Board of Commissioners Meetings - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Welcome to the special called city commission meeting for Tuesday, July the 21st, 2026. If you would please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Can we have a call for attendance, please?

Commissioner Pruitt? Commissioner Hargis? Present. Commissioner Thomas? Here. Mayor Staten?

Here. Just for a point of order to let everybody know how a meeting runs with this many people, we did have a commissioner resign at our last meeting. And then we have another commissioner who's out of town. So we have three people, which is the minimum amount for us to have a quorum to hold a meeting. In the meeting today, if we have any vote, or we will have votes, As we have votes, if there's anything that is not unanimous, it takes a majority of the present commissioners for something to pass. And so since we have three, it takes two votes today to pass something on to either the next read or for good if it's a second read. So just let everybody know before we get started. Thank you. We're going to start with presentations. Do we have any new employees to recognize?

We do. Could I invite Mr. Bob Schultz and Aaron Bailey up to the podium, please?

This is Aaron Bailey. He's from Owensboro. He spent four years in the United States military, and we just got him hired. He starts his online portion of the academy class on August the 10th, and we're very happy to have him with us.

That's great.

Aaron, thank you for your service, first of all.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. Yes, sir. And second of all, I usually ask a question or two of people who come on. What brought you over specifically to HPD?

Good working place. I like the city here. It's not that far of a drive. My wife likes being over here, too, when we come to visit.

Good deal. If you fall in love with it even more, we've got plenty of houses that are available for people to move into, and we would love to have you. But thank you for coming over to HPD. We really appreciate it. Again, thank you for your service, and thank you for being willing to be a member of the Henderson Police Department. We appreciate that as well.

Thank you.

All right.

Welcome. Next up, if I could invite Mr. Bruce Thomas and Ms. Collier up to the podium, please.

Good afternoon. We have Brianna Collier. She is the newest member of the JFK Center. She is our new full-time recreation worker. She started June 22nd.

All right.

So what brought you to the Parks Department?

My mom used to work in the Parks Department. Really? Yeah.

So I'm assuming she had a good experience since you're working there now, right?

Yeah.

That's awesome. I've had a few places where I didn't like working, and I tell my kids not to work there, so I'm assuming it was a good thing. So, yeah, welcome aboard. And, Bruce, nice to see you at a commission meeting, man.

I was going to say, Bruce, we don't see you up here too much, but I was going to take a minute to brag on you and say you all did a great job with the event over the weekend. And I know you had the Dust Bowl, I guess, the week or two weeks before that. So you and your staff, thank you, because I know you've done a great job and you all had a lot of work these last couple weeks. So I just wanted to brag on you while you're up here. Thank you. Good deal.

Thank you all very much.

Next up, I'd like to invite Ms. Jordan Webb and Ms. George to the podium, please.

Good afternoon. This is Olivia George. She's our newest communications officer. She's originally from California. And she's made her home here in Henderson. And we took her from Deaconess. So we're happy to have her. She has a keen eye for detail and records. So we're looking forward to her being a communications officer.

How long have you lived in Henderson?

About 3.5 years.

Is there anything specific that brought you to Henderson from California? It's a long way.

I have family out here, but you all have been the most welcoming, wonderful place.

Hey, we like to hear that. Yes, ma'am. We think so, too. We do, too. It's a very good place to live. We love it, too. Congratulations and welcome aboard. Welcome. Yes, ma'am.

And then last but certainly not least, if I could invite Ms. Crystal Windhouse and Ms. Wagner up to the podium, please.

Hello. So this is Cassandra, who's been with us since the 13th. She has taken the last position that we had available and completed our team. So we're very glad to have her on board.

All right. Thank you. And same for you. What brought you to the city?

I needed a stable hour, stable job. I love bus driving. It's what I actually was doing before I left there. But I needed the hours.

It takes an incredible amount of patience to be a good bus driver. Thank you. And we've learned that over the years, and thank you so much for being willing to do that. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

You're welcome.

And that is all for this afternoon. Good deal. Next up, and this makes me smile a little bit, because one of the first people that I ever met that worked for the city of Henderson is Wendy Sugg. And that was a long, long time ago, back when I went through the Citizens Police Academy.

It was a long time ago.

It was a long time ago. If you and anybody that is here to support you would like to come up to the podium, we are going to talk about you for a second, if you don't mind.

I was not prepared that almost all my family was going to be here. You are very good. I just told them about it this morning.

Miss Jess is going to make you sound really good. Oh, good.

Today we are honored to celebrate an extraordinary milestone, 25 years of service by Wendy Sugg. Wendy began her career with the city on July 16, 2001, as the Administrative Secretary for the Henderson Police Department, a position she continues to serve with professionalism, dedication, and excellence. Throughout her career, Wendy has gone above and beyond the responsibilities of her role. She has served as co-chair for the United Way campaign and has been instrumental in numerous police department initiatives, including community cleanups, police camps, the Cops Connecting with Kids program, and the Citizens Policy Academy. She also, sorry, the Citizens Police Academy. She also played a key role in organizing the 2005 Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police Conference when it was hosted by the Henderson Police Department. Wendy's knowledge of the department's operations is unmatched. She works closely with the chief of police in developing the department's annual budget and helps manage and monitor it throughout the year. Her attention to detail and organizational skills have made her an invaluable member of the department. She also coordinates the department's annual awards banquet and has thoughtfully planned numerous retirement ceremonies, ensuring each one honors the careers and accomplishments of fellow employees. No task is too great for Wendy. Whether solving problems supporting her coworkers or simply lending a listening ear, she is often described as the department's unofficial therapist. Wendy recently led a very important and challenging project for the police department that benefited many of its past and present employees. Her patience, attention to detail, and willingness to work through tedious aspects of the process ensured that nothing was overlooked. Her commitment to delivering quality results made a significant difference to the project's success. Wendy, thank you for your 25 years of outstanding service, your unwavering professionalism, and your steadfast commitment to the city and the police department. Today, it is our privilege to recognize your many contributions and celebrate this remarkable milestone with the presentation of your service award pin. Congratulations, and thank you for everything that you do.

Wow, thank you.

On behalf of the city of Henderson, it is my honor to introduce you to this 25-year pin. And then we've got a whole bag of goodies. Wow. I can't talk about everything that's in the bag, but I can say that there's a nice blanket.

I was going to say there better be a blanket.

It is fluffy and soft. It's going to do you well over the years. Awesome. Thank you so much. And I also want to say just personally, even though you may not know this, you are one of the reasons that I first got interested in serving the city in this capacity because of the way that you dealt with me during the Citizens Police Academy. And it really was a good introduction for me to the police department and also to the city of Henderson. So I appreciate you for that. And you have earned the right to speak to anybody you would like to speak to. But thank you again for serving so long. We really appreciate it.

Well, thank you so much. They warned me not to speak at work. So... But I appreciate that. I don't know who wrote that. Marie, did you have a hand in writing that? I did not. Wow. Well, that was wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I'll be here at least two more years because I'm getting my full 27 in. Sweet.

Thank you.

I appreciate it. Thank you for your service.

Thank you. We appreciate you, Wendy. I just wanted to tell you.

I appreciate that. What? I just wanted to say thank you.

Oh, you are welcome. We appreciate all you've done.

Thank you so much. Very nice.

All right. And next up we have Brandon Harley is here with Audubon Area Services. He presented at the last fiscal court meeting and wants to make a presentation to the city commission today. So, Brandon, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mayor, Commissioners, everyone here. I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to you a little bit about Audubon Area Community Services. Again, my name is Brandon Harley. I'm the CEO of the organization. We're a 50-year-old organization as of last year, so we're on our 51st year. And we're the organization here within the region, the Green River Service Area, dedicated to trying to eradicate poverty through a number of services. Most folks, they know Audubon, but they don't actually know Audubon by its name. So if you've ever watched a grits bus drive past your house or had a child in a Head Start classroom, sent a person to get utility assistance through our LIHEAP program, had someone who did work through our Kentucky Works program, or had anybody in subsidized housing in the Owensboro area, you may have contacted or had someone who contacted you. one of our service arrays so as we go through here of course you know i'm not going to read the mission scope because really our we get down to the heart our dedication is to try to get folks who are living in some income stress situations into better situations as i stated our coverage area is the grad counties but we actually have services in 41 of the counties here in the commonwealth We start over in the Lincoln Trail area around Grayson County and go all the way down to Fulton County in the west part of the region when it comes to some of our employment service areas. Our big lines of service, of course, has to do with housing, early childhood education, transportation, workforce development, and community services. And then in 2017, we also opened up a healthcare line of services through a federally qualified health center We actually have three freestanding clinics there in Owensboro and we actually do school-based health services in contract with Owensboro Public School District. And so when I come to you guys today to talk about just a vision that myself and the board of directors at Audubon area have had over a number of years. So one of the things, and I've been back with Audubon, I actually started with Audubon back in the late 90s, left and worked in state government for 15 years, came back in 2015 as chief operations officer and was appointed the CEO in 2024. But one of the issues that I think that always weighed heavy on my heart is that Audubon doesn't have a large enough fiscal presence here in Henderson County. It's our second most populous county. You know we've done a litany of services over the years and like I can pull some data from our 2026 data scheme just to tell you a little bit about what we do here in Henderson overall. So it comes to our fiscal year 26 which would have been the calendar year basically of 2025. We service 750 customers through our grits transportation services and provided nearly 22,000 annual trips. During that period of time, our Head Start program and early Head Start program, we service 25 households or families. I'll get back to that briefly. Even our clinical services, although they're housed over in Owensboro, Kentucky, we service about 100 patients here out of Henderson County and throughout the county and the city with our FQHC services. We offer the senior service program here, so we have a lot of opportunities where we have a lot of folks that are age 55 and older and opportunities to work in community organizations rather than nonprofits that we help subsidize their wages and provide them stipends so they can offset the administrative costs for a lot of organizations that are smaller nonprofits that couldn't otherwise afford those things. So we have 22 volunteers serving 77 clients here in Henderson County. In our foster grandparent program, we have 10 volunteers serving 44 at-need children, whether they be in the Henderson County Public Schools or in other Head Start classrooms. We have 51 senior volunteers going out in those communities and working with those nonprofit programs. We also offer the Connect program where we do a lot of benefits assistance and try to get folks hooked into the Medicaid or a qualified health plan service. And then, of course, we also offer LIHEAP services. A couple of these things I want to draw your attention to is number one is the early childhood educational component. So as I say, it's 25 children served in our program in Henderson County. And I think that's a point that I'd like to emphasize in that in the past and throughout a lot of areas that we service and it's 16 counties that we offer Head Start in. We blend our services with the local public school districts, but what we've come to discover over time is we suffer from the same issues that many of the public schools have. It's a capital room spacing lease issue. So every year enrollment numbers change, both for us and the public school district, and if we are leasing space through MOUs with those services, oftentimes we have to give up those spaces if They have a large enrollment bump, or you have a classroom that comes into play. That happened a few years ago as we were co-housing the Thelma B Early Learning Center. The public school district, of course, needed those for those pre-K slots, and so our only available place for us to offer Head Start and Early Head Start is at the Henderson County Technical College with Dr. Warren, who's also on our board, and we service 25 families in that area. However, whenever we left them a B, we reserved 50 other slots for early childhood services at that point in time. We've kept those slots on reserve in case that we can try to go on and expand services, find more opportunity to service more families, and offer those families that will support those early childhood education services. In addition, of course, we talk about the LIHEAP and utility assistance. We've all seen our utility bills increase over the last few years. Inflation is real, especially as we're looking at it. It's 97 degrees with a real feel of 108 when I left my car out there a while ago. I know utility bills are on people's minds along with groceries and stuff like that. Those light-heap services we offer, and we also offer emergency food benefits as well at times, are really weighing on families. And so when we look at how Audubon Area delivers services here specifically in Henderson County, one of the things I notice is that we have a scattershot array of how we provide those. For instance, we have our childhood services at the Technical College campus. We offer our utility assistance program over here on Main Street. We used to have some lease space for our grips transportation services right off 41A over here that we had some busing space. We're trying to consolidate, but we just don't have a great footprint for our services to deliver holistically what we need to do for the counties and the citizens of Henderson here. So over the last few months, we've been exploring some opportunities, both number one, to provide that footprint for early childhood education, as well as make a more significant impact with Audubon Area Community Services and how we try to interface with the citizens here of Henderson here in the community overall. In the last few months, we've located a piece of property off Stadium Drive, and we're now beginning some negotiations to try to outright purchase that piece of property. The property is about 45,000 square feet, and we have some opportunities to renovate those properties and bring in an array of services in a central service hub of delivery. Not scattershot where you have to go from one side of town to the next, make multiple phone calls, try to beg folks to drive you one way or the other because the reality is this, if you're low income or living in poverty, it's expensive to live that way. Oftentimes, you're having to pay neighbors, friends, bum rides for someone, offer services, vouch, et cetera, et cetera, and that puts your family in more and more disadvantage all the time. And so we're really trying to really discover how we can array and align our services in a way that really make an impact in the community. So what I'll point to you guys, I think it's about eight pages deep into this piece, is the floor plan. of the actual layout that we have to design. It's a schematic that we had drawn up with an architect locally, and it's about 20,000 of that 45,000 square foot facility that we're currently looking at right now. And in this, we're really trying to highlight and make the fiscal presence of what our leadership and our board is really trying to align. We're really trying to figure out not just how people haphazardly find our services, but really when people enter our doors that we can really wrap services around folks and really try to make them balanced and give them that springboard they need to try to reach self-sufficiency overall. So what you see around here would be our first phase of what this renovation project would go forward and look like. The blue overall that you see in this presentation happens to be our Head Start build-out. A couple of things about this facility that makes this unique and very positive for Audubon area to be engaged with is the fact that with Head Start services in the classrooms, each one of those Head Start classrooms have to be plumbed out for those children. We have to provide bathrooms that have availability for water, and this actual facility already offers that piece as it goes along. Down in the bottom left, when you see a large box over here, there's a large cafe and a commercial kitchen. And so in that piece, we can actually provide on-site meals for those children and families without having to transport meals all throughout town and trying to reach those kids where they are. And then, of course, in the back you can see there's five different classrooms, and in the middle of this is a courtyard that we would renovate and create a Head Start playground that would have access for every Head Start classroom in that piece. So through those five built-out classrooms with expansion in that piece, we could already build out 50 to 60 new Head Start slots upon the completion of this first phase of this renovation work. But not only would we do the Head Start side, if you look at the red piece on the right side of this drawing, we have intentions of trying to bring our clinical services over here to Henderson County as well to provide our federal qualified health center services where we have medical professionals working here with laboratory services, behavioral health, and substance abuse services to serve the low income and other services in Henderson County as well.

Can I stop you just for a second? I've got a question about that particular arm of what you all do. So what is, and I'm asking for a specific reason, I'll tell you the reason I'm asking, is we have opioid settlement funds here at the city, quite a bit, and we have very stringent requirements for how we spend those opioid settlement funds. If you're talking about substance abuse, that could link up to opening up that money to be able to contribute toward the project eventually. What kind of timeframe are you looking at in terms of bringing that onto this campus?

Well, once we are able to secure the facility and Audubon makes the outright purchase, we hope to start the renovations immediately. What I think from this point in time would be about 24 months for us to turn around and get the purchase completed and get these renovations for the first phase completed to where we would open up and at least have this first iteration of services in place. So, and speaking directly to the opioid funds, yes, so, you know, for instance, our health care facility actually, so you guys operate a recovery center here, WARM, here, Mr. Seitz and his team operate that here. We actually have the same alignment. Audubon area operates Owensboro Region Recovery. It's a men's facility that mirrors what WARM does in Henderson over in Owensboro. So through our health care services, we're actually able to offer those health care services to the men who are entering Once we reach a recovery, we can do testing. We actually offer some opioid resistance through other medications and treatments. We have qualified professionals that do those things. On top of that, one of the things you have with communal living situations is outbreaks of hepatitis C. So we have specialists who are trained in hep C treatment, and we can actually get those things under control. And so our team is really adept at working in those substance abuse and behavioral health fields, along with the primary care services as well. So it is a good match for that.

Thank you.

And then finally, of course, you know, you see up here at the top there's a pink and a green. Those would be administrative offices for us to operate both our senior services as well as our LIHEAP and administrative office services. As you guys know, actually we're getting ready to start up a summer cooling program soon that's going to be announced next week. We have a huge array of folks that come in and out of the service array. It would be really great for us to be able to access those people in one site. Whereas when we do the intake, we're redesigning our intake where people intake on one program, we can intake on all and really wrap people in those services and create a holistic way of treating folks and helping them along their way. So we're excited about this project. We're hoping that we can really get this project off the ground here very soon and get actually the property purchased and be able to build out that piece. Of course, as we've talked about this, Audubon Area offers housing programs and other things, so there's another 25,000 square foot on this property that we would hope to do some phase two work, whether it be work we offer some partnerships with other non-profits or community organizations where we could co-house services there and there, and even offer housing support services down the road and actually make affordable or senior housing down the road. We offer a lot of those services over time, and I would hope that would be a phase two maybe five to ten years down the road as we do those things. As you stated earlier, I went and presented to the principal court last week. I've had multiple conversations with a lot of folks in the community about this project. I think it's a great way for us to both make that lasting impact here in Henderson County and really help the community because a couple things I'll note is you guys are really on the growth pattern. With the bridge getting ready to open up here in about the next 12 to 16, 18 months, of course, you're going to see a huge uptick in folks coming into the community. Our service line is seeing a lot more people coming in and accessing our services. For instance, my staff told me in our last spring subsidy program, we actually saw 1,300 clients we've never, ever seen before. and accessing those LIHEAP services. We've got at least 25 years of data. These are brand new clients who showed up because they needed utility assistance. And oftentimes folks are embarrassed to come and see our services. But we work through those issues and we try to deliver those services in a holistic way and make it work for everybody involved. By creating a design model like this, I think we can really make a bigger impact for the community. And then finally, I'll go back to that original point about the 25 Head Start families. I know you guys have really been working on your workforce development, trying to recruit employers, trying to get things going in the community. As the bridge opens up, that's really going to expand. The one thing, though, you need to always consider when you're talking about economic development and the workforce is we're trying to attract an age of about 20 to 44 in that workforce. More often than not, what they have in common is they're parenting adults, and so they need childhood and early childhood education and opportunities for their kids to get that access of care. We have talked to Dr. Lawson. I know that they're expanding some of their pre-K services out in the county and doing that, but we offer we could bring in 50 full-time slots, if not more, and grow that program through expansion, provide those services with the gold model of Head Start programming, and it's a full-day, full-year program, not a half-day year. So we could really make a bigger impact and get those folks and those families that we access back to work and back into providing for their families and the community overall. So with that, unless you guys have any questions about the model, I'd be happy to answer that over time.

Do you have any other brick and mortars of this scale in any of the other 41 counties?

We do not. So this is, with our redesign, and we just actually went through a strategic planning process just within the last month with this piece, and we're really looking at that universal intake and really how we redesign. And so this would almost be the model of how we're trying to remodel our services overall for the region.

Give me an idea how many people would be employed?

Right now, we're probably projecting anywhere between 25 to 40 folks that we could probably put in there when you talk about all of our Head Start staff that have to be in there, the LIHEAP, the medical personnel. I mean, even these, when we're talking about health care personnel, I mean, we pay competitive wages with those things. We're putting folks with good wages and good benefits. I mean, Auburn Area is a special governmental entity, quasi-governmental programs where we have access to the State retirement system, the health care plans, all state employees, and we also recognize a lot of healthy benefits. So the folks that come to work for us, we get really good pay as well as great benefits as well.

So it really, when you talk about growth in the community, there are two things that I heard. One of the best abilities for workforce is availability. And so people who are not allowed to make over a certain amount of money or they can't receive certain benefits from the government sometimes can't go to work because they can't afford child care. And so that helps us overcome that. But then also you're talking about 25 to 40 employees that are going to need a place to raise their own families right here in Henderson, which is also an indirect way that would help grow our community as well. Do you have more to present to us?

Not at the moment. Like I said, I didn't want to take up all your time today and stuff like that. I wanted to present with you guys just like I did with fiscal court. I mean, we're phasing this in, and I'm not here prepared to really make any more ask for anything else like that of anyone here in the commission, of course, because we're trying to work through that process of the purchase. In the future, I'll come back and keep you guys abreast of where we're going and how things are moving along.

Well, I think it's an incredible program, and I think what you guys do is incredible for our community, even though you're not here as substantially as you would be if you were able to have this campus. Yes. And I can't speak for everybody on the commission, but I know for me personally, I'd love to see you guys here. And I hope that you have a successful process, and I look forward to seeing you in the future.

Yeah. Yeah, we do too. It's an exciting process. I really think that we can make an impact and really help the citizens of Henderson overall with multiple, multiple ways, you know, so. We're excited to get going, and I'm ready to break ground on this. Well done.

Good deal. Any other questions or anything?

Not at the time.

Okay, well thank you so much for coming today. And then stay in touch with us.

I will.

Because I think this is something that the county and the city both would be super excited to have. And to the extent that we can, I'm sure we're willing to support whatever we can do to help make sure that that happens.

We appreciate that. Thank you so much. Yes, sir.

All right, we now have a consent agenda.

The consent agenda contains the minutes from the June 23rd, 2026 regular meeting. Resolution number 42-26, resolution accepting human resources report dated July 21st, 2026, approving all actions contained within and authorizing the mayor to execute any necessary contracts for employment. Resolution number 43-26, resolution approving agreement with the Henderson City County Airport Board allocating up to one hundred and sixty seven thousand one hundred and ten dollars for airport services and authorizing the mayor to execute the agreement resolution number 44-26 resolution approving agreement with henderson economic development allocating ninety thousand dollars for services and authorizing the mayor to execute the agreement resolution number 45-26 resolution authorizing funding for henderson henderson county planning commission in the amount of 429 342 resolution number 46-26 resolution approving memorandum of understanding between the city of henderson CITY AND HENDERSON TOURIST COMMISSION REGARDING PERSONNEL FOR THE HENDERSON WELCOME CENTER GALLERY 101. RESOLUTION NUMBER 47-26, RESOLUTION APPROVING FUNDING FOR CITY COUNTY HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION IN THE AMOUNT OF $46,901. RESOLUTION NUMBER 48-26, RESOLUTION APPROVING AGREEMENT WITH AUTOBAN KIDS ZONE INCORPORATED ALLOCATING $5,000 TO PROVIDE MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT TRAINING WORKSHOP SERVICES AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE THE AGREEMENT. resolution number 49-26 resolution accepting agreement between city of henderson and commonwealth of kentucky transportation cabinet department of highways pertaining to the garden mile road project resolution number 50-26 resolution approving submittal of an acceptance if awarded of a grant under the united states department of homeland security port security grant program for water safety and rescue operations equipment in the total project amount of 125 000 resolution number 50-26 Sorry, 51-26, resolution approving and adopting the Title VI plan, limited English proficiency plan and public participation plan and superseding any and all previously adopted Title VI plans. Municipal order number 59-26, municipal order approving memorandum of understanding between the City of Henderson, Henderson County Fiscal Court and the Center for Addiction Recovery of Henderson Incorporated and authorizing the mayor to execute all necessary documents. And municipal order number 60-26, a municipal order authorizing payment to Tone III Emergency Upfitters LLC for the upfitting of four Henderson Police Department vehicles.

Before we get a motion to approve, are there any items that any commissioners would like to pull for further discussion? There is one that I must pull for further discussion, and that is the resolution approving the submittal and acceptance of the Homeland Security grant for the police department. We will pull that for further discussion and then entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda without that specific item. Allowed. Is there a second?

Second.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Hargis? Aye. Commissioner Thomas? Aye. Mayor Seaton?

Aye. Don, I want to consult with you. Sure. Can you explain a little bit more why we pulled that specific item from the consent agenda?

We are in a special call meeting right now. Because of that, we cannot change the agenda after 24 hours prior to the meeting. We found out this morning the police asked that we withdraw it from the agenda and not go forward with it, but we couldn't withdraw it because it was a special call meeting, but now we can. We had to bring it up. but there's no motion on the floor for it, so we can withdraw at this point.

All right, and do we need to take any further action or just know that it was withdrawn and not voted on and not addressed at this meeting? Is that right? Yes. All right, thank you. Moving on from the consent agenda, we have a second reading for an ordinance approving an amendment to job classifications of pay plan.

Ordinance number 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.

We have a motion to approve, please.

So moved.

Do we have a second? Second. And this is a second reading. We had a little bit of discussion at the last meeting, but are there any other additional questions or comments? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Hargis? Aye. Commissioner Thomas? Aye. Mayor Stanton?

Aye. This next one is a first reading and this is the continuation of a long discussion that we've had that has made it on in the form of an ordinance relating to nuisances relating to clutter.

Ordinance number 17-26, ordinance amending chapter 15, nuisances. An ordinance amending chapter 15, nuisances, article 1, and general section 15-1, prohibition of the code of ordinances of the city of Henderson.

Do a motion to approve, please. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Dawn, would you like to elaborate on this at all? I know you've probably talked to us for about a total of two hours about this one, but I mean, do you want to say anything?

Well, this just is going to give Steve and his staff more authority to be able to go out and to cite individuals who have clutter on their porches that are within visible use, back porches, front porches, carport, as well as people who may have a lot of material in their yard. stacked up, but still the overall is just so much that we receive complaints on those, but Steve and his staff are not able to cite those. And I think we've shown you pictures. Good deal.

Any other commissioners have any comments? I just have one comment. I think our Coast Department does a heck of a good job. And they do a really good job within the confinements of what we've given the department to operate by. And so this is an example of something that we're voting on at the commission level to give them more teeth to act on issues Because we have a lot of frustrated citizens when they call in about complaints with codes and that they don't get addressed. And usually, I would say 90 plus percent of the time, the reason that they haven't been addressed to the public eye is because there's a process that they have to follow that's tedious and involves warnings and citations and fines and a certain period of time. And then you have to mow your grass by the middle of the month. Well, they mow their grass and then six weeks later it's not mowed and they're back in the same cycle. And so I am proud that we're addressing this, and I just wanted to say that on behalf of CODES, you guys are doing a great job, and we're going to continue to try to give you more tools so that you can do your jobs even more effectively. Thank you for doing what you do. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Mayor Staten.

Aye. Next up, we have a resolution approving a funding agreement.

Resolution number 51-26, resolution approving agreement with the Henderson-Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Downtown Henderson Partnership Committee allocating $62,000 for services in support of Downtown Henderson Partnership and authorizing the mayor to execute the agreement.

Motion to approve, please. So moved. We have a second? Second. Dylan, we normally give $47,000 to the Downtown Henderson Partnership. Why the extra $15,000?

Yeah, so as you all know, we just approved a bunch of resolutions for our typical annual funding agreements. And there was one reason in particular why I asked this one to come off the consent agenda. And that is because, so if you all will remember back to budget time, Mr. Kenny, our parks director, who couldn't be with us today, he had proposed a lot of new events. And those were specifically listed as line items in the budget. One of those was a new event that he is very passionate about that's called Oktoberfest, and it's set to be held in September. And so in the budget, we included as a line item $15,000 in the parks budget for Oktoberfest. That is in the budget. You have already approved it. It's there. At the time when we were preparing the budget, the details of this event hadn't been fleshed out yet. And so what I asked Mr. Kenney to do was to talk with Miss Gillum and Tourism and other local entities and figure out what the best way was to make this event a reality. He has been working very closely, I know with Clay in particular, in the Chamber and DHP, and it was decided that the best way for that event to happen, and specifically this $15,000 is budgeted to pay for the stage and the performers, the best way to handle that would be for that to be a pass-through expense through the DHP arm. And so if you look at the agreement, line 11 of the agreement, it specifically mentions that normal $47,000 that we pay to them annually in two equal payments with an additional $15,000 that is meant specifically to be used towards the Oktoberfest event. So once again, this is I would consider this a city event, if you all remember. It's a partnership, but if you all remember the event we did in Central Park, or Independence Day, there's been plenty of events where we've been kind of blurring those lines between being a city event or being a chamber event or a tourism event. And I think that's great. If you ever hear Thomas or Mr. Kenny talk, you'll hear him talk about gaps, grants, alliances, partnerships, and sponsorships. And I think we're really living that out. We've also just recently filled the new – We added a new event coordinator position in parks. We just recently filled that to help with these type of events. And so, once again, their agreement is completely the same as what it's been in the past. It's just we have added that $15,000 that we specifically budgeted as Oktoberfest to be a pass-through expense for them. And once again, that money would be specifically used to reserve the stage and the performers for that event. And then from that point, it's going to be a partnership with the downtown vendors to It's going to be a German-themed festival, have German foods, and the brewery will be involved. I think it will be a really great new event. I think the thought process was we've got a lot of really good events that carry us through the summer. I know Bowie Grass in the Park is coming up, but then we've got a lull from mid-August to the end of September, and that's when this event would happen. That's pretty much the gist of it. I asked that we pulled it from the consent just so that I could explain that. And once again, the only difference with their contract this year is that there's that extra $15,000 that we've specifically budgeted for that event.

You know, I'll tell you, we're talking about the event at Central Park, the Halloween bash last year. And if you didn't get a chance to go to it, I hope we're doing that again this year. Do you know? As far as I know, it's a plane. You know, if the Parks Department was able to pull off that event, which worked on the back of downtown trick-or-treating, just to see all the kids' faces when they were in costume and dancing and there was a DJ and more candy, it was fantastic. really well done on a very low budget and so for this one i'm excited to see what he can do with just a little bit more money to to help entertain the community and bring us together i think it's a it's a wonderful thing personally um are there any other comments or questions from the commission very good All right. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Mayor Staten.

Aye. Next up, we have a municipal order awarding a bid for Vine Street sidewalks and WC Handy Park concrete pads.

Municipal order number 61-26. Municipal order awarding bid for the Vine Street sidewalk and WC Handy concrete pads. Project to RCL design build of Lexington, Kentucky in the amount of $38,800.00.

Motion to approve, please. So moved. We have a second. Second. I didn't know it was a tie. The Vine Street sidewalks are pretty self-explanatory. The concrete pads, though, Dylan, can you explain what the concrete pads are for and what they will lead to?

Yes, and Mr. Newman, if you want to come up as well in case you have any further comments you want to add. But the concrete pads are specifically for bleachers. They're going to be installed at the JFK Center around the outdoor basketball courts. And so using CWG funds, we'll get those pads poured, and then we'll get those bleachers set, and we'll go from there. It's something that's been a need. If you've ever been out there, I know Mr. Thomas was here earlier with the Dust Bowl, there's – We have multiple events there throughout the year that draw a large crowd. And so getting this there is something we've needed. You wouldn't think that something as simple as bleacher pads would be complicated. But if you've ever been there, you know that it kind of sits in a bowl. And so there's a lot of grading issues that you kind of have to deal with on that specific site.

And one other thing for me is I've always thought of it as an extension of the JFK Center. And when the agenda came out was the first time, and I hate to, I don't know everything, you know, and so first time I knew that it was called WC Handy Park. right there beside JFK Center. And so when we had our pre-meeting this morning, we talked a little bit more about how we can make it more known that that park outside the JFK Center where the courts are is actually called WC Handy Park. Maybe by putting up a marker or statue or something, you know, acknowledging WC Handy and his contributions to the community. There's a mural already inside the JFK Center that does that. but it'd be nice to have something in the park that kind of denotes the fact that it's named W. Sandy Park just for historical reasons. Anybody have any other questions or comments or anything? All right, roll call, please.

Commissioner Vargas? Aye. Commissioner Thomas?

Aye.

Mayor Staten?

Aye. Next up, we have a municipal order approving the purchase of a garbage truck.

Municipal order number 62-26, municipal order approving purchase of a 2027 Freightliner chassis with a Heil 24-yard Liberty ASL for the sanitation division from Stringfellow Incorporated of Louisville, Kentucky through source of contract number 110223-THC in the amount of $301,301.12.

Motion to approve, please. We have a second? Second. One thing that might catch your eyes is it says for recycling. Just to let you know, this fiscal year that we're in that ends June of next year, our public works department is working on, and this purchase of this truck will help lead to, taking over recycling. There's no firm timeline in place. They're still working on the details, but expect that the commission will hear a little bit more about that sometime in the next coming months. Anybody have any other questions or comments? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Hargis? Aye. Commissioner Thomas? Aye. Mayor Staton?

Aye. Next up, we have a municipal order approving the purchase of a backhoe.

Municipal order number 63-26, municipal order approving purchase of a Caterpillar 416 backhoe loader from Boyd Cat of Evansville, Indiana through source well contract number 011723-CAT in the amount of $141,139.88. We have a motion to approve, please.

So moved. We have a second? Second. We have any comments, questions, suggestions? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Hargis. Aye. Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Mayor Staten.

Aye. City Manager's Report.

So I have two things. The first one I'll tackle, and then the second one I'll let Mr. Newman tackle. So if you all recall at our last meeting, we had Mr. Redding and some other people who are representatives from the Mountain Biking Group, and they came to talk about their project. So I know after that meeting, there were a few questions. And so myself and Mr. Kenny, we met with them and kind of talked through, learned a little bit more because I think even as they're going through the process, their ideas are kind of evolving. And Mayor, I know you had a conversation with him as well. And so After that meeting, we kind of discussed, okay, if we were going to proceed forward, what would that look like? And so really, I want to give you all kind of an update on where we landed. So when we met with him, we got a little bit more into the details of what do the phases of design look like because this is a – I've never really done a, you know, I've done a lot of projects. This is kind of a unique project. And so they kind of explained to me how the project might run. And so you've really got a couple different phases of design. The first phase is kind of what they call discovery. It's where they come in, they do a conceptual design. They look at general layout, site selection, They do a survey of the areas that you're looking at, and then they use a thing called, I can never say this, but an incline meter, I think is what they call it. They actually go out because what they've explained to me is with mountain biking, you want to get kind of that flow where you go up and down. So it's not always up, it's not always down. They like almost like riding a wave is the way they've explained it. And then the second phase is more like where you hire a company to almost do a design build where they finalize the design and then they construct it. And I think in talking to them, maybe the request was a little bit too much at the beginning. And so what I would like to propose we do in talking with them, what I think would work out well is, with your all's permission, I would like for staff to work with Mr. Redding. develop a RFP where we basically go out and create a we solicit design services for the discovery phase what that company would do is they would go out they would work with us we would look at the different locations they would say okay that site is a great location that so it's not a great location let's focus on this site that is and let's start doing some more of this stuff and And so what I would request your all's permission to do is for staff to prepare the request for proposals to get these services, and then once we get those proposals, we'll review them, we'll negotiate a potential contract, and then we would bring that to you all for approval. We expect that that contract amount for that initial discovery phase would probably be somewhere between, I believe you told me, $5,000 and $20,000. Instead, if it's more of a local company, you're probably looking more at $5,000. Instead, if you get somebody from California, it might be like $20,000. But the thought process there is that that may provide you a little bit more comfort in being able to take smaller steps. And the thought is at this juncture is that the city would still control everything. So we wouldn't be giving them the money. We would contract directly with whoever this design firm is. And once again, what I'm really asking permission from you all now is just to put out the request for proposals, find somebody, kind of negotiate what a price would be, and then bring that to you all for approval before we do anything else. and in talking with the mountain biking group, we thought that was probably the best approach forward. So that's where it stands, and we'll just be looking for some direction on you all and your all's thoughts on that.

It doesn't sound like we need to make any official action, but we need a consensus. What are your thoughts?

I'm fine with that. It makes me more comfortable.

I like it. I do a lot better.

I do too, and just so you guys know, John Redding and I did have a conversation for about 30 minutes to an hour in between the last meeting and this meeting, and A lot of people in the community are pretty excited about this project. It can not only accommodate mountain biking, but it can also do rollerblading and roller skating and skateboarding. And long term, I think what he wants is a big vision. It's pretty grand. He's wanting to have, and I don't even know what these things are, but I know what the terms are. He's wanted to have a pump track and a skills track. And if anybody knows that type of stuff, then you'll probably know what I'm talking about. I don't know what I'm talking about. All I know is he thinks it's really cool and it'll be a tourism draw and there's nothing else like it. And so it's going to give us a chance to do a ton of research between now and when they actually ask of us things. He and I had a conversation about funding of parks projects. You know, one of the reasons why we're able to tackle so many parks projects at the same time is not because we're made of money. It's because we've worked really hard on partnerships and funding arrangements. We're spending $2.7 million toward a $20 million conference and road project at Audubon State Park. We're spending $250,000 of general fund money toward a little bit over a $1 million rehab of Anthony Brooks Park. With the Veterans Park, the initial cost model that was presented, it looks like we would be on the hook for about 25 to 30% of that project, potentially, depending on where it lands. And so we talked about the need to raise money to go toward his project that is not public, but then also to work with us on whatever level of public support we can get to that so we can continue to do all these parks projects and not break our bank while we're doing it. Had some good discussions there. Sounds like you've got three yeses in terms of moving forward with that model.

Thank you. We'll probably come back to you in a couple months with an update on that once we get through that process. Mr. Newman, would you like to come forward and give them an update on the PT boat and the barge, please?

I'm going to provide a handout so you all can basically follow my conversation.

Thank you.

to a previous meeting where we've got an update from the War Memorial Committee along with a Kempton Aldridge who is the chairman of a board that owns the PTF 26 And as I told y'all, we would come back with a proposed expense revenue, which is included in the documents that I gave you. One of the outstanding questions would be if the board wants to support this project being part of the Veterans Memorial Park that's proposed for the riverfront. this would become part of that overall strategy in development. But as was described by one of the people that were on the Zoom call, the boat itself is in dry dock and off the Gulf of Mexico, where it was taken in, got a paint job on the boat, got two new engines put in it, and right now the boat is almost ready to be taken out into the Gulf for a test run. And part of the deal is they need to sell the barge in order to pay their financial obligation for the work that's been done on the boat. So I think I was asked maybe at the last meeting, it is a brand new barge. I did get the contract where the nonprofit group had it built specifically for the boat itself. And it is within dollars of what they're asking for it of what it costs them to buy. I'm not even sure that the barge has been in the water due to the fact when they tried to take it to Golconda, Illinois, and they got turned down by the state of Illinois to moor it there. So, again, it is sitting in Golconda, and the request by the nonprofit group is can we buy the boat now and work out the rest of the details on getting the boat to us. But some of the details I went into is relationships not only here with our local tourism, but I have also visited with a board member of the LST325 in Evansville and talked with them about the number of visitors they have every year, asked about their operating expenses. and the revenue and I was shocked that most of the revenue does not come from visitors to the ship itself. It comes from them traveling one month out of the year where they will take the LST. It's been to Pittsburgh. It's been a Cincinnati and other ports along the Ohio River. It's gone down the Mississippi. The people pay them to bring the ship to their ports. And it's for tourism purposes. So with that being said, that was pretty interesting to me of how they generate revenue. And we also discussed if this boat were to come here, could that boat also tag along with the 325 to help generate revenue as well for the boat and support the expenses? So I've left that all with y'all to consider. I've also provided the history of the boat itself, how it was intended to be used as a training vessel for JROTC students, as well as other mariners in the inner waterways of the United States. So there is revenue that can be generated by those training events that also brings local tourism revenue in because a lot of these kids could come from over 400 miles away and their parents would bring them they have to stay somewhere over the weekend so it does bring in that tourism last also included the the crew that has been approved and licensed to be on this boat and all of them have the ability to operate the boat as well as those that are just strictly mechanics that work on the boat and or help operate the boat when it's underway. so i think i've provided everything for your review i'm not asking for any approval today however once you are able to review the documents if you have questions i'd be glad to answer them but uh i think the intent of today do we move forward with what we've been what's been proposed as well as purchasing the barge before we buy the boat or get the boat. The boat will be donated to the city.

When I talked to Buzzy this morning, I think what he specifically wants to do is put something on our next agenda for vote. And so today he's just wanting to know if we would like for him to do that. When I talked to you about cost, you put my mind at ease as far as cost goes, comparative cost. The only other outstanding question that I've got that I haven't talked to you about is they weren't able to do something in Illinois because they weren't able to get it moored. Do we already have reasonable assurance that we would be able to moor it on the Ohio River?

So I have talked to the Corps in Louisville. I started Newburgh and they transferred me to Louisville. And I've talked to the chief officer over this area who would approve the permitting. And I talked through it with her. She also did the permitting for the LST-325 when it moved from its original port back to downtown Evansville. So as I described it to her, she doesn't see any problems. She just needs the application filled out. What goes along with it are questions of how are you going to stabilize it when it's in port here in Henderson, just things of that nature. The application's not that difficult, but as always, they want contingency plans. If something happens, what do you do? So we talked through a list of things we would need to provide in the permit application, but I definitely did not get a no, it's not doable.

The, uh, that's the biggest concern that I have, uh, is I don't want to spend $50,000 on a barge to bring a boat here and not ever be able to dock them. Uh, so, so if we can, you know, get a little bit more of an assurance that this is going to happen, uh, I'm just going to rely on you and your, you've got so many years of experience with the city that if you tell us that you believe something's going to happen, I'm going to rely on your professional opinion.

Well, uh, and I, I, will not be amiss if I didn't tell you I have a lot of questions myself.

Yeah.

And a lot of it has to do with while it's moored here, what happens when the river jumps up? What do you do with the boat? Well, those are the kind of questions I have had not only with the LST 325, but with local contractors who operate on the river to provide assistance if we need to move the boat to a more secure location, let's say the river gets up to 40 feet, well, it can't stay moored there. But these barge companies and local contractors and even LST are intended to ride up and down with the river. But that's not our intention here. We would want to have a partnership to be able to move the boat. And we may move it for the winter. And I did put money in if we have to pay to moor it somewhere else. So it's a good question. The only assurance I would tell you, let's say it falls apart, we can sell the barge. They've had many offers on it, but I told them no barge, no boat. And so they have held off selling the barge. So I have no doubt we would not lose our investment in the barge if we bought it.

What kind of questions do you guys have?

That was my question. Could we sell the barge if we did it five years down the road? We decided against this. Well, yes.

Barges are, I will tell you, when we were working on the boat dock, we consulted with a barge builder about building one for the boat dock. And the size of that barge was a lot bigger than this one. But barges, you can't find. You can't buy them used. I will tell you, there was one on Marketplace. And when I called and asked about it, well, it used to be a houseboat. Well, they cut the upper structure off, put a deck on it, and said it's a barge. Well, that's not quite what it is. But this barge was built to accommodate this boat specifically. But I do believe we could get our money back And then I also believe when working without or with an agreement, what happens down the road if we get tired of it, what do we do with the boat? And those are the devil in the details of what we would need to work out. Where would that boat go next?

That was going to be my question. What is the life expectancy of a boat like this? Is it good for 10 years? Is it good for more than that? I mean, I guess it's been around for a while.

It's been in the water probably since the 70s. Now, it has been dry docked.

You're talking about the PTF boat. Yes, the boat.

The PTF boat has been dry docked about three years ago. down in the Gulf when they brought it from California. But since it had to stay there a while until they brought it up, and the mistake they made, they didn't have approval from the state of Illinois moored so they turned around took the boat back to the Gulf and dry docked it again it got the bottom paint job on it if you know much about boats you know that every ten years you want to pull the boat out of water and put a paint job on it but outside of that you're not going to have a lot of really ongoing maintenance other than we'll have to have electricity to it and the bars will probably put some lights on it for the core and some minor things like that but I mean typically at both the last 100 years

And we'll be able to use the barge for other purposes also?

You could. So if you say we would want to shoot fireworks off of it, we would just take the boat away from the dock, disengage the dock. Probably, I think our fire boat may be able to manage moving this, but we'd probably get a tugboat to move it. But you could shoot fireworks off of it. water utility currently leases a barge and McLean County borders it's for the river intake for Tyson Foods as y'all know the they've been operating off a barge now for three years so they've been paying the lease on that barge for a long time so yes there are other uses it could be used in the future if we don't have a boat there you could still use it for a boat dock

Good deal. You know, the comment that you made that was most important to me in my thought process was I hadn't considered that we could resell the boat. So if we buy the boat and if for some reason we're not successful, which I think we anticipate being successful on getting permission to dock it where we want to dock it outside of the Veterans Park and really enhance the Veterans Park experience over the years. that we could always go and sell the barge and maybe not recoup everything we paid for it, but quite a bit of what we paid for it. And so that puts me a little bit more at ease with the whole thing. You know, I like the idea of having the barge also, especially when we enter into stuff like fireworks. I don't think the community knows how difficult it is to secure a barge every time we shoot off of a barge. But I do know that the community knows how special the fireworks presentation is when we do that. I think this year's fireworks presentation was the most beloved that we've had in quite some time. And part of it was the show, and part of it was the location, shooting it off the barge in the middle of the river, just for nostalgia purposes. So for me, I would be happy to look at something on the next agenda. But I want to ask the commissioners what your thoughts are, too. Would you like to consider this on the next agenda, or would you like to not consider this at all? I would. You would? Commissioner Hortons?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, we can move forward.

Okay. Yeah, please put something together, bring it to us next meeting, and I'll get with Commissioner Pruitt and let him know the details of what we discussed today so he's prepared for next meeting also. Okay. Thank you all. Yes, sir. And that is all for my report this afternoon. All right. Don Kelsey is already standing up because she is super excited to talk to us about Tiny Horse. So excited. I know you are. I know you are.

All right.

all right thank you yeah

Hello, so I'm here to talk about tiny homes and I bet you all are thinking, can we talk about this? Just a year ago, it was August of 2025 when you all approved. the amendment to our zoning, which added the definition. Uh-oh, will you help fix me? Thank you. You all approved the definition of a tiny homes in our zoning ordinance, and you all approved allowing tiny homes to be placed in as a permitted use in planned unit development. residential manufactured home district and in residential subdivided manufactured home district and this conditional use for ARD and R3 and at that point we patted ourselves on the back we said we're good to go we're ready to And then we just sat back and waited, because we knew people would be coming to us to bring tiny homes. And the first developer came, and Bunny and I sat there, and they wanted to talk about the possibility of a tiny home community. And we were very excited, because we have planned unit development. We were approved for planned unit development. And what we found out was a planned unit development as we currently have it does not work for tiny homes. For instance, a planned home under our current zoning, planned unit development, you have to have a minimum of five acres to fall under a planned unit development. Well, most tiny home communities are three acres. Then we also require roads separating. And those roads can be built to our specification. Well, most tiny home communities have walkways in the middle of them, not roads. And as you all know, for developers, the cost of building roads is extraordinary. And then we also had issues for fire trucks. We required roads so that we have public safety. Well, in planned unit developments, most planned unit developments, a fire truck can reach without from the exterior road. So we said, oops, we weren't so smart. So we went back to the drawing board. And lucky for us, Marie Collins came back to work at that point, too. So we had a committee of Steve Davis, Marie Collins, Buzzy Goomig, and Jennifer Marks. And we really started researching this once again. What could we do to bring a tiny home community? And I will tell you that we've had developers come wanting to do these. So this isn't just us thinking we actually have had some interest in it. Now a tiny home community is just a group of small homes that are built close together. They're on shared land. It's designed for people who want a more affordable housing. Lower living costs, the simpler lifestyle. They generally don't want many possessions. And these communities usually include common spaces. Common spaces that can be used for a variety of things. Sometimes just recreation. We met with By Zoom, we met with a student who's getting her PhD in architecture and her dissertation is on tiny homes. And so we had a meeting with her where she was explaining to us a lot of community spaces for tiny homes are used for larger kitchens and laundry facilities. because they're not able to fit those in the tiny homes. So we started looking at those. And so the types of tiny home communities that you really see are rental communities. So that's where you have a tiny home or a short-term lease or a long-term lease on a tiny home. In our area as in the Midwest and the south, close to us, tiny homes have been very successful and used most often as transitional housing for homelessness to help people break that gap into housing. You can also have ownership set up where you own the your home but you lease the land or vice versa. Co-ops where residents share land and amenities through joint ownership. And then we've also seen RV-based parks. Those are more in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, California. Colorado, where you have people who are using those for vacation homes. And tiny homes are used very well for vacation homes because you don't need that many. It's more about the destination and not where you're living at that point. So we then took some field trips. And so I wanted just to kind of talk about what we saw. One of the ones we saw was the veteran community project in St. Louis. These homes are transitional housing for veterans who are struggling with homelessness and other issues. They are built And they are privately owned. It is a private 501 . They do not accept governmental funding because they do not want the red tape. But they're wonderful. They're $250 or $350. that community and it was really good for us to see it because we were trying to visualize what 10 feet apart from drip line to drip line looked like and we were able to see it at that community and really to see how the common spaces work in that community. And this is the inside of one of the homes. So this is inside of 240 foot square foot tiny home. So we turned them. It's small. I will say that. But people who don't mind it. I was surprised at how well design they really were so then we also went to Magdalia housing in st. Louis that's this one right here are very small They have no kitchens in them. They have no restrooms in them. They are truly for people to get them off of the street and help. It was built at an RV park, so they have restroom facilities. They have laundry because it was already set. But this is just an example. The one on the other side, didn't he move? met with the women who run these all over California those are very small units and those are also used for transitional housing so they are very successful for transitional housing and then there's other tiny home communities so these are just some pictures so that you can get in your mind kind of how they look and how they work I will tell you that in Atlanta There is a brand new one that's just opened that was crowd sourced. It's minority owned and crowd sourced. And it is for permanent housing. It's beautiful. It is. It's gorgeous. It is beautiful. So, tiny homes in Henderson what will it take so we work on this and so what our suggestion to you and if you all know who have been the zoning ordinance thank you all the recent Planning Commission is to add a section in the PUT for just tiny homes so the PUD is a planned unit development district specifically for the development of a tiny home community It would contain less than five acres. No tiny home community would go over five acres. So it can be owned by one or so individually. Each tiny home site would contain 1,500 square feet. It may not contain public or private thoroughfares, meaning roads in fact you don't want roads in the middle of these because it provides safety issues can you repeat what you said about the 1500 square feet what is that 1500 square feet so it wouldn't it would be the part not the parcel but the set of brown that it is okay oh the lot itself okay thank you thank you okay i was like 1500 square feet is not a tiny hundred but you're talking about the okay the land that it would be on. A buffer yard would be required if it's a single family residential use. That's common with other PUPs as well. dwelling unit shall be minimum of 10 foot from each other we went and we saw those in St. Louis and it worked you know it seems very close but it worked each unit shall be designed or placed so that the window of one unit will not provide a direct view into the neighboring unit that's something that we learned from the architect as well as the two other individuals we met with. So they're offset windows because these facilities are so closed and that provides safety issues as well. You would have at least 1.25 parking space per tiny home but you could reduce that if you put bike racks in. A lot of places have bike racks and individuals who want to live in tiny homes are minimalist so we could reduce that if you put a bike rack in bicycles will not be stored outside that is a problem so some tiny homes where you have rental units and they don't own sometimes there are issues with people leaving stuff outside because there's just not enough room so we want to make sure that those bikes are stored inside or on a bike rack. But we don't want to create clutter. And that's one of the things when we met with all the other department heads and utilities, they were like, please go create especially in urban infill where people are just putting stuff outside. So storage areas, mailboxes, all of those will be on site plans. We require that for a regular PUD as well. A minimum of 200 square foot per dwelling unit for open space. So that open space, we were talking about that string. So for every unit, you'll need to designate on your plan 200 square feet. You can include your sidewalk and pathway. No more than 50% of the total common area may be enclosed structure. And we don't want to create so much that there's no area around it. And that was the architect encouraged us and the veteran encourage us to do that as well and so and then just because this is going to be like a PUD where we need to make sure that there's someone responsible for those common areas you'll have to have a community agreement as to who's going to be responsible we require that for a regular plan unit development as well So they have to meet all zoning, all building codes, all city ordinances. And we've broken there that the Planning Commission can add whatever they feel that would make this work even better. So those are our suggesting changes. I have provided you with the . with the ordinance. I included the entire plan unit development ordinance so that you can see how it will fit in. It will be 15.03-1. So everything else for the plan unit development will be the same. We're just trying to make sure that when the developers come in, we're able to say yes. So that was something that we really didn't realize that it was not going to work for us. So we're committed. We have worked to try to find a variety of housing to meet the needs of our community. And this is just one more tool to try to help people find affordable housing in our community. So we would like to take this forward to the Planning Commission for a public hearing and for their recommendations on this.

So I have a few questions. But before I ask, do any of the Commissioner Thomas or Commissioner Hargis, do you have any questions off the top of your head?

Who's responsible for your artwork?

You mean the pictures?

No, no, no. He didn't say artwork. He said yard. Yard work.

Yard work. Oh, that would be part of the agreement.

I mean, is this one person does all?

It'll be up to, because it could be like a condo where each would be responsible. So it'll be just like any other planned unit development for an HOA.

have a question about parking spaces. So two questions. Where did we come up with the 1.25 number?

We so we counted out so you have to allow for visitors that come to the facility. So we had seen 1.5 in several, but we felt like say you have one person with a car in Because the way that Henderson is, most people have to use a car. But you also have to provide for visitor spots. And so instead of doing 1.5, we really felt like 1.25 would get us what we needed for visitor spot. But we wanted to put the bike in there as well. So you can reduce that if you have bike racks.

My follow-up question is, is there anything in the ordinance that handles fractions?

Oh, it rounds.

So if somebody builds five tiny homes, for example, and you've got a quarter left over, do they have to round up or do they round down? Do we spell that out for them?

We talked about that. It's in there, isn't it? It is in there. Yep, it is. Yeah, we talked about that for quite some time. I just didn't remember. Oh, okay, so just traditional rounding.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha.

Yeah, if you look at F,

Actually, I like that. So if it's 50 or more, it rounds up to the next whole number if it's 20. So basically if it's 25, it'll round down. 25 or 0, it'll round down or stay the same. 50, 75 rounds up. Okay.

One of the things that we were hoping is urban... infill. So that would help with the urban infill, reducing that to 1.25 instead of 1.5.

I think it's great that it's lower than, I wouldn't want it to be excessively larger than other developments requirements. What's our max cap on a build for a tiny home? Like square footage?

So under state law, it's 400 square foot.

400 square feet? Okay.

The definition for Henderson is between 100 and

I was thinking it was $800 for some reason. It's $400?

It's $400. That's state law. We picked up the state building code. That was last time.

That answers the other question I would have asked. Thank you.

Commissioner Hargis, do you have anything you want to ask?

Not at this time. I will tell you on parking for the veterans, they're not allowed to have cars and they're on a bus route in St. Louis. So they have zero parking in St. Louis. But I did want to clarify, but that's a transitional housing on the bus route and they're right downtown.

Do we have anything in there that spells out any requirements for bus route changes or anything as a result of having a token? Okay. Yeah, that's good for me. So I need a motion, if you all are willing, to send this down to the Planning Commission for further review. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. And we have a roll call, please.

Commissioner Hargis? Aye. Commissioner Thomas? Aye. Mayor Staten?

Aye. Thank you so much on your work on that. Dawn works so hard on housing in the community. I don't think everybody realizes between the master commissioner sales and the Habitat for Humanity things and the agreements and the tiny homes, you know, if she had a, she basically has two jobs for the city. One is to keep us legal and one is a passion of hers and that's just to work to expand housing opportunities and we appreciate your work. Thank you. Anything else on the agenda for today? Do any commissioners have any comments that you'd like to add?

All the green trash cans look great. Did you do that, Brian? Those new green trash cans in the parks.

There was one somebody set on fire. Are you all aware of that? I don't know.

Where is it located at?

I'll have to get it. Somebody sent me a picture yesterday. Somebody set it on fire.

Commissioner Thomas, I will say one of my pet peeves when I started working with parks were all the blue barrels we saw in all our parks. The good thing about the blue barrels is they're visible, and you can see them, and so people throw away the trash. The bad thing is they're visible, and they're not the most. They're visible, yeah.

Yeah, please don't set them on fire. Seriously, we put up nice things and immediately, you know.

A lot of times people will throw cigarettes in there.

Yeah, it might have been whatever. Just two quick comments. One, State of the City address is Thursday. It starts at noon. If you're not in attendance, it is always live stream, so you can look at it on Facebook Live if you want to, usually on WSON. And then, two, there was some information going around on Facebook about our appointment to replace Commissioner Witt. That is not happening today, and it never was. There was a news story that went out a couple of weeks ago that explained the process, but I just wanted to let everybody know. Next meeting on Tuesday, toward the end of the meeting, we will go into executive session. We will talk about all the names that the commissioners have gathered of people who have indicated that they're interested in filling the position. And then we'll have a long discussion. We'll pick somebody, and we will come out of executive session and appoint that person that we pick out in the open session of the meeting. So that is going to happen next Tuesday. What's that?

You said city counties this Thursday.

State to city. Sorry, did I say city county? No. The state of the city address is Thursday. One Life Church at 12 o'clock. If there's nothing else to entertain, a motion to adjourn, please.

So moved. We have a second? No.