 2026 budget. Who's going to speak to this? Laura. Hey,

that's my middle name's budget. Um, okay. What I have before you is um a mid-year budget amendment. We'll probably have one more maybe sometime in April and then we'll wrap up at the end of the year. But we've had a lot going on in the first six months. On the revenue side, the bulk of everything that we have um received is directly related to a grant of some sort. I will tell you um I was notified last week that we are now in the um portal and scheduled for our FEMA reimbursement. And so after talking with our auditors, we're not required to reserve that money at all, but I think we're going to. I just think it's wise until FEMA gives us the all clear. We're just going to set that money aside in the reserve. So

what was it? I'm sorry. I couldn't. So we uh our FEMA reimbursement. Okay. So what this is right here on this part, this is part of it. This is the money that we have received from two entities that we build um that came in and helped our fire department on a lot of the search and rescue. Um and so they've paid us that money back. Um and so we're going to set that money aside as well as any other FEMA reimbursements we have coming in. Um, let's see. When did they make the announcement on the SRO grant?

It's right at the first of the fiscal year paperwork. Is it June or July? July on the SRO grant when they make the announcement. Yes.

Yes. Um, so on the um expenditure side on the first page is the general fund. So on the expenditure side, um the first one, two, three, four, five items are all grant related. Um we did add an expense um to clean up the bats on there. Um we did um we had a position budgeted in storm water for a storm water coordinator and the decision was made that we needed to start with an engineer. So that position was swapped for Andy's position in development services. So you'll see some money swap in there to remove something and upgrade it. Um we did bring the mechanic on board. Um let's see. I was trying to think is there anything else on Oh, one other thing I want to and I'm going to ask Aaron.

I've also included in this budget a request um for a roof replacement at the library and I'd like for Aaron to kind of talk about the condition and what she has over there. I will say one big concern at the moment in replacing that roof and kind of taking care of some of the eaves and things that are over there is those bats have to go somewhere. So, um um earlier this year, we were visited by the state fire marshal um who and we had a whole big thing about things we needed to replace. Um one of the things is that our roof le has been leaking um for at least over a year and and the joke is that it always leaks on the north side where our adult fictiones s authors are. Um, public works and parks and recck both tried to fix it. We thought it was a guttering issue um because it was just leaking on the same place. Um, somebody, I think it was Andy from Parks and Wreck, went up there one afternoon with a flashlight and discovered that our roof on that north side is rotten and moldy and kind of falling down. And I have this lovely photo if you'd like to see. This is what our roof looks like on the north side. Um, yeah. Anyway, it's moldy and rotten. Um, what was I supposed to say, Laura? Um,

that's fine. Okay. Um, I think that's explained.

Okay. Yeah. So, I'm not we're not sure of the extent of the entire roof. I didn't want to have a roofing contractor come over until we had some money to do something with. Um, so I'm not sure of the extent, but it that north side is um bad and we still half of part of our collection is like displaced. We have a whole bunch of empty shelves right now because whenever it rains really hard, it leaks. So So I I'm not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination. Um but just in kind of talking to P uh parks and recck just a little bit conversation um we came up with about 30,000 maybe kind of a good rough estimate on what that roof replacement. We won't know till we bid it out what the cost of that will be. And so um I did add that request in here. Um that is new that's not been talked about before. Um uh and the last item on the expenditure side on the general fund uh the 43115 was the additional grant match for the hanger for the airport. Um on the landfill fund that budget amendment the majority of that one is the professional services um to expand the landfill. we've added the further that this company has gotten into that project, the more that they've had to um adjust the amount that they need to charge for that. And Tony's come already got approval for all those from from you all to pay for those. We did make some adjustments to the tipping fees and our contracts um line for the solid waste hauling by the county where we pay the county. Um I think a lot of that is just we were just looking at budgeting. We just didn't the budget was

just too low on some of those based on the amount of stuff that the revenue that we're bringing in. So, we brought that one up. Um capital project funds and equipment. Um these are all things Harden Park, those are all grant related. Um we did not rebudget the town hall improvements um to 26. Those were supposed to be completed in 25. And our auditors were gracious enough to tell us that we didn't have to use that in our operating budget since it was one big project and they were improving the value in some of places the structure especially the columns in the front. So that's in our capital fund. Um police department had two vehicles originally. Now they have um a third. Um you see the pocket park. We've added a little more money to that if we need it. um crosswalk, those have already been improved. That's for the ADA um and the intersection crosswalk um on Main Street. Then the additional money for the pickleball court. Again, the library um the county has so as far as I know, the county has agreed to pay for the entire sewer project. Um and then we've added in the roof replacement there. Um if you so choose to fund that. So any questions on anything that's on especially capital projects any anything that we've added on here

library roof replacement is in a shared expense with the not I haven't proposed it that way. I propose the town to pay for that. We don't have an agreement yet and I don't think that's been to my knowledge that's not been clearly defined who pays for what. So and the the county did pay for the sewer and then also the

Yes. So, they originally planned to pay for 25,000 and they've paid for the entire 40 almost 47,000 for that, but again, we don't have an agreement in place for to go by. So, I've got 30 in there and as a discussion point really for city council as to what you want to do. If you want to pay for the entire roof, how do you want to do that? I don't. Erin, do you have a square footage on it? I don't either. I think that's gonna be the low. Yeah, that's what I was asking. And it and it might it very well might be because we looked at that way earlier in the year just trying to

town hall roof cost town this roof replacement here was 45 where here not not GA town hall was 45 and then the ROI was Roby was 70 over 70 about 72. And those were insurance claims. Yes, they were. Have we had anybody look at the roof at the library? Let's start with that. Okay. I mean, when we can I mean,

well, I can I can do that. I don't know if we have and Aaron could let me know if we have a specific rain event that actually triggered um that, but we can look at that. Do you want me to leave that amount in here? Do you I think you need to leave that. Okay. Sure. Or if the county can't help with it, I'll discuss that with the mayor. Let's do Thank you. We have a recommendation. Do I hear a motion? Make a motion we amend the budget. Second. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion?

All those in favor say I. I. Those against like time sign motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. And this is first reading of an ordinance. So I'll have second reading and public hearing at the next one. Is it next one or the next? It'll be the next meeting that we have in February. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Is it 7.2 next? Item 7.2 2 is consideration to approve moving forward with formal planning and partnership development for the revitalization of the Roby Auditorium. All right. So, oh, were you gonna say something? I'll just say

oh he he's going to um so as you all are aware uh the uh ad hoc committee that was formed to uh study the status of the Roby Auditorium and put together a uh conceptual plan for what revitalization could look like um from a ECD tourism standpoint but also just a general community asset standpoint. um we presented that to you all um and wanted to give, you know, just time to marinate on it and and and and review uh because there's a lot of history in there uh that I think tells the story of how we got to that point and where why we're at where we're at. Uh anyway, the uh committee, if you remember, one of the last uh requests that we had was that we would like to keep the momentum going. Following that meeting, I have been contacted by uh several uh community members who were, you know, expressing excitement and different civic groups that were um wanting to know, you know, how can we get involved and that type of thing. And obviously, as as you kind of shared earlier, there's bureaucracy at every level of government. And um we we take this uh endeavor one bite at a time, so to speak. So, the consideration on the agenda today is to approve moving forward with formal planning and partnership development. And I want to explain what that looks like because I know that uh in a budget season is upon us and uh there's money considerations. This consideration is not asking for money or a commitment of dollars at this point. So, I want to go ahead and preface that. What we're asking for right here, consideration to approve moving forward with formal planning. What we mean by that is we would like to transition the ad hoc committee that put together this report. We would like to transition into a formal steering committee to where we

can actually look at putting together a plan of uh basically what we outlined in the report which is uh forming the partnership council of individuals who would be committed to um seeing the revitalization take place. Uh putting together concept plans for multi-purpose funding and that type of thing. obviously bringing before the council before anything is approved officially, but just giving us the agency to actually begin that work. Um, as we've we've seen a lot of momentum. Part two of this with formal planning is we would also like to actually move from the hypothetical of uh how much this is going to cost to really looking at how much is it going to cost if we were to move forward with this project. Um, I think that's incredibly valuable. And to this point, we've, uh, you know, I mentioned there's been some engagement and excitement from different civic groups. I just want to personally thank the Green County Heritage Trust for their, uh, generous involvement up to this point. Um, but there's other groups, too, that are invested in this, and uh, we just want to get an idea of what it's actually going to cost for us to consider. Um I think we saw the danger of what can happen when we you rely on uh myths of the actual status and things sit for 22 years. Um we want to get actual numbers and really look at what it is we're we're um we're up against so to speak. Um so that's the part one is form is transitioning uh the ad hoc committee that put together that report into a formal steering committee to look at what these next steps u would look like in terms of formalizing collaboration with our stakeholders our key partners

and I've listed them there and then part two is looking at the actual cost in terms of evaluations and trying to get numbers and to speak to that piece specifically because I am not as astute in that I'd like to invite Mr. Carl closeup to paint the picture of what we're looking for in terms of that component of uh evaluation. So where do I start?

We have a we have a building here that has been vacant for 22 years plus or minus. We know that it was closed due to code compliance or non-code compliance by the state fire marshall and others. My first approach to it in my mind and the biggest nut if you will to to tackle is the fire protection of that building. You know there's fire protection when I say fire protection I'm talking about fire sprinkler system that is in the adult center. It appears from my profess from my point of view that it was designed to accommodate the auditorium as well but we don't have confirmation to that effect. So, what I'm looking at is to bring a fire sprinkler contractor into the building to run calculations based upon 2026 code requirements, not what was back then to determine a if the existing fire sprinkler system, the riser that comes into the building is adequate to accomp to provide the protection to the auditorium. that in turn will determine what the cost would be to put fire protection into that building. That's a big component of bringing the building up into compliance. The other piece is fire alarm system. That ties hand inand with the with the fire sprinkler system. Another part of that is to get the state fire marshall office back into sync as to what we're doing. We would submit a initial plans to the state fire marshall stating this is what we are planning to do from a development point of view. Not doing anything physically but just get them on board to say that we are looking at the building, get their initial

approval of what we're of our concepts, what we're trying to do. And as part of that is to get the state fire marshal to agree that we could put temporary power back into the building for lights only so that we could see what's in there. Many of you have been in the building by by flashlight. It's hard to see everything when you can't see it all at one time. So that's our that's our approach initially is just to get the the fire marshals state fire marshal approval to proceed accordingly and get this the uh sprinkler system figured out so we know what we're talking about. That's step one. has nothing to do with occupancy at this point in time, but it will take some pressure off the city from a from a insurance point of view if we are proceeding with what's involved uh fire protection wise. That's where I'm at at this point in time. It will develop obviously as we move forward and we discover further things. I've been in the building with with Andy. have been in their building with BERT looking at you what's it take to bring it up to 2026 requirements and I'm not going to address what all that is because we're still learning. We're still finding out but that's uh that's part of what we're looking at from my side of it.

Thank you. Any questions on that? Okay. We have a recommendation or what do you be clear? We're not asking taxpayers to pay any money for this renovation.

I've already said that we're not asking for any money at this point for this renovation. It's strictly it's well just well I'd already covered that we're not asking for any money at all at this point. What we're asking for is to formalize our planning efforts and to look at what it would take to do the assessment and the evaluation at this point in time. We've not asked the taxpayers to pay anything up to this One thing I will say is I I know that this there may be an act an act an ask at some point

and we've got tremendous amounts of um capital that we're going to have to pay for over the next 10 years. So this is a great a good thing. I'm not saying that it isn't. But if if for for me personally if it's a choice between the Roby Adult Center being funded and this the Roby Adult Center would be because there's so many folks that are involved in that. So I don't want us to play semantics and say we're not asking for anything right here right now, but in two months come in and say we need a $5 million grant. that that's what I was getting at

coming sometime to the board that may not be sitting on it. Let this is just something we have to think about and between schools and adult centers. We probably got 60 to 70 million dollars that we're going to be thinking about over the next 10 years. So,

I'd love to see the auditorium saved. especially if it's private money. It's either going to have to be torn down someday or save now as we wait. And it's a great thing that this committee is getting together to study it. I'm just saying exactly what you said, K. We've got a lot on our plate and I don't want to see something slide in two years from now. And one other thing I'm going to throw out is right now we've got an individual who bought a theater downtown and is invested a lot of his own money. We got another theater that's being constructed and it's going to be a lot of per personal money. So how do we balance that? So, I'll stop there and just say if as what we're vote what we're voting on today is is it okay for them to look forward at the fire suppression system and the fire alarm system and what the next steps may be and there won't be any

I see no harm in it. I'll make that motion. There's a motion. Second. A second. Any further discussion? Can I interject something please? Absolutely. Um, as far as costs go, don't get pricing. The scope of what you need to look at is fine, but as far as getting pricing on anything or cost, we just we need to try to stay away from that in the process.

Right. And I want to, you know, add just I 100% hear what you're saying about capital projects and investments and this individual project is not meant to slide in in front of anyone else at this point in time. We want to understand exactly how much it's going to cost uh if we were to move forward and present that so we can have an informed discussion about the potential of this building. Um it may cost something. But part of this partnership and the reason why we're forming it is we want to see how many individuals would come to the table and how much funding is out there in terms of grant to where if we were to come to the city and ask for an appropriation of of sorts, you know, it wouldn't have to be maybe as as as much as you might think right off the bat uh if we were to bring the folks together and and look at what an actual funding mechanism could look like. So that's what we're interested in doing is how can we make this a true effort that it doesn't fall solely on the backs of the taxpayers. Um but we can't get put something forward if we don't do the the work and the research. So um I just wanted to make sure

okay

we're good there. One question I've got, Laura. If they can't go out and ask for costs, how can they get a question a quote? I mean, I understand. I understand. So, the way our purchasing policy reads is, and we give this guidance to every other department, not just this particular group. So, if the chief is willing to go out and see what it costs to build a new public safety station, um you could probably get a rough number from maybe Dave Wright if you decide to do that. The problem is if you get a quote from a vendor and then we bid that project out, that vendor has a leg up and that takes away our fairness in the bid process. So that's really all I'm talking about. Now you might have a private individual that comes in and looks Dave may say like I don't know pocket park he may come in and say well you know it looks like it might you know construction even Bert said construction is going to be $300 a square foot. Well you know how many square foot you have. So you can go down that path. just be very very careful about getting individuals or experts or somebody to do that that may possibly going to bid. If they're going to if that individual that's going to do that is going to bid on that process, that part of the project, they need to stay away from giving cost is all I'm saying. If you can get someone that's going to do that that's not going to be in the bid process, if we get down that path, okay, that's fine. Bird, if if the state fire marshal comes in, could they give you an a rough date, a rough amount of how much it's going to cost, do you think? Or would they do something like that? Okay.

All right. Well, you can talk to people, but you can't ask any questions.

If I may just just make a statement with regards to the fire suppression system. Those systems are designed by the fire sprinkler contractors. that is not a trade that is normally done outside of a particular uh not an engineering thing. It's part of of their services. So to to get a fair bid, if you will, somebody has to come in and design it from an engineering point of view. That would be a contractor. Technically, he would have that leg up, but he would develop plans that would be available to the other biders for that same exact work. and they would be able they should be able to come in and look at the auditorium as it is today, put their number together based upon the plans that an engineer has put together. So, I'm not seeing a I mean, I hear what you're saying and I I certainly respect that, but I think in this particular case, I've got to bring it bring a contractor in there to get the design to run the calculations so that they can design it up and then we put it out to to contractors for pricing and he doesn't have the leg up at that point in time because everybody has to has the same plan and goes into the building to look at it physical conditions today.

Well, I would like to have a discussion with a couple people up here to talk about some things. But as far as the the moving forward, we have a I'll make a motion to table my motion if you want me to. I will I I think we need to do that right now because we need to get a we need to find the way to get a good number for you. And so, um, let me let me talk. I maybe we can, well, we can't because you can talk to them and I'll talk to them and you can also and we'll try to get it worked out and we'll have an answer for you in two weeks. Sounds good. Okay.

Thank you for coming in. We'll have to we'll have to work on that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Item 7.3 is an update from Paul McAfee from the airport authority chairman. Thank you for coming in. I'll be brief. Three minutes.

Three minutes. All right. Start. Um what I basically want to talk about is what's happened in the past year, couple years and and u what has got us where we're at today because us moving forward as a team and during the hurricane um we were chosen because our airport of safety, the standards, the upkeep, all of was mandated by choice um for the 101st to use us as a staging area. There was other airports in in question, but we were the ultimate choice because we was our airport was just on top of the list. I mean, it was just it happened. It was a catastrophe, but we were there to help them. Um, there was a lot of things happen that we um have moved forward to and kept communication with T DOT, FEMA, and all organizations. Um we had a major um $ 1.5 million project to just take care of the pavement um drainage areas back in two starting 22 22 23 and that's an accomplishment that this you can't do that overnight. So it displaces some usage of the airport at the same time you're trying to take care of some problems and still you know a little bit have access to the airport. So, that was a major threshold we took care of and wrote that word up. Um, we had some tree issues on runway 23 um that forced us to invest 272,000 to relocate the threshold. Uh, we have several years more left to address that and we got to look at these trees again. So, those are conditions that we have to keep working through those hurdles to keep this operation, you know, moving forward. um Angela um our new airport manager, the board, everybody. We're always looking for ways to generate more revenue and keep the airport safe and operational. But it's it's it's not an easy task. And look, you got to keep transparent. We have to keep

communications open. We had um uh we accepted a new type of um reflective markings for the runway that T do DOT suggested us because they were paying for most of it. Upon doing that, you can't utilize just any type of equipment to scrape snow if there's a cause of closing the runway. It has to be a certain cutting edge on that piece of equipment, which no one around here has that. Can we afford to buy that piece of equipment because of one snow? We're not ready to do that right now. We can't. So, I'm just bringing everybody up to date of what happens if it does close the airport. we just have to wait till it melts unless somebody steps up and buys the equipment, you know, and if they damage the reflective paint, then that's the problem we've got then. So, I'm just trying to bring you up on some of the questions been brought up and give you the answers to the why we made those decisions. Um, we've also during the last year we've had an opportunity to um under a maintenance grant uh to purchase some u new lawnmowers, some gators with different uh excuse me, John Deere gators, spray apparatuses, uh way to um transfer people back and forth to their aircraft, more convenient for the customer, and just stuff like that that we if you don't keep the whole airport operational and the safety addressed You have to keep chipping at it. You have to have keep chipping if you don't. It's just a major and we got this inherited to us in uh I think it's 2018 somewhere in there when the county decided to get out of the um joint effort. Um and the city continued to pay that uh their transfer fund and um to keep to keep everything positive, T dot addressed that that was set up by municipality. They formed a board. All these all of our board members are volunteer. Uh we we received no no funds, no nothing. So

it's all volunteer. spend a lot of hours to make sure that this airport is is you you got 66 people tea hanger tenants. So you always you're not going to be able to please everyone. Main thing you keep it safe. Keep the wildlife out. You can't put a no flies over birds. So there's a lot of things you you you trying to address stuff and still keep it safe and still want people to come in here. There's a lot of plans we like to do for the airport later on, but you know it's just it goes back to money and revenue. So that was some of the excuse me high points in 24 25 and this was interesting Angie brought this to my attention. Um and and the airport wins grants excuse me we earn opportunities to win grants by activity of people utilizing airport. So in 25 we had over 22,000 operations take off and landings. Now, it's kind of odd. We um that's 4,000 more than 2024. And 2024 is when lean hit. So, that just means there's a lot more activity. People just curious about the airport. That makes sense because it's I mean at before the threshold displacement, we were 130 ft longer than one of Tri Cities runway. So, that's pretty good. That's pretty good bragging point. But um and then also we had a a steady fuel sales in 2025. It's 3,000 gallons fewer than 24, but that still there was a lot of there was a lot of fuel botting hurricane. So that's not bad for a for a general aviation airport. Um then um we've had some new um opportunities and it's been started probably about three years now um to um invest into a new hanger which u started out oh let's see $2.9 million uh it went all

over the board and we've spent our board Justin all of us um probably three years kind of getting this down to where we can handle it u right now, I think we're at 1.3 total investment and it's less than 7% involvement with the city and our airport. That's not bad for a $ 1.3 million hanger. And I'll also add to that that I was told yesterday that the Grimville Airport has just been awarded another $140,000 in bill money because of our um moving forward and our setting our standards higher and trying to work everything all the points out and keeping it safe. Uh, and what I'm going to ask our board to uh, approve is the area that we're building this new hanger. I'm going to ask to we appropriate 130,000 of this new bill money to get the next pad right beside of it completed and ready for the next hanger so that we when we can afford to do this hanger on our own, no grants, everything will be in place. Infrastructure will be in place, the sewer, the power, all that will be done. also be able to take $9,000 of this new bill money and paint our new hanger that we couldn't afford to do with the new grant. So inside so we'll be able to fix it up and do stuff that we couldn't add to it before because we couldn't afford it. So all of that is just because we're moving forward and transparency. So if anybody wants to know anything we're doing at the airport, please come come over. We'll give you a new hat, a new ink pen, whatever we can afford. I just want to come today to see uh and explain to you what some of the things if there's any questions um of where we're moving forward as our transition is ongoing. Um uh also we have we've transitioned to our new payroll system, time clock system, also transferred healthcare. Uh we're currently looking at some uh new bookkeeping and accounting services as is possible but we do not definitely always will keep Laura close. Um but um

just just overall just kind of sharing with you what um and T dot and FEMA and and a lot of the FAA especially um they they really frown on airports that don't stay up with what's going on and and stay in touch and ask for things and and see if they've earned it. So it's it's major to keep on top of everything and it's a lot to run and I I'll have to kudos to Angie. She she's got a lot on her plate. She gets a lot of phone calls and our board puts a lot of hours into stuff to that it's not seen. It's behind the scenes stuff to to make sure it says grown municipal report on it. So I just wanted to come up today if there's any questions anybody got anything to you know ask us come over see us if he's anything I can get for you informationwise I'll be more than glad to but all we're doing is trying so the new hanger we I'll go back to you. We've got um two probably three good possibilities of basing a u some new jets here. So they might be have an opportunity to transit people from different locations and have commercial you know obligations. So it's just another avenue that um another stream of revenue for the airport and the town moving forward. Thank you guys.

Thank you. Anybody have any questions or comments? What's this new dream? bill money. Yeah. Bipartisan infrastructure law. Bipartisan infrastructure law. It's $140,000. A no, that's federal.

Federal that federal and and that's another thing. They um it's tough to get on that list and it's even tougher to maintain that list. And we didn't even see this um I don't think we were even put on the list three years ago to see this in. And I'll um some of our projects in 27 come up because this major uh investment in this new hanger. I seen it was going to cost the airport and the town extra money. I said, "Hold on, guys. Let's hold on. Let's cool our hills in 27. Let's get this new hanger bill. Let's get it generating revenue. Let's get a good business in here. Then we've got some good stream coming in. We can breathe and then let's go to the next project." So, this bill money is it was is a blessing. I mean, it just come out of the blue and I was told So, that's the reason I announced it today. I said my good con he said you're 100% sure you're in there. So that's that's the money I think you asked a question a couple years ago that I said you know there we've got the money but I didn't dream we was going to be able to get another 150,000. So now we'll be pad ready on the next location. It just this sets the stage.

I do have one question. You you we're borrowing money from another airport to help fund this that well that's done washed out. We actually used a year of their bill money that they had um it's not not qualified is not really the right word. They hadn't um was that NP. Oh, okay. No, U that was MP money we got from this wash out. We borrowed we used theirs and then when we got ours available we just give it back. So it cost us nothing out of pocket or them out of pocket. It was his timing for MPE for them.

So, can this one just um build will that money or that money be can it be used for anything? Because we're basically clearing our bank account out, aren't we?

Um, no. No. Uh, bill money if if we go after a new project, yes, it would be a total different rebid, re application, whatever. But my suggestion was to apply it to this same project. So that won't be all we're doing is be doing amend them amend them to where we're just adding that extra money we've got on this same project to just do an extension of so it would cost say $100,000 to do this first pad we're just doing the second pad too because we got the money to do it so it really don't cost anything out of pocket other than two and a half% match for each one.

Okay. I'm I'm curious with the with the breakoff in the independence. Uh I know I asked this question during our joint meeting a while back between the airport and the the town, but when do you all or do you have a timeline in mind of when you think that the financial support from the town will need to stop in terms of what Laura and her team are doing to support you all? I mean since you all are going independent

at what point do you stop uh including the town and the financial pieces of things? I know you mentioned certain things are in place but when do you see what is a timeline for uh true independence? Well, as far as timeline, I I don't think there is one because you got to understand as soon as this m municipal airport was created, we should have been independent then. U there was a the at that time the city missed it, the state missed it. I who all missed whatever it it happened. So we should have been interlocal at that time frame. They just went on for years and nobody caught it um until it got brought up from some some of these grants brought it to our attention. Uh, so as far as a full transition,

until we feel well until both parties feel that um we can both stand on our legs independently, I I can't give you a date on that cuz I mean it's this first time I've ever done it. It's the first time the city's ever done it. So we want to make sure and get it right. So uh yeah, we it's got to start somewhere. So it's going to it's an ongoing thing. Angie's got all the RFQS for the uh accounting and software and so time frame on that I can't tell you. But I don't feel like it's going to be here's the date we stop. You're no longer It's always going to be transparent. We're always going to be working together because we're you're we're the biggest money maker you got and we want to keep growing that. So I can't give you a definite answer on I'll just have to get back with you. We're on we're getting better next month. Does that answer that help you?

Sure. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Oh, I'm done. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, guys. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Second. All those in favor say I. I. Thanks everyone. I appreciate you today. almost guaranteed.

We think though we think though talking to Dave right think we know so