Board of Commissioners Meetings - Regular Meeting

good afternoon welcome to the Tuesday June 23rd 2026 regularly scheduled City Commission meeting for the city of Henderson Kentucky if you would please stand with me if you are able for the Pledge of Allegiance Thank you. Can we have a call for attendance, please?

Commissioner Thomas.

Here.

Commissioner Pruitt.

Here.

Commissioner Witt. Here. Commissioner Hargis. Present. Mayor Staten.

Here. First up on our agenda is we have a Community Spotlight Award that we give out the second meeting of every month. If I could have Ms. Delilah Cobb, and if anybody is with you, to come up to the podium so that we can present that award.

All right.

Ms. Cobb has dedicated decades to strengthening the community through volunteerism, leadership, and advocacy. Throughout her career, she has continually been a pillar of support for others, serving for 38 years at Gibbs Die Casting in benefits and other administrative roles, and now serving others through her work with the Henderson Employment Office. Ms. Cobb's impact can be seen across numerous organizations and initiatives throughout Henderson. She has served with the United Way of Henderson in Owensboro, the Santa for Center, West Home for Girls, Marsha's Place, Henderson Community College, the YMCA membership board, and a variety of educational and civic committees focused on improving opportunities for local residents. Through her involvement with the Community Board of Education, the Henderson Education Committee, and the Alternative School Committee, Ms. Cobb helped advance computer literacy initiatives throughout the community. She worked to secure computers for local schools, helped to connect students and adults with technology resources, and fostered partnerships that expanded educational opportunities for countless Henderson residents. Her efforts helped bridge gaps in technology access at a time when computer skills were becoming increasingly important for success in school and the workplace. Ms. Cobb's commitment to service also extends to her faith community. As a longtime member of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, she has faithfully served through the Missionary Committee, the T.L. Adams Scholarship Committee, Vacation Bible School Committee, and previously as coordinator of the church's weekly bulletin, while supporting numerous other church ministries throughout the years. In addition to her extensive volunteer service, Ms. Cobb played a meaningful role in Henderson's civil rights history. At just 10 years old, she participated in peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations organized by the Reverend Anthony Brooks and the local NAACP to challenge segregation in Henderson. Alongside other young people and community members, she took part in efforts that helped integrate local business and advance equal rights within the community. The lessons she learned through those experiences and the courage she demonstrated at such a young age helped shape a lifelong commitment to service, education, and creating opportunities for others. Ms. Cobb's extraordinary record of service has been recognized through her designation as a Kentucky Colonel, but perhaps as her greatest legacy is the countless lives she has touched through education, volunteerism, community leadership, civil rights activism, and her unwavering commitment to helping others. The city of Henderson proudly recognizes Delilah Cobb as the community spotlight for June and thanks her for her decades of dedicated service to our community.

Ms. Delilah, I have known you for many, many years, but it occurred to me just now as she was reading that, I haven't known about all the things that you've done here in Henderson, and I'm awfully proud of you. We give away community spotlights once a month to either a person or a group of people who are doing outstanding things in Henderson. About four weeks ago, Commissioner Pruitt, Robert Pruitt, came up to me and said, if you don't have anybody for the month of June, I know the perfect person. And he recommended that we give this award to you because of all of your outstanding things that you've done in the community in the past. So on behalf of the city of Henderson, I wanted to present you with this award and thank you for your service to the community. We really appreciate it.

I appreciate the award.

Yes, ma'am. And you have this podium. If you want to say anything to the commission, you are welcome to say something. And I'd like to grab a picture with you before you take off.

Oh, OK. Well, the only thing I'd like to say is that this is quite an honor for me. And I just thank you, Mr. Pruitt, for recognizing that. You don't do community service and volunteer work for honor or praise.

That's right.

You do what needs to be done in the community. And I promise you, you get more back than what you give. Yes. So it's just with the deepest satisfaction that I accept this award and hopefully I can continue to Be of service to Henderson. Thank you.

Thanks for your service. Yes, thank you. Thank you.

All right. Next up on the agenda is John Redding here.

Yeah, there he is.

If you want to come up to the podium, John Redding is going to tell us a little bit more about the work that he's been doing and that our Parks Department, our city management has been doing to lead to a mountain biking trail, hopefully in the not-too-distant future here in Henderson.

Sure. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is John Redding. I'm here to present for the Henderson Active Recreation Bicycle Development Initiative to support the Henderson Parks and Recreation Trails Master Plan. We have, since last meeting with you, gone back and looked through the Parks Master Plan, and it has been a roadmap for us to kind of find a gap in Henderson's recreation. So on the agenda, we're listed as the mountain bike initiative, but it has evolved into more than just that. The Parks Master Plan found that 57% of people surveyed leave Henderson for recreation, like mountain biking, BMX, trails. The parks master plan already dives into how bike facilities are needed within Henderson. So our proposal will show how we can solve that gap. The vision and purpose, we're looking specifically at the old municipal golf course. The bottom right corner you'll see is highlighted in green. That's kind of the area of focus. Through planning and developing, this location might turn out to not be the best location, but that is why we need to develop further. This location is great because the natural terrain but also open sight lines and the underutilization of this park already. That's just a larger map of the area we're talking about. If you're familiar with the old golf course, it's the backside that is more hilly and has trees and most likely not usable for other developments. The park concept, we see this as being more than just mountain biking. We can provide a style of park that allows biking, skateboarding, balance bikes, hiking, scooters, and even wheelchair accessible features, as well as areas for people to congregate. A pump track. something that is mentioned in the parks master plan it is there's different types of pump tracks but designed correctly they are low maintenance can be used by anyone of any age any skill level to develop different types of skills I have a video but I'm not sure I'd be able to play it The second feature would be a skills park. This is kind of the intermediary between a trail system and the pump track. This gives someone an area to learn the basics, level up and advance, give them the confidence to go to different areas, different parks in our region with confidence. Lastly is the short course, a one to two mile bike optimized trail that flows within the park and doesn't basically designed to use the land without interrupting it too much how we support the parks master plan I'm a member of Kimba which is the Kentucky mountain bike Association it's a non-profit group that what we would do is help with all the design work and as well as meeting with different vendors, local people to design the trail. Also, once it's built, maintaining it, volunteer work to keep the trails clean and in shape, and then as well as growing it with youth programs, rider engagement, and different community events. What we're asking for today is approval and investment to continue exploring the opportunity invest up to 35 000 for discovery and concept development continue evaluating atkinson park as a potential location as i said before through different studies it may this may not be the best location but in our eyes it has many benefits for mountain bike park The money would be used to engage with local professionals and consultants, survey and evaluate the property, develop concept plans and renderings, identify realistic construction costs, and ultimately determine the best fit recreation model for Henderson. As you see at the bottom, there's different levels of what this could be. There's the community level, regional level, and destination level. The money would be used to determine what would best fit for Henderson. And so that's the presentation. This is a local advisor that has done this before, James. He's the professional behind this that can kind of guide us in the right direction on what needs to be done. Any questions?

Mayor, could I just a little bit? So one thing I did want to speak to on their behalf. So Mr. Redding and I have met several times, had several phone conversations. He's met with Thomas and staff, been out and looked at this property. A couple of important things I think I should point out to you all is they did have a much length. So I told John, and you did a fantastic job condensing it, because I told him, I said, try to get it down to five minutes. And he took what was probably a 45-minute presentation and put it down into five minutes. So For his behalf, I want to elaborate a little bit on a couple of things. So they did present to the Parks Board, it's been two or three weeks ago now, and had a great presentation. It was well received by the Parks Board. They actually voted unanimously to uh basically recommend this project for further consideration uh to the board so this does have their support uh they have had preliminary conversations with this golf cross-country uh you know i don't know if you could see it but john if you go back a few slides uh i think your first one where you showed the insert uh of the the parks we'll go one more if you don't mind uh yeah so you can see i think that blue square in the in kind of like the middle right or it's not a square but a rectangle, is the proposed pickleball. So this would not encroach on that. So they took into account, yeah, right where Thomas is pointing. So this takes into account that. So they've really looked at this. And so really what their request is, as you all know, we've got $500,000 in the upcoming budget. Thanks, Travis. we've got $500,000 in the upcoming budget to go towards all Parks Master Plan projects. And so their request would be coming, basically using a small chunk of that money to just do the next phase, see if it's feasible, and to start doing some design and to go from there. So I wanted to add that. Thomas, did you have anything you wanted to add real quick?

No, I was going to say that, so, you know, when we started this whole project, it was, you know, meeting with them, and I think they've got some great professionals. I mean, you've got... Mr. James is on board. Mr. Hervey is on board. It kind of does all this type of stuff. So we wouldn't be by ourselves. We actually have a conference. So look at the parks master plan. We've got to start somewhere, right? Well, this is something I think can be really big community involvement. When you actually see the whole entire presentation that's 45 minutes long, it'll blow you away. It completely blew my board away. what you could actually do with that park and it is a destination so it's right there in the middle of town and so the things we can do you can still do the pickleball the pump tracks the different activities and things down there so we were really excited about it and so I got some people on that board they'll ask some questions too and they ask those questions and they answer those questions with you know professionalism so I'm very excited about it, and I think it would be a great plan to be able to invest in that moving forward.

John, if you could go forward a couple slides where you see the pump. I don't know if it's called the pump track or the keep going. Yeah, that one. And I don't know if that video would actually play. But can you explain really quick for them, and then let's open it up for questions. The video will play. I was going to say, if you could, just before you finish, explain the three different aspects of the park, because there's three distinct parts of the park.

There's three features of the park, which would be the pump track, the skills park, and the trail system. The pump track is what is inclusive, and it's kind of the main focus of what the park could really be a community destination. There is pump tracks in our area. I think there is one in Evansville. It's a dirt pump track, so it only allows bicycles. There's one in Terre Haute, and I believe there's one in Nashville.

I think one of the things we wanted to make sure everyone understand is that there's an opportunity for a community involvement with this system, a regional involvement, and then a national involvement. So this style of riding and engagement with the community You have the opportunity to bring in competition. They have tracks and competitions on these different tracks, and then as you develop and grow this. So there are a few around here, but the thing is there's not any at the level that would be considered regional. You can do it with dirt. There's a few places like that, but the concrete tracks are the ones that are six hours in a different radius that you actually do competition on. So there's a lot of different opportunity when it comes to the development of this, and it all can be done in phases as well.

One more. Just real quick, to expand on what he's saying, this map shows on pumptrack.com the different pump tracks that are listed as national pump tracks that are used for competition. You can see it's kind of blurry, but Henderson's right here.

There's a huge gap in pump tracks across the Midwest.

back to the video and just this is just a real quick video to give you an idea of what it looks like in person and this could be theoretically used by scooters skateboarders bicycle roller skaters and even wheelchairs

And there's different configurations. So if there's one that's actually physically in one location that's close to another, you do a different configuration. So the BMX bicycle riders that are practicing for BMX in Evansville as well as in Louisville, they use this as practice. Mountain bikers use this for practice because of skills. And then there's also the National Interest Classic Cycling League. They also use this for skills development practice as well.

And another thing is, as we hit on, it's used by, it could also be used by skateboarders. So, you know, it's not intended to replace a skate park, but it could be used as a skate park.

That's wonderful. I think Commissioner Prude has been. I was just going to say, Harvey, are you all right, too?

I am. I'm all right. I just took, I take my kids over to Madisonville to their mountain bike track. And my daughter, every week, she said, I want to go to Red Visa. I want to go to Red Visa. That's the easier track in Madisonville.

Well, it looks like it would be a plus for Henderson, but I've kind of got an idea of facility up there. So I don't know. Do you have a plan B location or have you even looked at that?

One thing I wanted to mention is that that's one of the reasons we have the discovery we're asking for is so we can actually look at the land as a holistic way to figure out where to place it. We believe this is something that's very strong for Henderson because of how close other traps are, but we're not married to that position.

And this would preclude use of the rest of the land.

No, and we're still in the early phases of trying to outline where things are going to go. The Parks Master Plan actually outlined a different spot for the swimming pool, so we've got a lot to discuss as we move forward. The question I have is that when we originally talked about this idea, it was something very simple and very low cost. In fact, the total cost was less than the cost of what you're asking for just for discovery on this one. So what does the funding look like in terms of how much do you think it's going to cost, and are there places we can go after for money that are not the city with this particular project?

So you have the opportunity to have the skate park as one piece of it, the skills park, and then there's a little short course with probably the earlier part you talked about, mountain biking. That's just like wiggling between the trees on the dirt. What we're looking at here is an opportunity for Henderson to be a spot where everyone looks at and says, wow, there's an inclusive biking structure there. The cost can start to, at very low cost, from around $100,000 can go over to over a million dollars, depending on what it is that the community wants, or what the city wants, that you want to be nationally recognized, or just regionally recognized, or maybe just locally recognized. So this can be done in phases, where the first phase is $150,000, $200,000. You can get to a small level pump track and a skills level park, and then over time it can grow. Southwest Kentucky Mountain Bike Association, which is John is a member of, starts to help look for those funds as well. They also write matching grants for future phases. So a lot of the things he's already developed that actually shows the progression of this, which could be, will be utilized for the grants as they continue to be written.

That would be great. So we've got, as you might know, a ton of asks in terms of what we can do with our parks. In fact, somebody is going to present right after you about another concept. One thing that has happened that's been a blessing is, like with Anthony Brooks Park, we're about to redo it, and it's going to be a little bit over a million dollars, but the city is actually only providing $250,000 of those dollars. uh... directly from general fund money uh... we're looking at a veterans park and veterans have offered to raise some money and then there will be an ask at the end i'm sure to split some costs between us and the county potentially uh... and so the only concern that i have i think this is fantastic i think this is this is going to be very well received from the community in fact There was a lady on Facebook who had some not-so-nice things to say about the city. Yesterday I was reading a comment of hers, and one thing that she did say is, when are we going to get something for the kids to do with biking and skating or something like that? And so this actually is great timing because I can say, hey, we had somebody present to us today on biking and skating. Stay tuned. You know, and I think putting this on the map and providing something that is not in our immediate area is a big thing for me because it's a draw not only for tourism but for families looking to locate to a community. And as we go forward in Henderson, we've been working really hard so far and will continue to work on trying to attract young families to grow our population on into the future and make sure our city stays strong. And so I love the project. The only thing that I want to make sure stays on the table is we need to have an open communication as far as what the expectations are, how big it's going to be, how much it's going to cost in the end. And I'm assuming that's what the $35,000 is going to do. And then once we figure out how much it's going to cost, we need to continue to work together to figure out where those funds are going to come from so that we can fund other projects as well outside of that Parks Master Plan.

I'm working with three other communities. One of the strongest communities that I was able to be impactful in is Madisonville. So with Madisonville's trail system that was about a million dollars, we were able to put about $300,000 in community support to develop what it is today. That's great. So we did get city money directly, but it's actually a nationally ranked trail system. It's in the magazine, and people travel to that location. For what's there, it was community developed and community maintained currently.

Good deal. Good deal. What about you guys? Do you all have any other questions or comments or anything?

No. If the Parks Board is in favor of this, this is the first step forward. We're going to do this. We've got to start. We do? Yeah.

I mean it checks a lot of the boxes on what we are looking for or what I hear about kids activities and I mean I like the look of it more than I do some bigger buildings and stuff it is a much higher price tag than what we talked about originally, and I know there's some big projects coming up, so that's the only thing that concerns me, but I am okay to keep investigating what this looks like.

So then do we need a formal motion, Don, to move with that $35,000? Yeah. Yeah. If there are no other questions or comments, I would entertain a motion to allocate the $35,000 for further study for a new bike path, bike facility there at, in Henderson somewhere.

I long, let me add this to the motion. that we get financial tracking of how the money's spent.

I was going to say, who's doing the feasibility study?

There will be a mix between the Kentucky Mountain Bike Association as well as a local professional group. So therefore, the step-by-step of the project itself will be broken up in between discovery, the different opportunities for what they can do here across the country, and then turned in as it's being built. So we investigated, we looked, this is what we need to pay for that, this is what we found. And it was structured through the Kentucky Mountain Bike Association.

That is a good question, though, because I had kind of, and this is something I don't know, Don or Chelsea, if either one of you all have any input, because you can do it one of two ways. We can either contract directly with them, but you all, I don't think, have your own organization yet, do you, John? Because the other option would be either we contract with them directly and we pay the bills or we convey the money to you all. You all contract with the entity and you all pay the bills. If there's not an organization, either way, we will be closely involved. It's just a matter of whether there's a procurement process we follow or not is the big thing. So Chelsea, I don't know if you have a preference, but in order for us to convey the money, you all would have to have some probably, Don, I guess you'd have to have a 501c3 status or something. So

And that's where the Kimba, that is a nonprofit that they have a set up. Okay. Specifically do this.

So we'll prepare a funding agreement.

Okay, so we'll prepare, okay.

And actually, why don't we, because we never did get an official motion, we talked about it, why don't we prepare a funding agreement and then allow us to act off of that so that we can see what that funding agreement looks like? Because I also have the same concerns as well. I don't want to just say, here's $35,000, you guys just take it. You know, it sounds like a lot of the work that you all are asking for on this side of it can just continue to happen with discussions between the city and you guys without any money. And then we can figure this all out without having to go that direction. I think the most important thing that I'm hearing from the commission, though, is that you've got support to move forward with looking at the project. When you first brought it up, John, at the budget meeting, I think it was, or one of those meetings? Yeah. The work session. Yeah, the work session. I thought it was a good idea when you brought it up. It's a little different now because it's a lot bigger in scope, but I'm not scared of it. As long as we can figure out a way to get it funded and to treat the dollars with care and then at the end have something really, really nice for our community and to attract others, I think we're willing to take that step and move forward with it. So let's hold off on the $35,000 until we get a funding agreement to look at and until we have more time to consider if it's absolutely necessary, if it's absolutely a necessary step or if we just need to continue to work together without any of the initial funding involved at all.

One point I want to make sure you understand where the funding would go is that there are different entities out there that actually create the design for the pump track, and they create the design for the skills park, and they create the design for the short course or the mountain bike park, the trail. By doing that, what they look at is irrigation, what is it going to do with the damage to the land, as well as is it a suitable place. And they actually cost money for us to either come out and actually do that. So that's what the 35,000 is going to go for. A big portion of it is obviously communicating with the city so everybody can understand what's going on with future plans but the other piece is when you come to say is this a viable plan for specifically for your area we need to bring in people to do that okay and Southwest Kentucky Mountain Bike Association has an account specifically for Henderson that we managed to bring money in and actually just uh well out to that's already created great and and so what I what I might recommend

is that we continue discussions, that you guys continue discussions, and make sure we narrow it down to one or two spots, whether we're looking at it, before we go through and take the extra step to provide the money. And then that way we can put that money to best use, because if we put that money to use on this course, but then through the course of this we find out it's not feasible, then we've got to pay for another design and other work and all that. I don't want to get into that cycle. So if you all would, just consider this as a good thing. We are on board with looking at moving forward with you guys. Just if you'll continue the conversations, get us to a point where we know that the money is absolutely necessary at that point in time. And then we can vote on providing the $35,000, taking that step, and then we can talk about funding as we do that. So if we're looking at a $600,000 facility and we're talking about where all the funds are going to come from, we need to know up front how that funding arrangement is going to look like before we're willing to kind of take that step forward. But I think it's great. I think it's a great project. The presentation looks fantastic. And I could see tons of kids. I taught my son how to ride a bike at a late age, but he's 11 years old and knows how to ride a bike now. And I think he would enjoy something like this very much. I think a lot of people's kids would. So, yeah, this would be great.

I mean, if I could say one thing to them before they go. What I would say is, what I'm hearing you all say is there's some details we need to work out, but what we'll do is we'll work with them. We'll get a funding agreement together. We'll kind of define. We'll also look at to make sure, like let's just say if by chance we were going to put a pool out there, is there still a place? I do think the part that they're talking about is more of the, if you go out and look at it, it's very hilly and it's kind of on a slope too. So we'll incorporate all those things in there. We'll get more specifics from you all, like a breakdown of the $35,000. with the hope of having a proposed funding agreement to you all, maybe the second meeting in July. And that way, just so you all understand, that's the next step. So we'll be in communication, and then that way we'll get all that figured out about whether the money's flowing through us, whether it's flowing through them, who it's going to get paid to, that sort of thing, and looking at the locations, you know, just to make sure.

The only reason we're up to $35,000 is because we can actually work a good amount before even spending any money.

Gotcha. Okay. Commissioner, do you have something else? No. Good deal. Well, thank you guys very much. I'm encouraged by what I'm saying. Keep up your work. Thank you. All right. Speaking of park proposals, we have a group that's here with the Henderson Veterans Memorial Foundation who would like to talk to us a little bit more about the Veterans Park that we've been talking about behind the scenes for a couple of years and in front of the scenes for about six months.

Good afternoon, Commissioners, Mayor, City Manager, Tom Davis with the Henderson Veterans Memorial Foundation. And I'm going to very quickly turn the floor over to people who have been working hands-on with this topic we're going to be talking about right now. And I introduce Mr. Mac Neal to introduce our guests. Mac?

Okay. We have with us also Father Kempton Baldridge, and we're going to let him talk first about a pleasant surprise we had with a PT boat, kind of a serendipitous thing with a Buzzy Newman. I just kind of stumbled upon it and called them like, wow. So it kind of fits into our plan, but if we can let Father Baldridge step up here and go first.

Thank you very much for having me here today and up on the screen we have our captain, the captain of PTF 26, who also happens to be a judge and the former commandant of the Ohio Naval Militia, and a shipmate of mine from the Gulf War. We were actually in the same near disaster together, which is how we came to meet. But that's Judge Gary Fishman, Captain Gary Fishman, Esquire, attorney at law, et cetera. Let me just start by saying we use the term PT boat. By show of hands, how many of you are familiar with the term PT boat? show okay one two okay that's that's fine because not everybody has as much water under the keel as I do shall we say it's it's okay if the term PT boat actually it the very first PT boats were built 86 years ago in 1940 and if you if you know a little bit about history you know that it was on the cusp of of some very important events, and by the end of World War II, 813 PT boats had been built. Now, for those of you who do know what a PT boat is, do you know why you know what a PT boat is? Can you associate it with any event or any individuals? I'm just curious. No. OK. Well, I'll tell you, again, if you were my age, you'd be associating PT boats with this person who, again, and for those of you who are who were born after 1975, let's say. That may not be anybody familiar, but that's John F. Kennedy. And John F. Kennedy, he was the captain of a PT boat. Anybody tell me, anybody know which PT boat he was the captain of? Oh, PG-109. Oh, gosh. All these wonderful historical scholars here. You might also be, if you're a fan of Turner classic movies, you might know they were expendable, the John Ford classic. What you may not know is that Robert Montgomery, who was the star of this film, actually was a captain of a PT boat, along with John Wayne was not. Sorry to disappoint you. And he himself was actually on active duty when that was filmed. Of course, probably the most famous PT boat captain ever was from Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Ernest Borgnine, also known as Quentin McHale, as in McHale's Navy.

The term PT boat entered the lexicon. Most people are very familiar with it. PT stands for Patrol Torpedo, not Papa's Testosterone. But they were built to punch above their own weight class, shall we say. They were fast, they were maneuverable, they were made of plywood. And so at the end of the war, they were torched. Most of them didn't come back. But then we had got into some unpleasantness, which again you may recall in the 1960s. and no less a personage than John F. Kennedy himself, built it into the budget to create the seals, with which I'm sure most of you would be familiar, but also how to get the seals to where they needed to go and do what they needed to do. And so the last 26 PT boats were built for the Vietnam War believe it or not, concurrent with McHale's Navy. In 1966, And they were involved in highly classified missions. In fact, a great number of the missions that they were performing were with the CIA, and they were technically not under anyone's command. It was all sorts of, for lack of a better term, shadow operations. And in 1966, four of them were lost. And they were lost for the reason that they were involved in heavy fighting. And so they built four, PTF-23, 24, 25, and 26, to be larger, faster, sustainable. So the very last PT boat ever built was PTF-26, the vessel in question. And unlike the other PT boats, the other 838 PT boats before her, she had watertight compartments. And she was built to take a great deal of punishment. And the interesting part is that after the Navy was finished with her in combat, the Navy brought her back and she became the prototype for training Navy SEALs in Coronado. But again, things moved on and so eventually the Navy released her. And she became, she made history again. She became the first Sea Scout ship with an all-female crew. And from 1990, let me see, November 1995 through the, let me see, let me do the math here, through 2020 when we acquired her, she was empowering young women She was a man for lives, not necessarily at sea, but of lives of leadership and of integrity. These were young women of character. It involved a great deal of teamwork. And they made incredible history. And we learned about this concurrently We have a situation on the rivers of which many of you may be familiar. We have a vital section of our nation's transportation system which has no farm team. There is not a single high school or an entry level program anywhere along the 18 contiguous states or 2,600 miles of inland waterways. There's not a single training vessel. There are no Sea Scout ships, no Sea Cadet ships, no places for marine occupations, CTE, and this just didn't make any sense. At the same time that they were looking to pass the PTF-26 on, and of course we greatly admired the work that they had done, things came together and so we made an offer and they transferred the vessel to us in March of 2020. Now, for those of you who remember, March of 2020 was also a time when something else happened in our country. That's right. Yes, the pandemic, which tended to throw a monkey wrench. We were in the midst of making the relocation voyage from Sacramento, California to the Ohio River when the borders were closed. And so our vessel was stuck in Morrow Bay for the better part of two and a half years. And the people of Morrow Bay were wonderful to us. The city of Morrow Bay was initially very generous. And then they decided, well, we don't have quite as many visitors, so let's just up the rent on them, which is exactly what happened. But they were very happy to include us in the Trip Advisor. So we were paying rent. to be their poster child for tourism in Morrow Bay. And be that as it may, in the course of two and a half years, the most photographed vessel, probably the most popular vessel in this resort community, was our a nearly 50-year-old vessel that was sorely in need of a shipyard period. She became a waterfront attraction writ large. Well, long story short, and you're probably thinking too late, right? But we did find a home for her in Golconda, Illinois, the oldest city in the state of Illinois. And the city council there issued an invitation for the PTF26 to come and make its abode there. And we were delighted to do that. And we found a... A captain who is generous to a fault, Captain Gary Fishman, who brought her, and again, the only way to describe it, 7,700 miles from Sacramento, California, all the way around here, and then right up on up through the tent top. It's a long distance. It's the longest distance ever achieved by any PT vessel under its own power. Part of that, yes, we did hitch a ride from part of Mexico through the Panama Canal and then to Florida, but it's still a long trip. And my Kevin Gary Fishman, again, he's going into the annals of maritime history. But no sooner did we arrive in, and this was in August of 2024, With great fanfare and television coverage and we had the local politicians. What we did not have was we had the unanimous endorsement of the city council and mayor and the support of the people. We did not have the endorsement of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. My bad. And they basically vetoed and said it wasn't our idea, so therefore it's a bad one in effect, which left us looking for a new home. And the vessel's been in the shipyard being updated. And I mean, the first time her hull's been scraped in 12 years. And just making her ready to train Sea Cadets, Sea Scouts, NJROT Sea Cadets, of whom we've identified. Here's a list. 204 different maritime organizations are within four or five hours drive of Henderson. 204 different maritime organizations. So the last time I counted, there are still only 52 weekends in a year. So we're ready to begin training, but we have no place to go. until I got an inquiry from the one and only Buzzy Newman, who said, oh, yeah, that's a swell-looking barge you have, but what's happening to the PT boat? And that's where conversations ended, and they've continued on ever since. And I think I've said maybe too much.

Thank you. If you don't mind, Maybe if we could, at this point in time, let the MAC come up and present, and then to conclusion of MAC's presentation, if we could tie these two together. But if you're wondering why I contacted them about the barge, it had to do with the boat dock. And all along, we had to come up with a barge for it. And that's how this all started. Not knowing that you've had a relationship in Henderson for how many years? 16 years. So he knows a lot of local folks. So he's been here a couple, two or three times. And so he does have a local feel for our community.

Thank you, Buzzy. Mayor, Commissioners, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. We see the city as a great partner in this project. We've been very excited about it since we've talked to August Mayer. It's been almost two and a half years ago at this point. It's been a while. You approached us about the idea. But anyway, our wheels have been turning since then. And where we're at now, we're at the hopes we can't really come up with quantified dollar amount yet because we don't know what the exact cost is going to be. We will have some skin in the game as we're going to be raising money, our organization is. But where we're at now, we know approximately we're going to have statues to our two Medal of Honor recipients, Gary Littrell and Luther Skaggs. We know those statues are going to be probably between $250,000 and $300,000, which is what we're hoping our money will go towards, as well as relocating the monument in Central Park. Tim Skinner's been very generous with his time and as he is in the process now Tim couldn't be here today but we're trying to reconcile the design that Tim came up with what Branstetter Carol came up with because it kind of be the best of both designs and there were some things with HWU that we weren't aware of with we have to have water so we had to kind of improvise and redesign the tim had to go through a redesign process which i think he's still in the part of but we hope to incorporate our park into the master plan and tom and i have been talking and with tim and our veterans board and we think that we can have a final concept by the end of september What we'd like today is to be able to get your blessing to move forward and approve the park, because we can't commence fundraising until we have the blessing of the city to move forward with that piece of property. But I would like to thank the Mayor, Dylan, Buzzy, and Mr. Kenney with the Parks Department. The city's been great to work with. we've had a lot of good input many ideas make for a good project and I'm excited about this ever since we started talking about it back in December of 2024 and we're ready to move forward so with that there's nothing worse since an accountant talking too long so I'll cease and desist and sit down and defer to Buzzy and Tom

So I think you basically want to go ahead and try to formalize the Board of Commissioners support to bring this project forward, bring back additional design information and construction cost as long as your committee and the city parks and

staff work with y'all to to bring a good document back for consideration the main thing is to be on the same page you know that was we we ran into a little you know block about four or five six months ago that caused us all to refocus everything that as Mac said Tim sorry it gives us condolences he couldn't be with us this afternoon but at this point as Mac said we're we're hoping to come up with a concept drawing by the end of September incorporating all the suggested changes from the city in the parks department and the water department of all the people that have a little finger in this acreage down on the river But the main thing is that we all know that the Veterans Park is what we're looking for is that the Veterans Park is on your agenda and that we want to take that piece of property and make it something Henderson and its veterans can be proud of and call their own. We've got this gentleman all the way sitting at the top sitting up there enjoying himself watching us but we have met with him before and he is actually the guy that steers the rudder on the PT boat. Folks, I'm just so excited about this project, and hopefully we can incorporate the PTU vote, because you're talking about something that will actually put Henderson on the military veterans list. And I think we can get some endorsement right here from the crowd right here. And I'm so happy to see these folks because I happened to be the mayor when they were here the previous time at South Junior High doing this. So I'm going to get off track here and thank them for what they do because the hundreds of people that get the advantage of that program. is just enormous for the Henderson and its surrounding counties. So thank you very much for everything you're doing. And I'll get out of the way.

No, no, stay here a minute. So you've heard the request, and the property is the former HMP&L Station 1 property that is on the river, faces Water Street. That's what we're talking about, and that's part of the project. Now... Let me tie back in what I call him a chap now instead of chaplain, is do y'all have any interest in pursuing the I don't want to say donation. Homeboarding. Onboarding. No, homeboarding. Homeboarding. Homeboarding. Homeboarding. Homeboarding. Homeboarding. Homeboarding. That's a one. We're making it one.

Yes, sir. Go ahead. Go ahead, sir.

I just had a wonderful conversation this morning with Captain Vaughn. There's the skipper, the LST, across the river there. and uh mentioned or you know the little bubble we came up with um as far as the the selling tickets and stuff so i did a little research and i did some discussion and um my understanding is and i can kind of clear this up our mission with the BTF-26 since its inception has always been to onboard cadets and expose the Ute, the JROTC, the Sea Scouts, the Sea Cadets to the different occupations on the water, which many, many people just aren't aware of. We are classified by the US Coast Guard as a pleasure vessel, which suits us perfectly. Because although we have merchant mayor or captain's licenses and other credentials on board the crew, being a pleasure craft, we are exempt from any number of hurdles and legalities.

So the problem became, well, how can we best serve Henderson?

And what I came up with and what John Vaughn helped me come up with was a moored attraction. If we do not get underway with people aboard, we can charge tickets, we can have tours, we can do all that stuff. We can have a gift shop and sell merchandise and all that kind of stuff. the you know obviously we'd have to look at a memorandum of understanding with henderson and hopefully for the moored attraction portion of things uh you know uh hopefully be under the city's umbrella type policy for slip falls things like that also as the hole was built laid down in 68 and completed in 69. We are exempt from the 1972 Americans with Disabilities Act. We are not handicap capable. Depending on how you would set up the walkway to the barge, to the vessel, there's going to be steps required to go below decks. There are down ladders. We have no availability for elevator, nor could we even fit one. But to be able to do what we do with the Sea Scout and Sea Cadet groups, when we were thinking once a month, maybe twice a month, whatever, there's a lot of backlog of folks wanting us to get out there. We can do our thing on the weekends. And, you know, once a month or whatever. And then the rest of the time she could be a board attraction and a real, an absolute draw for Henderson, I'm sure, because she's been a heck of a draw everywhere she's been on our trip all the way. I've brought her over from all the way from California to where she is up and back a couple times now, I think. So I think it's a win-win all the way around and I think we accomplished all the missions and stay perfectly legal and certified and qualified and all of that kind of stuff. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there as I know we were looking at different things but I think

Thank you, sir. So with that being said, I guess it's a two-fold question. And to wrap it up, You've heard the veterans' presentation that separately, if the Board of Commissioners would have interest in pursuing a memorandum of understanding to make Henderson the home port for PFT 26. And with that being tied back to the original question was the barge. And the reason we pursued the barge was because of the boat dock. The other reason that I would probably think of justification for buying this barge is the ongoing problems we have with shooting fireworks off various times of the year. So, you know, it would serve somewhat of a dual purpose during the course of a year. The other thing I want to say that in further discussions, what happens when the river rises and the boat needs to be better secured against high water? And Gary, that's something that I would like to continue to pursue with Captain John Vaughn and yourself. Excuse me. Okay.

If that's something else that... Yeah, that's absolutely, that's why we have a spud barge. She raises and lowers, I believe, 12 feet. So I think highest water they ever had in Calconda, she would have been able to accommodate. But yes, that's obviously those kinds of issues and stuff. Those are things that you think about on the river that you don't necessarily in open ocean. We think of tides, but yeah, that's why a spud barge is necessary.

The other thing, there are other details to work out that I'd bring back at a later time. in the short future, but I guess I'm asking, do y'all support this concept? Now, the other thing I know you're thinking, what's it going to cost us to keep it here? And we've already developed a draft budget, which we would bring back to y'all for what it would cost to keep it here, but it's also, Gary, could be a revenue source for these sea cadets. They do pay to stay on this boat on the weekends. Correct.

They do not pay. They provide their own food and bedding and toiletries and things like that. But no, we cannot. Therein lies the rub. We cannot charge to take people under wet. Then we would have to be at T-Mode and leave the six-pack if not one of our credentials. But no, when we take the kids. The whole purpose of being the 501c3 and organizing the way we did was so that we can take the kids out and they are designated crew trainees.

And it's a volunteer.

My crew is all volunteer. The kids are all volunteers. Their proctors are volunteers. And no, we do not take a penny from them in the way of cash. Nor can we accept quid pro quo. If we take in money for travel or getting underway, now we're a commercial vessel.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification.

I heard him say something. So he would probably be doctored during the weekdays, and maybe on weekends he'd take tours or something. Is that what you're saying?

Well, that's something I would want to further talk about with Abby Dixon and to tourism. We think we could partner with them to help with tours. The weekends that the cadets are here, they could tour from the barge, but probably not beyond the boat itself. So that's the thought there.

I could see other communities bringing their school kids, you know.

i'm sorry anybody can be on the boat at any time as long as she's moored right the engines are not running and she's not underway anybody can be on the boat to tour right but yeah to get underway isn't the thing would it dock in that area in front of the park

so that's a good question we've cited where we think it should go and it would be if y'all are all aware of the 1880 bridge pier uh the former original railroad bridge it would be between that point and the third street dock And believe it or not, there's already a poor concrete sidewalk and a mooring point for a gangway to attach to to get to the barge.

Okay.

leading up into the park where the restrooms are okay and would it affect any of the current boat docks as far as loading and unloading space was no okay now as Jeff said earlier we have a lot ahead of us to get Coast Guard approval Corps of Engineers approval to more it there and possibly the division of water through the state of Kentucky. And the boat mines. And yeah, but there's a lot to be done. But in order for us to even begin starting, we need y'all's thought. Is this a yes, no, or come back with more information?

The question I have is about the water levels. So when the river's up, if you're going to dock it in that spot, have you given any thought to how we're going to get people onto the boat when the river levels are higher than normal?

So typically, and I have Brian Williams here today, but as you all know, we've been dealing with our boat docks forever. And when they get up to what stage, Brian? 22 feet. 22 feet. we pull the boat docks so we don't lose them. So with that being said, it would be some correlation of getting access to the boat during higher waters than 22 feet. And that is something we would need to look at because you do have access from Sunset Park to get down to this point. Whereas with the boat docks, they're driven more of how they're fixed to a fixed point and they have cables on them to keep them in place.

Well, we've got two things in a matter of expediency. I'll lay them out. The first thing that we need to talk about is the location for the park. I don't know. Do we need a formal action or just consensus on that? Okay. So the first question before us is, is everybody familiar with what they're talking about? Robert, do you know what they're talking about too? So the old Station 1 property is right there beside Sunset Park, in between Sunset Park and Dog Park and Red Banks Park. Mm-hmm. A large area is probably never going to be used for anything. It's what's called a Brownsfield area, which means that we can only disturb the ground down to two feet. And anything below that, we have to have special permission or it has to be handled a certain way, just because of what used to be on the property. So when you put a park on a property like that, it's pretty easy. You're going to have very few anchor opportunities that are going to go down farther than two feet. And so it's a really good use of that space that otherwise would just remain vacant. However, we could use that space for anything. We have been talking about this for a year and a half to two years. And the first question they're wanting to know from us as a commission is, are we okay with them moving forward to finish their design on that specific property and bring that back to us for discussion at a later date? Start with Commissioner Argus and just go down the line. What are your thoughts on that? Yes. All right. Easy. I'm on board. Yep. Yes. Yep. Okay, so five yeses. I feel like America's Got Talent. You're through to the next round. Okay, and then the next question that we have is on a matter of this vote. It sounds like we have a – unless you all disagree, it sounds like we have a lot of questions to answer before we can give you a go-ahead on it. So we need to not make the same mistake we did in Illinois and go ahead and get the approvals from the appropriate agencies really before we take the next step with the commission, it sounds like. Is that accurate? Like you guys still have to, that's what I'm hearing from you, is that you still have to go and consult with Kentucky Fish and Wildlife or whoever controls that to see if we can even have the boat? Is that right?

The key to this is going to be dealing with the Corps and mooring the boat. And right now, based upon whatever's decided today, I would have a meeting in Newburgh with the Corps and people from Louisville to say is this doable. So I think we can get back with y'all within 30 days or less with some answers.

So Commissioner Hargis, if you want to start for us individually, what are your thoughts about them moving forward and exploring the boat idea for future considerations?

I mean, I do think it's very interesting, so I'm for exploring. Still a lot of questions, but open to it.

Good deal. Me too. You too. You guys? We've got a veteran's part. A little better draw.

You know what? So Buzzy approached me. five six months ago i think whenever you whenever you first started talking about this maybe sooner time kind of runs together on me and whenever you first mentioned to me i was i was thrilled with the idea of doing this i think we you know we have a community that supports our veterans as a result of representing our community And individual police, we support our veterans up here too. And so if we can move forward with the Veterans Park with the PTF 26 there, that would be a really good scenario, assuming we can work out all the finer details in the future.

That is devils in the details. Yes, sir. And the only separate thing would be the consideration of the barge itself. And Gary, correct me if I'm wrong, it is in a parking lot in Galconda, Illinois, correct? Correct.

That is correct. Okay. Yes. The marina is actually, where we ran a ballot by DNR was the marina actually owned the, the IDNR actually owned the marina. We weren't aware of that. But the city of Galconda owns the actual park there. And so, yes, it's parked on a trailer in the lot owned by the city of Galconda.

So I have a question about the barge for you guys, because this may guide our decision on it. It's my understanding the barge is listed for sale for $50,000. Is that accurate?

That is correct.

Okay. What I would like to know, the answer to this question is, is there a possibility to... Find out what we're going to do with the PTF 26. Find out how we're going to host visitors. Find out how it's going to potentially create a revenue stream and how that revenue might be split up. And then as a result of that discussion, then talk about the purchase of the barge to see if we can have any creative financing in the picture there. not financing, but creative funding, because we might end up in a situation that's favorable for both of us, where we don't just purchase the barge outright. We won't know what that looks like until we get to the end of this PTF26 discussion. Is that fair? Yes. So instead of just saying, hey, we're going to spend $50,000 on a boat, which I believe we need, If we can get a little bit more information about possibly how we're going to generate revenue, how that's going to be split up, and if there's any kind of give and take there in negotiations for the barge, that would be fantastic.

So you're probably thinking a barge sitting on dry land. The barge was built for the boat. Okay. And as Gary suggested, it's a spud barge, which is something you can anchor into the river to keep it stationary. But what was ideal when they had it built, it's trailerable. You can put it on the trailer and haul it here. It doesn't have to come by river. So the beauty of it is if we have a record flood of 48 feet, that barge can be pulled out of the river with a trailer in a ton truck. So, you know, they put a lot of thought when they had this thing built. So the barge is brand new, correct, Gary?

Yes.

Yeah.

It is.

Yeah, and I think it would be a great asset for the community, but I also think that there might be some other arrangements we might be able to discuss in terms of the barge and its use by the city. Because if we're going to have it for the boat and then use it once a year, then the $50,000 becomes maybe not as economical as it could be in that situation. So I'd just like to have the opportunity to pursue it, but then to talk about other arrangements for that boat For community use, if that's okay.

And we knew that going into it. We just wanted to broach it with y'all. There's a lot more details that would have to go into it. And to be honest with you, we've already done a lot of homework, but until we got some feeling from y'all to pursue it or not, we didn't finalize it.

but before yeah and and there's five of us up here so what are your thoughts on the barge sorry i don't i don't want to speak out of turn uh is it okay if if we if we if we consider it as part of the package but then look at the numbers before we commit is that okay with you guys maybe we need to see a little bit more about the numbers i do want to interject here something because i want you to know that our group because we were approached about this have already been doing homework

about income streams about what we would need to do to be able to move forward with this and possibly what it would take for employees what it would take for what to charge to even get to a break-even point, what it would take to operate the vehicle should we have the training classes from all the different schools and organizations that have those facilities. So that work, a lot of that work is already in the works so that we can have that side of the balance sheet taking care as far on the income side. We've looked at all the different things. And as they've already discussed, with the LST in Evansville, having some joint publicity or operations with them, that's already in the works. As a matter of fact, I will tell you, our organization's meeting tomorrow night. to discuss these very things, taking the information we get from you today and what we need to do to pursue the next step for us. So I just want to let you know, we're trying to stay ahead of the curve here a little bit.

Good deal. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it.

If I may chime in one last time. Yes, sir. Thank you. All of this obviously started coincidentally because we had place the barge for sale. We know what it's worth and we needed the funds to be able to complete the repairs that she's undergoing now.

We've paid for them up to date, but I don't know that there's not going to be some overruns. We've still got the shaft seals to put back in. We've got the shaft to reapply. We've got to get them through the cutlasses. We've got the

grooves worked uh but those are gonna have to be balanced and checked um we gotta have a survey done before we splash her for insurance purposes etc so we've got a lot more expenses still yet to come our our choice and our desire was to sell the spud barge because we have other opportunities um The National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico was wonderful to us and sponsored us being there for quite a while. We did the same thing with them. It didn't get underway, but they had people on and off and showed it. They had their own little gift shop, and they were selling T-shirts and key chains for it and whatever. So I just want to kind of let you all know that we need the folks Jensen and I have basically been supporting it out of our own pockets, mostly out of Jensen's. I have a couple other donation folks and things, but the purchase of the bars, if you guys need that anyway, we'd really like for you to go ahead and close that part of the deal out. And that buys everybody time because I've got some more work I need to get done to get both before I bring it north or south or anywhere.

I will make you a deal on behalf of us. Our next city commission meeting, we're going to talk about this at the end of the meeting. Our next city commission meeting is likely to be July the 21st. because the 14th we have a number of people out of town, and we'll talk about that later. Give us that time to make sure that we're not rushing into a decision that's not on a formal agenda, and then we can get that put on a formal agenda for first reading at our next meeting for consideration by the commission, if that's okay, if that fits with your timeline. Okay. Thank you. I'm not trying to be a stickler, but I just want to make sure we have all the information before we rush into a $50,000 decision. I don't want to do that without it being on the agenda and having all the facts in front of us.

I completely understand.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you, Tom. Thank you all for your time. I know we kind of stretched it a little bit here today. I know what it's like. Especially when you made the comment about negative comments about the mayor. Nah. That don't happen, does it?

Thank you guys very much. And just to recap, we're enthusiastically behind everything you talked about. It's just a matter of getting the details together. I think we'll be able to do that. So thank you guys very much. Last up on our presentations, we usually don't have a presentations portion this long, but we do have one more. We have some folks with us in the front row from the IRT program. And I don't really know exactly what you're going to talk about. I think you're going to talk about how it went and what the numbers look like and about your experience in the community. Is that right? Correct.

I would ask all of you military to please come up and at the podium we'll let our CIO, right?

OIC, yes. O for what? General? OIC.

Are you a general?

Lieutenant Colonel, sir. I'm kidding. I know.

I know you are. Please, sir.

Oh, okay.

If y'all don't mind, please introduce yourself, your rank, and whether you're active duty or if you are National Guard, what rank? But then after that, I would ask if y'all, Beverly, whoever's going to present the information on these stats during the mission.

Yes, sir. Mayor, good to see you again. City Attorney, Commissioners, City Manager. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Rowena Peralta. I am the Mission OIC for the Henderson-Kentucky River Area Wellness for this IIT that just happened June 11th through the 21st.

Hello, I'm Tech Sergeant Victoria Noriega-Castro. I am the Mission NCOIC for the Green River Area Wellness.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Good afternoon, City Commission. My name is First Lieutenant Beverly West. I'm from the Virginia Air National Guard. And for this IRT mission, my role was the admin and reporting officer in charge.

Mr. Mayor, Commissioner, Senior Master Sergeant Steven Legge from the Virginia National Guard. I'm part of the active component, so I'm there every day and also weekends. So I was here as a biomedical equipment technician, medical adjustician, and I supported transportation and bed down at North Middle School.

Mr. Mayor, commissioners, Master Sergeant Jason Ramirez from the California 144th Fighter Wing, the medical detachment. I am the medical logistics resource in COIC. Like senior leg, I'm also a full-time member with the National Guard.

Sir, I'm the mission officer in charge from 144 Fresno, California. We were the leading unit for this IRT and there are a total of 25 components with active duty Air Force, Navy Reserves, Army Reserves, Air National Guard as well. and we're happy to let you know that it was a successful mission. This year, couple years ago, we were here and this year we offered some services that was not offered couple years ago. We had physical therapy, we have hearing booth, audiology, we also have diet and nutrition, physical therapy, I'm not sure if you had that services what we did have that services this time as well and mental health behavior and thank you very much for having us come up again this year and it was a successful we've had people actually yesterday they heard that we were doing this in Henderson my family from Georgia drove yesterday to get some dental services So not just Henderson, we had Union County, Webster County, but I mean, we've had, I think, a couple years ago, we probably had, I think, under a million of fair value market, and that was our goal, to beat that goal. So I have Lieutenant West to give you the final statistics, sir.

All right, so the final numbers are in. And for total patients, this is for 11 to 21 June, our entire time here in the area. And it covers Henderson County, Union County, and Webster County. So for patients seen, it was 2,344. And we also saw 441 animals by our vet team. So that's a total of 2,785 patients that we saw during that time. For the total number of procedures, it was 19,926 procedures completed among all the services that we provided. And then for fair market value, the big ticket right here, the money maker, total services combined, we did $1,562,035.

Over two years ago, right? Almost, yes, sir.

And then out of that total, the two services that were mostly utilized were the dental and optometry services. Dental being about exactly half of that $1.5 million. They did $780,429 in fair market value, so about half. And then optometry, doing about a quarter of that total, they did $441,432. So our two biggest services, dental and optometry. Wow, that's amazing.

Could you tell me the vet, how many vet patients that we had this year?

Yes, sir. So we had a vet team of one veterinarian and three technicians from the Army Reserves, and they saw over a four-day period only, they saw 441 animal patients, and they did just under $100,000 in fair market value.

That is fantastic. And I'll tell you one thing that reiterates about our community specifically. On the dental, you said they're made of about half of it?

Yes, sir.

I think that is a blaring message to all of us. We have a lot of people in our community who are not receiving the proper dental care that they need because they can't afford it.

Yes, sir.

And so I know there are two or three groups right now in our community that are looking to bring more dentists in who accept Medicaid. which is a big deal for us. And I think that just validates that work and honestly makes it a front-burner issue if it wasn't already. But we thank you guys so much for coming. The last time you were here was fantastic. This time you were here was fantastic. We love helping you out, and we love the fact that you're helping our community out at the same time. It's been fantastic. We had a staff, I think, that helped them out.

One thing. AND IF YOU CAN SPEAK TO THAT.

SO ACTUALLY, OUR VET SERVICES WERE A VERY LATE ADD-ON, AND IT WAS A VERY IMPORTANT ADD-ON TO OUR SERVICES. THEY DIDN'T COME ON BOARD PROBABLY A FEW DAYS BEFORE WE OPENED. BUT BETWEEN BUSSY, GENE, AND CITY OF HENDERSON, THEY WERE TALKING TO THE LOCAL PD, AND THEY HAD TCCC. THEY PROCURED 41 PDs to do dog handler, TCCC training, and it's within the neighboring counties as well, such as Evansville, and it was a great turnout. 41 people were certified to train this dog handler.

So digital C for us is our tactical combat casualty care, and it's how we learn how to give care to our canines or to our service members down range.

Right, because this canine is just as important as the dog handler. So when the canine goes down, it is considered a patient as well.

So a couple other things, if you don't mind. We would like to acknowledge Deaconess Hospital for providing supplies for the mission. We also had Scott Air Force Base, Lexington Bluegrass Depot, make supply for us because of the unanticipated volume, especially for the dentist. Dr. Mark Bolts, Dr. Kurt Wilson, and Alderman Dental were able to provide the necessary anesthetics and dental supplies needed. And I will say it was not about teeth pulling and cleaning teeth. They did root canals. They did more than what we ever thought they would do. And as Mayor said, the pediatric side, we did have a pediatric dentist here. So they saw a lot of children. So very successful and I do want to acknowledge now, if y'all don't mind coming up, Kenny Garrett, Joe Ward with our emergency management, Mike McDonald, McFadden, Max, come on up, Patricia Pruitt, Travis, where's Carter?

Carter, come on up here.

So without the military, we wouldn't have had the program. But I will tell you, the city staff and commitment from Brian Williams and Public Works, the fire department allowed the military to do ride-alongs for EMT training, as well as the police department provided 24-hour, seven-day-a-week security, as well as ride-alongs. So it was truly a partnership. But I want to say about our staff, they committed seven days a week from the day it started until the day it ended. Without our staff, it wouldn't have happened either. So I want to say thank you all, and we've developed relationships with these people that will probably continue. So if you don't care, can we get you to stand in front? Holly, do you mind it?

All right, here we go. Okay, scoot.

There you go. I was trying to get out of the mayor's way. No, you're fine.

Do you want in the picture, mayor?

Picture.

Yeah, you're going to have to be over here. I didn't keep you around.

I'll order in my room.

All right, perfect.

Good job.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you, everybody.

With that, sir, I just want to, again, thank you, the city of Henderson, for having us in this community, and it's been wonderful. We truly enjoyed. It was sleepless nights and hard work, but we truly enjoyed every single person that we have encountered. They've been so great, from little children to... You know, geriatrics, they have been so wonderful. Thank you for having us. But with that, we would like to call Buzzy Newman, who has been tremendous support to us from day one that we have met him. Buzzy, can we have you in the front, please? And sir, we would like to present you, sir. This is our good teacher. Thank you. And we, the 144 Fresno, California, that's our, it's their leading unit, and we would like to present you the picture of our fighter plane as the F-15 and signed by our personnel that had worked in this IRT, sir.

They're on a tight schedule, so I'm going to walk them out. No problem.

Hey, the one thing I want to say to you guys before you leave is come back. We're going to fill out another application. We enjoy having you here. It means a lot to our community, and we want you back. We said that two years ago, and you're here, and so hopefully another two or three years down the road, you'll be back. We would love to have you. Thank you. Thank you for everything.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right.

So that concludes our presentations portion of our meeting. And now we'll move along to the educational part of our meeting. And we have a couple of ordinances that are going to take about five minutes each to read. So we've got a little bit to go. First up on the agenda, see you guys, we have a consent agenda.

The consent agenda contains the minutes of the June 9, 2026 regular meeting, resolution number 38-26, resolution accepting human resources report dated June 23, 2026, and approving all actions contained within and authorizing the mayor to execute any necessary contracts for employment. Resolution number 39-26, a joint resolution of the Henderson County Fiscal Court and the City of Henderson, Kentucky, authorizing application for an acceptance of funding under the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act for airport layout plan update and designating and authorizing the Henderson County Judge Executive and the Mayor to execute all necessary documents. And resolution number 40-26, a joint resolution of the Henderson County Fiscal Court and the City of Henderson, Kentucky authorizing application for an acceptance of funding under the Federal Aviation Administration Airport Improvement Program for the airport layout plan and designating and authorizing the Henderson County Judge Executive and the Mayor to execute all necessary documents.

Before we get a motion, do we have any item any commissioner would like to pull for further discussion? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve, please. I'll move. Do we have a second? Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas? Aye. Commissioner Pruitt?

Aye.

Commissioner Witt? Aye. Commissioner Hargis? Aye. Mayor Staten?

Aye. Next up, we have the second meeting of an ordinance amending the fiscal 2026 budget.

Ordinance number 13-26, ordinance amending budget appropriation ordinance. An ordinance amending budget appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026 for the city of Henderson, Kentucky. Whereas on June 24th, 2025, the city of Henderson adopted its annual budget appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026, being ordinance number 23-25. And whereas on January 27, 2026, the City of Henderson amended its annual budget appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year commencing July 1, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026, being ordinance number 04-26. And whereas on March 10, 2026, the City of Henderson amended its annual budget appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year commencing July 1, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026, being ordinance number 07-26. And whereas the City Manager recommends that the following additional amendments be adopted. Now, therefore, be it ordained by the City of Henderson, Kentucky, that Ordinance Number 04-26 is amended as follows. Number one, the budget submitted to the Board of Commissioners by the City Manager is hereby adopted and approved, and said budget is incorporated herein by reference, and three copies thereof signed by the Mayor should be kept on file in the Office of the City Clerk as part of the public record of the City. Number two, there is hereby appropriated from the general and special fund accounts of the City of Henderson and allocated to the various funds of the City the following amounts. General fund expenditure total has been amended to $38,788,000. Transfer to PWI has been amended to $1,615,000. Transfer total general fund has been amended to $47,547,000. Health insurance fund has been amended to $9,205,000. Public way improvement fund has been amended to $2,447,000. Construction fund has been amended to $19,307,000. Number three, the number and classification of city employees as recited in the annual budget is approved as presented. Number four, the city manager is authorized to hire an additional two police officers when it is deemed necessary by the chief of police and the city manager due to the length of training for this position. Number five, the city manager is authorized to hire an additional one firefighter when it is deemed necessary by the fire chief and city manager due to the length of training necessary for this position. Number six, the city manager is authorized to hire an additional non-hazardous duty personnel for key positions when deemed necessary for secession training purposes and the expenditures for the additional hires do not exceed the appropriations granted. Number seven, this ordinance shall be effective as of July 1st, 2025.

And motion to approve, please. Do we have a second? Second. That was a second reading, and we've had lots of time to discuss, but does anybody have any questions or comments on this one? Are you ready for a roll call?

Yeah.

Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas? Aye. Commissioner Pruitt? Aye. Commissioner Witt? Aye. Commissioner Hargis? Aye. Mayor Satan?

Aye. Next up, we have an ordinance adopting the fiscal 2027 budget.

Ordinance number 14-26, ordinance adopting budget appropriation ordinance for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. Budget appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027 for the city of Henderson, Kentucky. Whereas the city manager has prepared a proposed annual budget for fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027 pursuant to KRS-83A.150, And whereas KRS 918030 requires the adoption of the budget and appropriation ordinance by the Board of Commissioners based upon the budget submitted by the city manager, now therefore be it ordained by the city of Henderson, Kentucky, as follows. Number one, the budget submitted to the Board of Commissioners by the city manager is hereby adopted and approved. And said budget is incorporated herein by reference. And three copies thereof signed by the mayor shall be kept on the file in this office of the city clerk as part of the public record of the city. Number two, there is hereby appropriated from the general and special fund accounts of the city of Henderson and allocated to the various funds of the city the following amounts. General fund expenditure total is $40,676,000. Transfer to PWI is $1,847,000. Transfer to mass transit is $750,000. Transfer to construction fund is $1,086,000. Transfer to emergency communications is $901,000. Transfer to police fire pension is $326,000. Transfer to civil service pension is $75,000. Transfer to cemetery is $414,000. Transfer to bond fund is $3,037,000. Transfer to sports complex is $292,000. And the total general fund is $49,404,000. Natural gas fund is $19,962,000. Health reimbursement arrangement is $130,000. Civil service pension fund is $82,000. Police and fire pension fund is $326,000. Cemetery fund is $665,000. Health insurance fund is $9,403,000. Bond fund is $10,360,000. Public way improvement fund is $2,796,000. Construction fund is $15,416,000. Heart operating fund is $1,948,000. Sanitation fund is $6,625,000. Emergency communications fund is $2,416,000. Sports complex fund is $892,000. Tourism commission fund is $280,000. Community development fund is $837,000. And police investigation fund is $92,000. Number three, the number and classifications of city employees as recited in the annual budget as approved as presented. Number four, the city manager is authorized to hire an additional two police officers when it is deemed necessary by the chief of police and the city manager due to the length of training necessary for this position. Number five, the city manager is authorized to hire an additional one firefighter when it is deemed necessary by the fire chief and city manager due to the length of training necessary for this position. Number six, the city manager is authorized to hire an additional non-hazardous duty personnel for key positions when deemed necessary for succession training purposes, and the expenditures for the additional hires do not exceed the appropriations granted. Number seven, this ordinance shall be effective as of July 1st, 2026.

Do we have a motion to approve, please?

So moved.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any comments, questions? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Pruitt.

Aye.

Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Staten.

Aye. Next up, we have an ordinance amending a zoning ordinance.

ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NUMBER 15-26 ORDINANCE AMENDING APPENDIX A ZONING ARTICLE 4 ORDINANCE AMENDING ARTICLE 4 GENERAL PROVISION SECTION 4.24 ACCESSORY BUILDINGS OF APPENDIX A ZONING OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF HENDERSON.

IS THAT IT? YEAH. ALL RIGHT. MOTION TO APPROVE, PLEASE. SO MOVED. DO WE HAVE A SECOND? SECOND. DO WE HAVE ANY COMMENTS, QUESTIONS, SUGGESTIONS? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Pruitt. Aye. Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Seaton. Aye.

Can we do the ordinance of accessory filming? Did I miss it?

You just did.

We just did it.

I missed it. Sorry. That's okay. I was writing my notes. That's okay.

That's okay. First reading of an ordinance approving amendment to job classification pay plan.

For December 16-26, ordinance amending job classifications and pay plan. Ordinance approving amendment to job classifications and pay plan for non-hazardous duty positions, fire hazardous duty positions, and police hazardous duty positions.

Happy birthday to you.

Motion to approve, please. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Do we have any comments, questions, or suggestions? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas.

Aye.

Commissioner Pruitt. Aye. Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Satan.

Aye. Next up, we have a municipal order amending employee manual.

Municipal order number 56-26, municipal order amending article 247, Kentucky Deferred Compensation Match Program, attachment A, drug and alcohol policy of the City of Henderson employee manual.

Motion to approve, please. So moved. We have a second? Dylan, tell us a little bit more about this one. This one's kind of interesting.

Yeah, so two things on this one. The second one is pretty straightforward. It's something that's being required. As hard as you all know, we're no longer receiving our funding through the NPO for our transit agency. So part of it is just the second part of it, the drug and alcohol, is just maintaining compliance with the state. Don't be surprised if you all see that again in the future. There has, full disclosure, there's been a little bit of tension between what the federal level wants and what the state level wants. And I know... Ms. Russellburg and others have been working really hard on that. So this is something that we're doing for them. But then the other one, which is the deferred compensation match program, it's something we've talked about previously. You all had approved, which allowed us to match up to $1,000 for employees who put it into an eligible Kentucky Deferred Comp account as a way to encourage retirement success and that sort of thing. One of the things that we didn't think about and that came up actually as we were hosting information meetings was what about previously retired employees from the city who come back to work for us. So for example, if you had someone, the way it's written, you have to be working continuously for five years to be vested to actually be eligible to receive the city's match. So what we did was we're just adding a clarification that says if you had previously worked for the city for five years continuous and then you retire, if you are then rehired by the city, you're eligible immediately. So you wouldn't have to work another five years to get that. Because we, you know, we feel like they've earned that right. And so we want to, it's just a clarification. That's the main point of the amendment.

Thank you, sir. Any comments, questions? Roll call, please. I think it's fair. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Pruitt. Aye. Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Staton.

Aye. Next up, we have a municipal order approving a cost of living adjustment.

Municipal order number 57-26, municipal order approving 3% cost of living adjustment for non-hazardous duty employees except for seasonal employees, fire hazardous duty employees, police hazardous duty employees, and elected officials effective July 1, 2026.

Motion to approve, please. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Do we have any comments or questions? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Pruitt. Aye. Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Staten.

Aye. Next up, we have a resolution approving a second amendment to agreement with Henderson Christian Community Alliance.

Resolution number 41-26, resolution approving the second amendment to agreement between the City of Henderson and the Water and Sewer Commission, a.k.a. Henderson Water Utility and Henderson Christian Community Outreach regarding utility assistance funds and authorizing the mayor to execute the amendment.

We have a motion to approve, please. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. All right. Do we have any comments, questions? On this one, this is the one where we had set aside some money in fund for water at Kirsten Community Outreach. And so this is the one where if you were at 130% of the poverty level, you were eligible to receive in the next 12-month period up to $200 of a benefit to go towards your water bills if you were struggling and needed a little extra help. We have got $25,000 left over in that fund. And we have been talking for a couple of meetings now about the economic conditions that we find ourselves in. And we still have that $25,000 out there. And so what this amendment would do is it would take it from 130% up to 200% of the poverty level. So it's bringing in a lot more people who would potentially be struggling. Yeah, a lot of people. And then we're upping it from $200 to $250 in a 12-month period, and we're restarting the clock on that 12-month period as a result of when this change would go into effect. Any other comments or questions or anything? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Pruitt. Aye. Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Staten. Aye.

Next up, we have a municipal order awarding the purchase of office furniture for new fire station number one.

Minus order number 58-26, minus order authorizing purchase of office furniture for the new fire station by state contract from Business Environments Indiana.

Oh, sorry.

In the total purchase of $43,783.94. Motion to approve, please. So moved.

Do we have a second? Second. Do we have any comments, questions, suggestions? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Pruitt. Aye. Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Satan.

Aye. City Manager.

Yes, I have a few things this afternoon. First, I'd like to invite Mr. Newman up. He's going to give us an update. And Mr. Williams, I don't know if you want to tag team in or not. I know you both went down to Paducah. They took a tour and looked at... So, as you all know, the boat ramp has been something, or the boat docks have been something we've been talking about. And... As a river community, it's not just something we struggle with. Owensboro, Paducah, some others have different approaches. And so Mr. Newman and Mr. Williams went down to Paducah to look at theirs. And they're going to give you an update of what they found and maybe recommendations for moving forward.

So we learned from somebody in the barge industry that Paducah had a boat dock that would rise and fall with the river. So we took a ride to Paducah two weeks ago, took a look at it, and to be honest with you, there wasn't a boat dock there. Apparently, a barge decided to pull into the bank, and when they did, they got into the boat dock and literally took it out. So we were fortunate enough to talk to one of their public works folks about it, And what someone had drawn it up and they actually engineered it in the field and we asked if they were going to put it back into service and they were still questioning whether they were going to do it or not. And the reason being is when the river comes up and it drops back out, a lot of the debris that gets carried onto the boat dock was preventing the dock to roll back into the river as the river dropped. So there's a lot of things there that gave us question. Would you agree? I agree.

And then I've also spoken with Public Works in Carrollton. Tim Clayton sent some pictures of something, so we researched that. It seemed like most of the concepts are basically the same as what we have. Some of them are a little different. And I think the biggest challenge with all the communities on the Ohio River is the fluctuation in the water level. It can go extreme pretty quick, and the considerable amount of debris that the river creates. So that's kind of been all the community's challenges with all their boat docks. So I know ours is not the greatest, but it sounds like what we do

working as well as what we found so far too so I don't know what the answer is for a better solution really so the other thing we'll bring to to the Commission is Owensboro we believe lost their boat dock due to debris in the river And while they had a permanent mooring system, the dock itself got taken out by trees and debris in the river. So what we would like to do is continue to look at this and see what we can come up with on our own, if there's a better widget that we could come up with. But that's where we are today with the boat dock. Again, it was a very interesting trip to Paducah. We learned a lot, not only about their boat dock, but their river boat docking system that was under construction, so very interesting.

Mayor, if I could add one thing, I probably should have led with this, but I think the reason why we're talking about this is because we've talked about the boat docks for years, right, and if we're talking about transient boat dock which is separate from the boat dock they're talking about Paducah you know where people come and stay overnight you know or a properly secure you're talking about huge permitting cost huge you know you're talking seven figures to do that so what we're specifically looking at is there something that can replace or enhance our docks that we have now where it's like stop and go and not seven-figure project so that's specifically like we're what we're talking about now is a smaller scale recreational boat dock that is more conducive to our use and so that's that's ultimately what we're talking about here is we're not talking about the big the big you know permanent one that's millions of dollars we're talking about something that is more simple that just helps us fix the problem of having to take it out when the water gets too high or too low and because it is something all communities are struggling with. So that is specifically, so when you go to a community like Paducah, they have the multi-million transient boat dock, but then they didn't really describe what it was, but it was basically a track system, so like a rail system that ran along the boat ramp, and then it had a floating dock, and it would go up and down the rail, and it was fixed on one point, so it would lay like this on the ramp when it wasn't in use, and then when the water would come up, it would pivot like this and float. And what they're saying is they came up with a lot of issues. So there are some other creative solutions that we're looking into, and that is obviously not going to be as expensive as something else. But that's what we're continuing to look at is something that's more practical but also more economical.

The only thing I might add is please don't give up. The water's been here for hundreds and thousands of years and the ability to build docks has been here for hundreds of years and so it seems like there should be a solution out there. I don't know where it's at either. But it seems like there should be a solution out there that makes it to where we don't have to wait until July some summers to put the docks in because the water's up too high. And so whatever you guys could come up with would be fantastic. So please don't give up the search.

That nails it right there. The Ohio River is the issue. That's what's got us.

well the sad part of this is because of where our boat ramps are has a tendency to collect debris and silt and we fight silt every year of having to remove it and if you go across the river they don't have that problem for some reason i think it's due to the bend of the river and just how things settle out but as dylan said paducah when they built their transient dock are now having major silt issues and they're continuously having to dredge the river to use just the transient dock so it's very interesting

So my limited brain when it comes to this issue, I think about gutter guards at the house. They keep the leaves out and let the water through. It seems like we could utilize somebody else's technology and then go see if there's something that could gutter guard the underlayment that lies under the water to keep the silt and the debris out. let the allow the water flow it seems like somebody would have created that by now but if if there's a way that we can continue to search and come up with a solution before next boating season i know 100 people would be very uh very appreciative if we could yeah we will continue to like you thank you thank you appreciate it

All right. I've got two more things. One thing really quick I just want to note on, and this is just as an FYI, no action is required, but Denton Shelter, as you all know, it's a very heavily utilized facility. We rent it out, and I think we rent it out a year in advance, and people are usually there at 4 or 5 in the morning waiting to get their name on the list. It has come to our attention that the decking, there's a deck around it, around a couple sides of it, that is really bad. And so we authorized an emergency repair on that. It was about $31,800. Ms. Mills and the finance team did quote it out. It came under that $40,000 threshold. It wasn't specifically laid out in the budget, like called out. So I'm just letting you all know that we are doing it. We did feel like it was needed. We didn't have it specifically called out in next year's budget either, but we had some funds available in this year's budget. So Thomas, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the plan is to have that finished before the end of this fiscal year. Like I believe they're currently acting on it now, the decking.

Yes.

Yes. So anyway, that's just an FYI. And then the last thing, something that came up just recently is related to some CDBG funding agreements. So as you all know, we must designate and expend our CBG funds prior to the end of the fiscal year, including those for public services. And as I just mentioned, our fiscal year is ending on June 30th. So we did receive a proposed funding agreement for the Audubon Kid Zone in the amount of $25,000 this afternoon. And previously, you all had agreed, if you remember, to use CBG funds to fund the AKZ Neighborhood Action Project. And then we're also still waiting on a or a draft agreement is still being drafted for 10,000 to the Father Bradley. So because these were received after the agenda was finalized, we don't have formal resolutions to approve the agreement today, and we're still reviewing the agreements, and we might have to do some revisions or modifications to make sure we get all the CDBG requirements in there. But because this is our last meeting before the end of the fiscal year, I'm requesting that the commission authorize the mayor to execute those funding agreements when they're ready, and it'll be subject to the review and approval of the city attorney, the city manager, and their recommendation that the agreements are in a form acceptable to the city. So once again, we just need to get those agreements executed. We don't have them ready today, but we need to get them executed so that we can get the money to be $10,000 to Father Bradley. then roughly it'll be $25,000 total to AKZ but it's like $24,000 and change is coming from CDBG and then like $200 is coming from the general or the ICIP money. So I do believe our city attorneys have prepared a motion for that.

I move the City Commission authorize Mayor State to execute the community development block grant funding agreements with Father Bradley Shelter for Women and Children in the amount of $10,000 and in Audubon Kid Zone in the amount of $25,000, subject to review, approval, and recommendation of the city attorney and the city manager, and subject to any revisions or modifications deemed necessary to protect the interest of the city.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any comments, questions? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Pruitt. Aye. Commissioner Witt. Aye. Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Mayor Staten. Aye.

And that is all for me this afternoon.

All right. City Attorneys Report.

I've done something.

I don't know what I've done. I thought you were putting a light show with the presentation. I guess.

All I did was pick this up. It's 5 o'clock. It thinks it ought to go home.

Happy hour is almost over. We still got time. We still got time.

We have to be at the library at 6 to present a proclamation, so we'll be done by 6 for sure. Do you want to talk about the meeting while we're waiting? We can, yeah. So while we're waiting on the city attorney's report, on July the 14th, which is our next meeting, because June has five Tuesdays, it's going to be three weeks from now, we have several members. Dylan, Buzzy, and Don are all three going to be gone that day. And so they have requested that we move that meeting to July the 21st. And so we would have a meeting on the 21st, and we would have a meeting on the 28th. Does anybody have an issue with that? Everybody okay with that?

Okay, so not the 14th, just the move to the 21st.

Correct. So our two meetings in July would be July 21st and July 28th. They'd be back-to-back weeks.

Okay.

I'm just going to start. All right. So this may look familiar to you all. I actually presented this back in last summer on our clutter ordinance and some changes that city staff, including Mr. There you are, Mr. David, would suggest along with our coach administrator. So So you all gave us the direction to come back that you all wanted to think about it and we would bring this back to the work session. And so we're bringing it back now because we're still receiving phone calls on these issues. And so I just want to kind of go back over this with you and re-present some of the issues faced by codes every day and things that we can and cannot do under our current ordinance. As you can see, we've put some pictures up here of things that our codes, actually it was our codes enforcement, property maintenance, who took these pictures for things that she sees when she's out working. So front porch, carport, back porch, from an alley obviously. And this is all one house. This house shows you lots of stacked materials in the front of it.

It's hard to see from this picture, but there are over 20 bicycles lined up.

picture where you see the rest of those bicycles and then also just wood lumber stacked up so under our current ordinance our coach administrator cannot cannot write these oh sorry one more we also have people who tarp to cover So that's an example of an area that was tarred. However, our current ordinance, this is the definition of clutter. And so one of the things that it doesn't do is like the numerous bicycles. Our current ordinance takes bicycles that are in disrepair or scattered around the property, but in the case you all just saw, they weren't in disrepair and they weren't scattered, but having 20 of them together does give you the appearance of clutter. But the bicycles under our current ordinance cannot be sited. Currently, front porches, back porches, and open carports are a gray area as to whether they can be sited because, and Commissioner Witt probably knows this, well from our constitutional case days is that those are parts of a home and our ordinance does not specifically state that we can cite them so it's part of that facility so we would need to for constitutional issues make sure that we are specific, that we can cite those areas. So the changes that we suggested in the past, and I'll bring it back to you, is these. So no resident shall allow materials described as clutter to be stored on their property in a manner that creates a visual nuisance or detracts from the character of the surrounding neighborhood. And then change the clutter to clutter includes accumulation of new or salvaged construction material metal aluminum plastic product it's really everything that we have now but we put or in excessive quantity or any other similar materials accumulating in disorderly unsightly or excessive manner and then we would add a quantity of any item even if in good condition and orderly constitutes a nuisance if it exceeds what is reasonably necessary for personal residential use or creates an appearance inconsistent with the residential character of the neighborhood. And then we put possessing more than 10 of the same items, such as bicycles, tools, furniture, or similar material on residential property, may be considered excessive under the city's use informant, whether they're operational or neatly arranged, like the bicycles we just showed you. It's presumably not reasonable, however, they have the option to always go to the code enforcement board and explain why it is not clutter, why it's necessary, why it meets the residential area. So people, this would be, they could be cited for it, but they can always come to the code enforcement board to explain why their particular situation does not fit as clutter. So those are changes that we've seen. For the front porch, back porches, and carport, we would like to make it very specific so that we don't have any constitutional issues inciting the things that I think you all saw. You would not want those things in your neighborhood or by you. The other thing we would say is clutter must be out of ordinary view. So here is a question for you all. Owensboro has in their out of ordinary view, show me means, that out of ordinary view, show me means for the kind of privacy fit or stored in a garage or properly constructed storage or accessory building. enclosed or covered by tarps or other similar coverings does not constitute out of ordinary view. So I showed you the picture earlier where someone covered something in a tarp. We have not included tarps in the proposal that you all, but if that's something that you all would want to include, that would be something that we would need direction from you all on.

Let's do individual comments on this one. Commissioner Thomas, what are your thoughts on the tarping?

Is it necessary if we're going clutter anyway? It's going to cover the clutter, but it's still cluttered.

You would like just to include tarping. So we would include out of view includes no tarping.

um all right what's this looks like you just tarpon an atv it actually was a trailer full of stuff oh okay it doesn't show up really well on the thing it's a trailer full of stuff and then they tarp it so are you they're just throwing tarps over the top of the trash yes okay then i'll be in favor of it commissioner wick

you allowed the tarps how would you know what was under the tarps well what we've had before and I know that there was I know of two different households where they tarped their entire front porch so that you could not see because there was so much clutter on it they tarped it so And that would really be a question for Steve because it's really his.

We have had a few occasions where we have cited people for clutter in a carport or around. It was kind of flowing out of the carport.

Yeah, not in the carport.

So they put it in there and then they put tarps around the carport, the entire carport. That particular one right there cited for clutter. They threw it in the back of a dump trailer. It stayed there. We still got phone calls. They threw a tarp on top of it. That's how we know some of these things. But it's one of those things where you kind of know. If you're running around town, you know what's there.

But, I mean, tarping is really, that's why we felt like we really needed your all's input on tarping.

I mean, and I guess they can always challenge you, right? So, I mean, as long as they have the ability to challenge you.

Commissioner Pratt?

I won't be in favor of that.

Even though we know what Son did, if somebody tries to tarp it, at least they're trying to make it look better, I wouldn't be in favor of enforcing that. I would let them tarp it.

Commissioner Hargis. I am in favor. This is one of the complaints that I get by far the most of. And it's not fair to anybody else in the neighborhood of those around them. So anything that's in plain sight, including carports, infant porches, and, you know, along with that, I get a lot of complaints about, my gosh, it's trash. They're getting roaches. They're getting mice. They're spreading over. So, I mean, I see it from a health perspective, too. So we've got to give you guys some tools to clean that up a little bit.

So you've got a majority already. I am actually going to echo a little bit what Commissioner Pruitt said in that what I keep thinking of when you're talking about trailers and tarping are contractors. And so if a contractor is going to go do a job in a week, they may load a bunch of tiles and materials onto the back of a truck to go redo a bathroom. And then to keep that orderly, they might put a tarp over it. And in that case, I wouldn't be in favor of enforcing this kind of a law. And so for me, I would be against it just for that reason, because we would be punishing people who are doing okay because of people who do poorly. And this is a really tough situation, and I'm always in favor of less laws in tough situations like that. But it sounds like you have a majority to move forward to include that in the one that we look at.

On that note...

So can I just say one thing?

We don't cite somebody for the first time you see somebody. Right.

So we send a notice of violation. A notice of violation is just that. It's a notice of violation and they're giving X amount of time to correct it. So Dobby gets a lot of phone calls once she sends out the notice of violation. This is this and this is this. Then she goes back and she has a revisit, a research. When she goes back at that point is when she sends a citation. If the citation isn't acted upon, then it goes to the code.

code enforcement board so you get a warning the notice of violation even though it says no it's a violation it's really your warning but in later scenario they would get a verbal warning if it was set there for a long time so that's that's the issue it's got to sit there for a really long time that's what i was thinking yeah it's not i mean if we're talking to contractors building the house if it's sitting there for a year we're watching it it doesn't move we'll probably ask them to move it But if we're doing a home remodel and it's sitting there and no one ever dumps it out, we're getting phone calls, well, we're probably going to act on it because we're getting phone calls. We typically don't go out and say, hey, this isn't covered. We only act whenever we're getting phone calls from neighbors that are not happy.

What about the guy with the 20 bicycles? Yes. To me, maybe I just got three. But for him, for some reason, he wants 20. Should government be telling citizens how much of something...

He can have 20 just not in open sight. He can have 10 out front. But after he has 11, then he would be sighted and then he can come to the code enforcement board and explain why. But if he put... If he put 10 out front and he put 10 in his garage, then he would be okay.

Or he could have them in his house anywhere else. Yeah.

And this is not the law now. This is what we're bringing to you. If you all don't like it, we can go back and work on it.

Well, and I think it's important that you get this kind of individual feedback now because there are going to be things that maybe individually we don't like, but we can still pass it or vote against it because of what we don't like.

Well, and that's what I like, that they get to go and appeal it because there will be one-off situations, but we have to do something about that front porch that you saw.

And I'm perfectly okay with the thought process of giving our codes department more tools to enforce codes. And like we spoke about earlier, more staff. to enforce codes. I really think we've been understaffed in that department for quite some time. And so I don't want my individual objection to the tarping thing because I keep going back to, you know, what if they're doing five or six jobs and they always keep it tarped and it's always sitting in a trailer and it's fairly neat and all this. There's all kinds of scenarios, but I'm okay with you including it and considering it at a later time. And it sounds like you had three people who wanted to do that anyway. Yep.

But Commissioner Pruitt, did you have other questions about that?

No, I just keep government away from them, unless it's just crazy. I don't like government stepping on people's personal stuff.

I totally understand. I really do. It's the phone calls that we get.

Yeah, I already know. Yeah.

Yeah, you got to consider everybody else who lives around you, too, what they have to look at.

I mean, if it was absolute, I would agree more. But given the ability to come and appeal it and make your case now in front of other people in the community that are going to listen to it and decide if it's reasonable or not, at least gives you some mechanism to fight against government, if you will, if it sounds bad and scary. at least it gives some ability to at least try to enforce or maybe deter people from doing it if they think it's going to have to be that level of involvement to get the bill.

I think those are all reasonable opinions. But like I said, on your question, I would encourage you to include it because we have a majority of the commission that indicated support for it.

And the last part of it is this was B and we would flip it down to D. So... another thing that we've been dealing with and I'm glad so I don't come back to a picture and we have trailers and campers that are parked on our streets I got one the other day for that one so what we currently are our current ordinance prohibits it for more than 72 hours and after 72 hours they have to substantially relocate the trailer vehicle in order not to be in violation of the ordinance well there's a question as to what substantially is and people move it a little bit a little bit if that's substantially uh and we get a lot of complaints on this this is something that we are constantly receiving complaints on dylan am i in any way we've gotten several in the last couple weeks so uh my suggestion would be to modify this to uh you have to move it off of all public streets after 72 hours and it has to remain off of all right-of-ways public streets for 72 hours before it can be placed back And the point of that would be that that would force whoever. We understand that people bring campers home. You know, you've been on a big trip. You bring it home. You park it in front of your house. You do what you need to do. But then you need to either put it in your, you know, if you have a driveway or you put it, you have a storage area for it. Our roads are not really designed for trailers and campers to be on them. You have sight line issues. You have clutter actually just, you know, if you can see in that other picture what that looks like. So this would make sure that people who have these have another place to store them. So, and it would be very clear. you can't be here for 72 hours. So our suggestion would be to update that ordinance and include this language that you can be on there for 72 hours, but then it has to be removed off of there for at least 72 hours before you can bring it back. And if you think about weekend trips, that would give you 72 hours more than allows people to bring it back after a weekend. So those were, and this was something I know Dylan has really wanted and looked at this ordinance and struggled with this ordinance. So this was our suggestion to you all. So don't know how you all feel about that.

One of the residents is coming down. He's been trying to get that trailer situation rectified.

So you're in favor of this?

Well, I don't get any calls except one guy about RVs. So I don't know.

Commissioner Harkins?

I'm okay with that one, too.

And I'm okay with this one also, and I might encourage us to be a little tighter on it. And what I mean is I don't want us to get into a game where somebody has a food truck and they're playing a game of hopscotch all the time. And I don't mean food truck people are evil by any stretch. I'm just using that as an example. If you do that, you could create a game of hopscotch. And so you might want to include some additional language. to if you're cited more than three times in a month, then it could lead to increased fine or whatever the remedy is. And that way you get rid of people playing games with the rules. Because the intent of the rules is to make sure that the streets are safe for public safety and for public services.

And so one of the things that the current penalty for this is not less than $500, not more than $100. So what we can do is work on the penalty section.

So one thing I would like to do, because Chief Bowen and Deputy Chief Schultz, this came up late in the day today, us talking about this, so we didn't get the chance to talk before. Would either of you all like to add anything about this? Because ultimately you all are the ones typically who are inspecting to see if they've been moved.

I don't have anything to add. I think you've hit it all. Our biggest problem is the people moving it just a little bit, and then we can't do anything, and then people are mad at us and think we're not doing our job. But if they're moving it, it kind of ties our hands.

And they're smart. The people who are the perpetrators, they know that all I have to do is move it five feet and I'm good.

You know, so it's... Yeah, there's definitely a common good element to this one. You know, if there was a heaven forbid it's a narrow street and there's a fire, we've got to make sure the fire trucks can get down. They can get down to where they need to go. Ambulance is where to get garbage trucks. You know, all kinds of public services are reliant on a certain amount of street clearance. So...

I would add that there's a line of sight problem with a big box trailer where they can't get around it safely, and it creates a problem for kids or something around it, and they can't see the kids. So that's another concern I have is a large box trailer. Just flat trailers you kind of see around, but we have one that's pretty big, and that's a complaint I hear from them.

Good points. That's a good point. Thank you, sir.

We will work on this and bring it back.

Thank you. Anything else on the city attorney's report? Okay, we've got a few things we've got to clear up before we move on to an executive session. First of all, we've got two appointments. These are joint appointments to the tourism board. The county has already made the appointments. According to statute, there are certain seats that exist by title or by category on the tourism board. Now one of those is hotelier and we are limited because we don't have a huge amount of hotels or a huge amount of interest to serve on the tourism board. One of the two from people who do own the hotels. They might be out of towners or what not. And we have a current member, his name is Dee Patel. The county has officially reappointed him pending our joint appointment of him. He would hold that hotelier space and spill over into another term. And so I would like to invite someone to make a motion that we appoint Deep Patel and the hotelier seat on the tourism board for another term.

I move.

Do we have a second?

Second.

We have a second. Can we have a roll call, please?

Mr. Thomas? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Witt? Aye. Mr. Hargis? Aye. Mayor Staten?

Aye. Next up, we have a Chamber of Commerce seat. And the Chamber of Commerce seat is currently filled by the Director of the Chamber of Commerce, Clay Gillum. Clay has expressed some interest in continuing, and the county has already appointed Clay Gillum for another term as a representative of the Chamber of Commerce. Seeing that, I'll entertain a motion to approve this joint appointment of Clay Gillum for another term on the Tourism Board. So moved. Do we have a second?

Second.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Mr. Thomas.

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Mr. Witt. Aye. Mr. Hargis. Aye. Mayor Staten.

Aye. And we are on commissioner comments. And I'm going to go in a specific order. And I'm going to start with myself. I have just one comment. And that is we recently moved a number of offices into a new location. at the city annex. I just want to make sure that our IT and public relations are working on or have already worked on making sure that their sites, where they're located, are updated on our website and then also that they're updated on the most popular map apps that are available so if somebody is looking for i ran into a gentleman walking into the building today and he needed directions to occupational license and so i gave it to him was no problem but i want them to be able to plug in occupational license on their map app and be able to be directed to the annex building instead of here or wherever they're currently annexed so if we could take a look at that that would be fantastic uh commissioner hargis we got anything today no sir commissioner pruitt no Commissioner Thomas?

No.

And we do have something from Commissioner Witt. Commissioner Witt, would you like to make a few comments, sir?

I would, yeah, now that we've worn everybody down for two and a half hours. So today's a bittersweet day. I'm announcing my resignation from the Henderson City Commission effective at the end of June, and I will be dropping out of the upcoming primary. Oh, there it goes. There you go. So my wife and I, we have four young kids and we found a house in the county outside the city limits that It's pretty much perfect for our family, and we've tried the last couple years to find houses within the city limits for various reasons. I've missed out on other ones, and so the time is right, I think, for us to find some more room for our family, and so I will be resigning effective at the end of June. We will start moving the house in July, so I think it's appropriate legally to bow out and get off the commission before that time. With that being said, You know, I could go for hours in terms of thanking people, but, you know, just some general comments. You know, I think I've really enjoyed my time on the commission for three and a half years I've been on here. It's kind of hard to believe how fast it's flown by, although some days it does feel like an eternity. But in all seriousness, you know, every city employee I've come in contact with or worked with has shown an enormous dedication to this. To our community, you know, I think obviously sometimes we put you all in positions where you're having to you know Take the brunt of perhaps decisions that we make and I know that can be uncomfortable But um, you know, I I know from least my perspective every city employee has gone above and beyond and obviously you're the ones who do the heavy lifting to ensure that this city is successful, you know, we we haven't piece to play, but in the grand scheme of things, it's much smaller than the work that every city employee does. I've greatly enjoyed that. Every time I've ever had somebody from the community that's voiced a concern, I've raised it to a city employee, whether that be in one of the utilities or even to the city manager, anywhere in between, they've always been very quick to respond, and I know the citizens greatly appreciate that. Along those same lines, just, you know, obviously the people that supported me along the way, I definitely appreciate their support, and, you know, the votes I've gotten to be able to sit up here, it's not something I take for granted. I think we can all probably say it's humbling to see how many people put their faith and trust in you, and I greatly appreciate that. And then to you all up here, you know, I think We could argue all day about the successes of the city and the things we've done, the investments we've made, and some people agree or disagree. But I think hopefully the thing that they can agree on is that we've at least tried to approach it as adults. And we have always tried to unite instead of divide. And even though we have... agreed a lot of times we disagree like so today and but we've done it respectfully and that's something I've also tried to do anytime somebody in the communities come to me that perhaps I don't agree politically or personally has tried to be a voice for them even if I you know perhaps don't like them or disagree with them in some respects in terms of the opinion they have but to show them respect and I know from every person I've talked to the community everyone up here They've had the same experience we have up here as well, so that means a lot. And then lastly, nobody from my family is here today, but the reason why I'm moving, you know, four young kids and a wife have been very supportive of my time. You know, obviously having a full-time job and doing this with them four kids and a family is taxing at times, but I think it's been... A good experience for me and very rewarding, but I'd be remiss without saying I couldn't do it without their support and my in-laws' support, my parents' support, everybody in the community, all my family in the community that's gone out of their way to try to help us. Because it can be tough, right? You get on social media, you get on these things. I can tell you how many times my mom's reached out to me and said, you see so-and-so's comment, so-and-so's comment. And, you know, it is what it is, right? We're public officials. But I think that's the thing I would leave people with is just to remember, you know, we do have a family. We do have – and I've been perhaps at times guilty of that myself as being more critical than perhaps I should be to people. But I think this experience has reminded me that we – you know, people have a family. They have a life. And, you know, you can agree – Professionally you can agree about certain things policy wise but making a personal is just not Not something that we should Stoop to that level and so if I could leave with anything, it's just you know I'm proud of us up here that we've gotten along and That we've tried to at least present an image to the community that if you flip on the news at night You wouldn't hopefully be embarrassed of what we set up here and how we've embarrassed the community But other than that, that's that's pretty much all I'll just say. Thank you. I

Nick, it's been an honor to serve with you. I think it's even been better that I have a lifetime friend. So I wish you the best with you and your family. You know, I'm a phone call away. Appreciate it. Thank you.

I know I'm really sad for us, but I'm really happy for you. So it's been an awesome experience to get to serve with you. I thought we were just getting started, but I wish you all the best in your new chapter.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

You have to do what's best for your family. And I will say this, brother. You were always well prepared. I've loved to see how you've grown since you've been on this commission sitting right here next to me. And you were always well prepared on any issue that came up. And you really researched it thoroughly. I'm going to miss you, man. I'm going to miss you up here.

I'm going to miss you, Nick. For sure. You've been a dynamo. You really have. I can't look at you right now. Not because I'm mad at you, but I don't like to cry in public, and I'm going to try not to. So it's been a longstanding tradition of the Henderson City Commission. I don't know if it's always been exactly followed, but we have a nameplate, just a little ceremony where I actually just give you a nameplate and that's it. No blanket? No, no blanket. Actually, I should have had a blanket.

We need to get this guy. We can take care of it.

four years if you want to snap just a quick picture on behalf of the city of Henderson and in recognition of your service to the city of Henderson chief

Thank you.

Yes sir. To hit a few notes in relation to this, we've done some research. I've known for sure for maybe about a week that you guys were, I think you've known for sure for maybe about a week or longer that it was actually going to go through. Home purchasing thing takes a long time to get through. And we've done some research. And what we have to do now as a commission is within 30 days of Commissioner Whit leaving the commission, which would be 30 days from June 30th, which would be July 30th. So by July 30th, we are tasked with the not opportunity, but the obligation to appoint a new City Commissioner to take his place and that City Commissioner would take his place until the end of this calendar year and that would be remedied as a result of the next election. So the top four vote getters at the next election will move forward and be our next City Commission. So what I want to ask the City Commission to do is from now until our next meeting, which is now July 21st, July 21st we'll make an appointment. And so between now and July 21st, just be thinking about people who you think might be appropriate. And then on July 21st, just to be completely transparent, we're making a hiring decision, and those are done in executive session. And so as a part of that meeting, we will go into executive session, discuss the names, have a good conversation about who we would like to fill that spot, and we will come out with action with the appointment at that time. Pretty cut and simple and everything else. Everybody okay with that?

somewhere at the 21st. I can't miss this. I have to be somewhere at the 21st.

Okay. Are you able to zoom into that meeting? Let's talk about it, and if you're able to zoom in, we'll do it on the 21st. If not, we'll be cutting it close, but we can do it on the 28th and still meet that 30 days. Okay. And so, yeah, I want you to be here. If you want to be here, that would be fine. And so we may end up making that appointment on the 28th, pending your all schedules and availability, okay? Okay, yeah, I'll make it on the 28th. Yeah, so I'll get with you guys and make sure we can stick to that, and we'll figure out a time.

The 28th, though.

Yeah, we will figure out a time it's appropriate where everybody's available, if that's okay with everybody. Thank you, guys. And now for the last part of this meeting, we have need for executive session.

I move to the commission go into executive session for Senate K.R.S. 6.1.810, paragraph 1, subsection C, discussions of proposed or pending litigation on behalf of the public agency.

Do we have a second? Second. Roll call, please.

Mr. Thomas. Aye. Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Mr. Witt. Aye. Mr. Hargis. Aye. Mayor Seaton. Aye.