City Council - Regular Meeting

and lead us in an invocation, and then Tim Ward will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If everyone can stand. Let us pray. Father, your word teaches us always to be persistent in seeking your face and guidance. Lord, Father God, as we do every day, Lord, I ask you to bless the city council today, God. Give them wisdom and knowledge, and thank you for this day, and thank you for our town Greenville. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. As far as the mayor's comments... Okay, the first thing that we're going to do is we have a pretty special guest that is here today. Mr. Edward Patterson, who is going to be... He is 100 today. He is... And he is here, and we're going to recognize him. So I'd like for Christina Potts to come over here and get this proclamation and read it. And please come up.

This proclamation is in recognition of Greene County member of the Century Club of East Tennessee, Edward Patterson, whereas the Century Club of East Tennessee was established in 2022 to recognize individuals who have celebrated their birthday of 100 years or older, and whereas members in the club receive a letter greeting from the governor in honor of their special contributions as a Tennessee centenarian,

Kathy did that to me. She scared me about that word.

Whereas individuals also receive a matted certificate of recognition from the Century Club of East Tennessee and whereas the club is proud to honor the milestones of East Tennessee's oldest residents and recognize their achievements and... Whereas the club is open to residents in the 33-county region of East Tennessee, and whereas Greenville and Greene County are proud to recognize centenarians who are eligible and join the Century Club of East Tennessee, and now, therefore... He, C. Calvin Doty, Mayor of the Town of Greenville, Tennessee, and Kevin Morrison, Mayor of Greene County, by virtue of the authority vested in each of them, do hereby proclaim the occasion of the aforesaid events to be Greene County Centenarians Day and also Edward Patterson Day on August 4th, your 100th birthday, 2026.

Happy birthday. Yeah, happy birthday. Tell us a little bit. You're from Romeo? Yeah, I'm from a little part of Mountaineer Romeo. I don't know if you've heard that one before.

Yes.

Great grandson. Oh, yeah. Look how alert that baby is.

Lisa, I'd like to, who are you here with today? Thank you. We have another celebration. We're going to bring someone up and share. This handsome young man right here. Mr. Steve Spano, can you please join us up here? And Josh?

He tried to tell me I need to keep it brief, but I thought, well.

What year is that? What year is that?

1989. Okay.

You didn't say it.

I was going to.

And what did you say you selected? There you go, look at that.

Maybe it's the other way around.

Yeah, I was thinking when he said keep it short, I thought, well, let's see, year number one, year number two, let's go up to 29 years, right at 30. So for Chief Spano, we have this plaque for you. Very welcome. Wonderful work, and we wish you, and of course, Josh has taken over the reins for you too. Oh, okay.

I'm coming.

Good job.

I always had support from this.

Hey, Josh, did you want to say something?

And Steve, what all have you done as a policeman? What all jobs did you have?

Are you going to do that? I started as a patrolman and then from patrolman, I went to canine patrol. And then after that, I went to the drug task force, worked on the meth task force, been on the attack team as a operator, as a team leader, and as a commander, uh, And then I worked my way up. I went to the Drug Task Force, and I came back up to the town because I got promoted to sergeant, so I worked desk sergeant. I was all tacked for the department for a while. And then I moved to lieutenant, and then captain, and then chief. I've enjoyed every bit of it. I never considered it a job because I just enjoyed it so much. I hope the other people that are in this job nowadays feel the same way. I hope they get the same enjoyment out of it as I did because it is sheer enjoyment. Had great people like Tim and Doug Johnson. We used to work out together and that's what got me into law enforcement because I went to work out one day and Doug was going to the police academy. So I put myself through the police academy on a grant Bill Clinton had put out at the time and been great ever since.

stressful sometimes.

A lot of critical incidents that you deal with that never leave your mind, but try to move on.

On behalf of the people of Greenville, I certainly want to say thank you for all you've done. Thank to your wife for letting him do this, and I hope he will take care of you as well as he has taken care of our town. So thank you and good luck. Does anybody else?

I just want to say never stop smiling. You've got the best smile in the world.

It's his retirement smile.

They made me. My wife said she didn't know my hair was that long. I used to have a beautiful mullet. I mean, it was something else. Football coach, you chased me around on the football field trying to cut it off.

Why smile, dude?

Yesterday we had a group calls Proof they came in it's gonna try to help some of our retail recruitments and I'd like to ask What's your name? Jan to come up and I was just kidding.

I was going to say I won't take that personally. Thanks for the opportunity. We are one of the ten Main Street communities in the state that has been offered this opportunity to help connect communities food and beverage operators and small entrepreneurs with their dreams. And so we had our initial site visit yesterday. We had a visit with entrepreneurs. We also then had stakeholders. We had some really good dialogue, visited several pieces of property in downtown. And so this is just the beginning of a year long collaboration that we have with them where they will be coming in and working one on one with folks in the food and beverage industry. And that can mean food trucks. It can be. a bakery at home that maybe has a dream of going to brick and mortar or making some changes. So we've cast a wide net, and within the 18 blocks of the Main Street District, we have some F&Bs, but it was important to me that we reached out beyond that. Some of you heard that yesterday that were in attendance. And it's important that What Works and those that are in the area If we've got a good place to be and good food and beverage, that promotes our downtown, and we all know that a healthy downtown promotes the community. So proof will be in and out. Michael Robinson was here, and we'll be doing a few things, but I would love to encourage anybody in the food and beverage industry to put on their calendars the first Tennessee restaurant week, and that'll be October the 5th through the 11th. And opportunities can be really simple. We'd love to have any food purveyor Do some specials that week. Do whatever they're led to do that can even be in the normal course of their day. So it's a great time to promote pumpkin spice. Lord only knows that I think that's already started. But thank you very much, Mayor, for the opportunity to bring that forth. And we look forward to seeing some city council and other entrepreneurs and stakeholders as we go forward in this.

And this is a free service that, or the state has, it's not free, it's paid for by the state, but people can call, anyone that's in a business can call this group and ask for their assistance.

And there's a lot of online training and information that you will see through Main Street and also through the Proof Food and Incubator Program. They're out of Chattanooga. They've been doing this for years. And the CEO, who was here yesterday, has experience he and his wife both have been in the food and beverage industry and the other part of it is too is they also own properties so they have a really good blend and mix we'll be able to help with our real estate here and some other initiatives so if you got any questions we can fill out any or field any answers for them just get in touch with me we're happy to do it

And it's also not strictly limited to downtown. No. It's Greenville and Green County.

Yeah. The initial... Number one, you had to be a Main Street community, which means you have a Main Street district. And a lot of that focus is to help take vacant properties and make them viable and do that. But we have a lot of folks that are dreamers and that want to do some of that. So we're hoping through education, whether it's financing, what they need to know, and also stakeholders and property owners that might like to have a bistro or a pub. What do they need? You know, what can we help them afford? Because it can be very expensive. So I look forward to the program, and I'm thankful that we were selected. So thank you. Thanks.

Okay. No public comments. So we'll move on to unfinished business. And item 6.1 is consideration to approve the minutes from the regularly scheduled meeting held on July 21st, 2026. Christina sent that out last week. Do I hear a motion to approve? So moved. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those against, like sign. Motion carries. Item 6.2 is public hearing and consideration to approve on second and final reading. An ordinance rezoning five properties identified as Green County Tax Map 098D, Group D, Parcels 11, 29, 26, 27, 25 from M2 High Impact Industrial to R3 Medium Density Residential.

Good afternoon. Council, I'll fill in for Justin. I think he had a conflict. No changes from when this was heard previously a couple weeks ago. To my knowledge, we have not had any communication or any comments or anything from any neighbors or anyone in the public. I'm not sure if anyone's here to speak on it today, but our office has not received any comments or anything.

Okay. Is there anyone here to speak at the public hearing? Not seeing anyone. We've got a recommendation. Do I hear a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those against, like, sign. Motion carries. Thanks again, Steve. But you will. We have one consent agenda item. It's a consideration of a specialist event sign request for the Fall Festival of Nations held on September 19th, 2026 at Notre Dame Catholic Church. I think there was about 30 different locations. Three pages worth. Yeah. So unless there's any discussion.

Motion to approve.

Got a motion. Second. Second. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against, like sign. Motion carries. Item 8.1, consideration of the purchase of a toter trash containers for public works. Mr. Keith. Yes.

Afternoon. These are the same cans that we've been using. We had really good response. We've had maintenance has been low on them and everything. It's a source well contract. It is a budgeted expense. We're down to about 100 toters, so it's time to get some more on order. And we would recommend repeating the order with the same cans we've been using.

How many of these do we sell a year? How many do we use?

Uh, so we ordered really, we ordered about twice this many. Uh, I want to say I did that probably two years ago. So we've gone through roughly a hundred and or 200, a hundred a year.

Okay.

But it's pacing right now. We've got about a hundred left. Um, it just comes and goes, but I'd say probably about a hundred a year right now. Is there quantity discounts or not really other than a little bit on the, uh, be a little bit on the freight okay but they are they're 65 a can 65 60 and that's with a 10-year warranty so we've had a really good uh response and they're standing up to the the trucks and the heat which is a big problem we had so uh definitely would recommend just staying with these okay we have a recommendation to hear a motion to approve second

Is there any further discussion?

It's budgeted.

It is budgeted, yes. Kathy brought this up, but next time we have something like this, we can put it on the consent.

Since it's a budgeted item.

All right, item 8.2 is consideration of purchase of this. Oh, all those in favor say aye. Thank you. Those against, like, sign. Motion carries. Thanks. Item 8.2 is consideration of purchase of a service body work bed for public works truck number 40.

So this is actually, it's truck number 40. It is the truck that Mr. Barner used to drive. And what we'd like to do is convert that into another construction crew vehicle. So this is the same type of bed that we've got on our other construction vehicle. This actually really didn't need to come probably today because we did find one under 10,000, just under 10,000. But It is one that will do the job that we need it to do. Jonathan and Charles have reviewed it, the specs on it. They feel like it's a good bed for the price, so we would recommend going with the reading truck bed, purchase price of $99.98, and that will be funded out of our small equipment budget for streets.

Okay, we have a recommendation.

Second.

Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against, like sign. Motion carries. Thank you, Scott. Item 8.3 is consideration to approve the recommendation of one appointment to the Greenville Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. It's a four-year term. Hello, Tim.

On Thursday, last Thursday, we had an advisory board meeting, and after all the advisory board members had received each applicant's application, and they had made their recommendation to appoint Angelo Botta to fill the vacancy to be on the board.

Also, I want to thank you for that scoring sheet that you sent out. I thought that was very good. And also, we had 10 people that signed up, 13 that signed up.

And a lot of them, I mean, all of them were very qualified.

Yes. It's another one of those that I think we could have probably taken any of them and been successful. It was difficult. So we have a recommendation. Do I hear a motion? Moved. Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against, like sign. Motion carries. Thank you. Item 8.4 is consideration to approve the recommendation of four appointments to the Robie Adult Center Advisory Board two-year term. Hello, Nicole. Good afternoon. How are you? Good.

So on behalf of the Roby Advisory Board, we ask for your consideration for the four recommendations that was put forth yesterday from our board. We have actually two reappointments, which is Mr. Adrian Wallace and Mr. Josh Swatzel. In addition to that, we have two new appointments, which is Mr. Matthew L. Hensley and Mr. Dennis Jones.

That's not me. Clarification, that's not me. Okay.

Matthew works at Jeffers. Such a nice young man. Well, I'd like to bring it up to have first a reappointment for Mr. Wallace and Mr. Swatzel. So do I hear a motion to approve that?

Second.

Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those against, like sign. Motion carries. And then for the new members, it's Mr. Matthew Hensley from Jeffers and Mr. Dennis Jones, who is both a current Robey member and volunteers quite frequently at the Robey. So do I hear a motion to approve those? Second. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against, like sign. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to adjourn?

Second.

And all those in favor say aye.

Aye. 26 weeks.