City Council - Regular Meeting

Mr. Dickerson, uh, do you need to call a role for the work session? Okay. Council President Middlebrooks. Council Pro Tim Driver here. Council member Schultz here. Council member Smith here. Council member Levelville present. Council member Murphy. Council member McClinton here.

All right. Thank you very much. I believe first we are going to start with a report from the Hoover Chamber of Commerce. Thank you, Miss Nan. Well, thank you. Can y'all hear me? Perfect. Okay. Um, I first want to start by acknowledging several people that's in the audience joining me today. One is our board chairman, our current board chairman, Jonathan Carter, and our board member Brent Carter. I have the Carter brothers here with us and our staff member Lori Groves. So um last um the last six months um when we received funding from the city, one of the things that we committed to was to give a quarterly report just to make sure that everyone was on board and knew the wonderful things that we're doing at the chamber. So, um, that's the purpose of this presentation this evening, just to make everyone aware of where we are with everything that we're doing is the chamber. Um, one of the things that I want to do before I actually get started is set the stage. And I may be preaching to the choir, but um, the city of Hoover is the sixth largest city in the state of Alabama. And a lot of people don't realize that. Um, we're six and the only five other cities that are in front of us are Huntsville, Mobile, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Tuscaloosa. So, let's think about that for a second. We're talking about the city of Hoover that was founded in 1967, only 59 years old, and we're already within the top 10 cities. So with that being said, what do these cities have in common? They have a vibrant chamber. And any large city anywhere across America has a vibrant chamber. Um

especially one that is close to a 100,000 people or more. And so I want to set that stage because that will help you understand the things that we do, why we do what we do, and the importance of that continual collaboration with the city of Hoover. So our mission, as you see on the screen, speaks to that relationship that we have with the city. We foster cooperative partnerships not only with the city, but with other entities and businesses to provide the services that we offer and to be able to advocate for our members. We have a shared vision with the city and you see um our vision there and that is to be the leading city with thriving businesses and top talent. Our values dictate our culture, one of respect for others, collaboration. We have a very small staff, but we're mighty. Um and the way we're able to do all the things that we do is because we do a lot of collaboration. Um, and we want to see an economic impact of this city through our business community. And just like the mayor always talks about excellence, that's something that since I've been on board with the chamber is that we strive for excellence. So those are our core values. So looking at the next slide, a lot of people don't really understand what a chamber is. And um, I just want to go through this because this really sets the agenda. our chamber and if you look up the definition of a chamber in US chamber world you'll see that the core competencies of a chamber is networking and connection so we do a lot of networking um education awareness and business resources we provide resources um business resources lunch and learns that um small and medium-sized businesses can't get information other places so we bring that information to them advocacy and representation um I think This council understands

advocacy in a big way, especially with Councilman McClinton with all his visits down to Montgomery and understanding that in the business community, there needs to be an organization that's advocating for the interests of those businesses. And that's what a chamber does and that's what we do. Um, and then promotional marketing. You see us on Facebook, um, social media with our ribbon cutings, but we do so much more than just ribbon cutings from a promotional marketing standpoint with businesses with our online directory. Days are long gone when you have the yellow pages and you can look up a business. So, businesses come to our Facebook, they come to our website looking for who can I find to provide services for me. So our online directory um and our social media media posts because a lot of small ander medium businesses don't have the marketing budget so we provide that promotional marketing support for them and then community engagement um park and wreck through Aaron through Michael through um Tanette Lynch with with Aldridge Gardens we have numerous opportunities to do community engagement um because we wanted to bring the business community into the actual community of of of this um city and so we do that through our community engagement efforts. So, next slide. Here's a look at a glance. Here's some numbers. We have 704 members. I know um when you look at the city's business licenses, there are over 3,000 businesses that have business licenses. And you could easily look at this and say, why aren't all 3,000 of those businesses members of the chambers? Um that's not how our chamber operates. Really, it's based on quality, not quantity. We do want to grow our chamber, but um right now we're at 704 members, but they're active members. Uh we've had 41 new members since um the beginning of January, and we have 18 ambassadors. Those are members that take

up their time to go out and help us visit with new um companies, help us to engage members in um member businesses in the community. So, we have 18 volunteers that do that. And over the since January um through collaborations through our own events, we've had a total of 37 networking events and a total of 31 educational awareness events and advocacy. Um working with the Alabama Chamber organization, which is the statewide chamber organization, working with BCA, Business Council of Alabama, we have been participating in a total of 19 advocacy events. And that's where we're either work going down to Montgomery or working with other chambers to make sure that our business community understands not only the issues that you may they may be dealing with with you all on a local level, but issues that impact them on a state and federal level. And then you see our social media post at a glance. 162 we've had since the beginning of the year and a total of 19 newsletters. has one if you count up the months, excuse me, the weeks. Um, this year we're into week 19. And so we do a newsletter every week, 19 newsletters. And for and when you look at all of our events that we've been doing since January, we've had a total of 1,800 plus attendees at our events. So if you look at these numbers at a glance, that's impactful. Um, but I'm going to break these numbers down a little bit more for you so that you can see in each of those five areas um, where these numbers come from. So, next slide. Networking and connection. That's the first thing we talked about. We've had four coffee and contacts. We have a coffee and contact every month. Our coffee and contacts are the second Thursday of each month. We've had four business after hours. They're always the fourth Wednesday of excuse me, Thursday of every month. It's important for

businesses to be able to network and that's why we have that cadence of every month we have a coffee and contact and business after hours and you can see from just these two photos that our businesses are coming to these events because this is the way that they connect with other businesses. This is the way they grow their businesses. Next slide. Um we have four um chamber lunchons and again every month we have coffee and contact business after hours and we have a chamber lunchon every month and that's the third Thursday. So every Thursday in the month there's opportunities for businesses to connect. Um we also started something last year and this is the second year and that's our women's business and leadership council. We actually had a networking event today. It was a speed networking event when we had over 50 women that came together to network with each other and get to know each other. So we've had three of those events um so far this year. So the next area is educational awareness. Um that's where we do our lunch and learns. That's where we go to conferences. And so we've had two lunch and learns. Um one of the lunch and learns was helping small business and medium businesses understand how to market themselves. Another one we had was on AI. That's the latest buzzword. And how can a small and medium-sized business effectively use AI? We've had two new member orientations. Um, we think it's important that a new member understands what's the value of the chamber. What's the value proposition? So, every quarter we have a an orientation for our new members. The next area is advocacy and representation. Again, um, being the voice for the business community. The mayor state of the city address. A lot of people, they may see the mayor, they may watch him, you know, Nick at night, but when do you get an opportunity to actually hear the mayor up and u close and personal face to face and so we are proud. We've done this every year and we're proud that we up the Annie this

year um with our annual meeting for Mayor Durges. This was his first annual meeting and we're excited about that. Many of you who attended that, you saw the buzz. We had over 300 people attend that and it was at Ross Bridge. Um, and so that's one of our advocacy events to put businesses in front of the mayor, put the mayor in front of those businesses. Next slide. As I mentioned, Alabama Chambers each year, Alabama Chamber is that's the chamber of commerce association for the state has a day in Montgomery where chambers and last this past year there were over 70 something chambers across the state. We went to Montgomery um took some members there and we met with every one of our state representatives. We took little goodie bags to them to let them know that we're here. Um and for them when they're making decisions, they're making decisions not only for the citizens um in their districts, but also for the business community. Um we participate in the Montgomery Flyin and some other things. And then you see here co-hosted the Washington update with Congressman Gary Palmer. Again, it's important to advocate for our businesses from a government relations standpoint, and that's what a chamber does, and that's what we're doing. Next slide. Um, something we had coming up, but Governor Ivy called a special session, and this week we had planned to have a wrap-up because it's important for our businesses to understand what happened in Montgomery, what things happened that may have impacted them. And so, we had planned to have a wrap-up, but we've had to postpone that wrap-up until after this special session. Um, we hope once that session ends we can reschedule the wrapup. But it's important again who is the voice for the business community. How can businesses find out what's going on with their state legislators, with their federal legislators, with local legislators? And that's what we bring to the table by giving them access to our local legislators. Next slide. Promotion and marketing. Um, that's where we talk

about how we reach the everyday person. nine ribbon cutings we've had since the beginning of this year. And you look at that middle section, um, Facebook, we have 6,000 over 6,50 followers. Um, that's 60 63% of our followers come from Facebook. Um, 2,265 followers on Instagram, 1,247 followers on LinkedIn. You look at the number of posts. Now, what's interesting, if you go over to the far right, you'll see 28,000 impressions. Um, for those of us who may have come through the business ranks, um, there used to be a saying that said that every time you wanted to make an impression or make a sale, it would take 10 opportunities to get in front of someone before they paid you any attention or 10 sales calls to make one sale. Well, that number has increased. It takes 87 impressions now to get someone's attention because of everything that's out there. So, when you look at the fact that when people look at your Facebook page, they may look at it once, they look at it twice, they look at your post, we've had 28,490 impressions of people looking at our social media to see what's going on with the chamber. And then you look at our weekly newsletters. those news we've we've sent of those 19 newsletters we've talked about 24,674 newsletters and that's because even though we only have 700 members you do not have to be a member of the chamber in order to receive our newsletter. That's and so we have subscribers 1,274 subscribers. Those are people that are trying to find out what's going on with our businesses to learn where they can go to network to learn where they can

get information about our businesses. Next slide. Community engagement. Um that's where we work with the city. We work with other organizations. Um I'm proud to say that in March um when the um Galleria celebrated its 40th anniversary in February, we were there and we realized, you know what, we need to do something to make sure that people know the importance of the Galleria and helped to celebrate it. So we had a lunchon for the Galleria. We participated in Celebrate Hoover. Um we're members of the Hoover Service Club. Um we've also participated in RC3 career day. They had a pinning um ceremony today. They had a signing yesterday. So, anytime we can get businesses into the community, that's what we do. Next slide. Um, I'm also proud to say we've g we've given two scholarships this year um to one to a student at Spain Park, one to a student at Hoover because it's important to to me and to our chamber that we give back to the community and give back to those students who are in our school system. So every organization needs to have some stretch objectives. It's not about and for us our stretch objective this year is workforce development. When we look at chambers across the um country every every chamber is looking for what gaps can they fill and a lot of them are coming up with workforce development. So, I'm proud to say that we have received a grant from the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, EDPA, to participate along with the Birmingham Business Alliance, a Fuel Alabama summer intern program. So, that's for two months, June and July. We'll be hosting um summer interns because these are college students to help them understand about what's going on in Hoover. U we're doing some professional development. We're doing um some networking um events for them to help them. And again, the goal is to

make sure that these students that are interning here want to come back, work in Hoover, live in Hoover, play in Hoover. Next slide. The other thing I'm proud to say is that we are launching this year a talent innovation pipeline. When you look at that workforce, there's a gap. You have businesses and businesses all around. I was telling you, they're looking for good qualified employees. We have schools. We have several two and four-year colleges in this area and they're metriculating students, but those students don't necessarily understand and know about the businesses in Hoover that they can come and work for. And then we have students not only at RC3, but in those two and four-year colleges. So, this whole workforce talent innovation pipeline that we're going to create this year is to com is to build a pipeline between businesses, schools, and students. And I'm in the process now of interviewing someone that will be our workforce coordinator to help us put together program to connect those dots. So that's my update on what we've been doing, what we've been doing with the funds that you all have given us um thus far, the funds that we received from our member services and and our our member dues, funds we've received from sponsorships, and funds we've received from various grants.

Thank you so much, Miss Baldwin. Um, I'll invite Councelor Schultz, who is the liaison to the chamber. Do you have any comments that you would like to make or any any questions?

I think the uh the chamber's been working really hard this year and we definitely appreciate it on this end. Uh, I've seen firsthand what the effort that's been put in. So, we we definitely appreciate it from the the board as well. Uh, and uh, we really appreciate the the update um, on this. Um, we're making progress and I especially like the last part. I think that's that's key right there. Um, I'm sure you saw the story that Birmingham Hoover area was rated as the number one location for for college graduates for business. And we need to take advantage of that. Uh, especially in the Hoover area. I think that is something that we can we can um the chamber can most definitely take advantage of that and we need to do that. Again, thank you very much for the update.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Schultz. Yeah. Any other questions from the council, comments? Thank you so much, Miss Baldwin. We appreciate you and and the Carter brothers for being here tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So on our Monday meeting, we will um have our review of payment of the bills as well as our minutes and then we will move to resolution number 8832-26. Um Mr. Munger, do you want to tell us about this one?

Yes, thank you. So, what you have here is a amendment uh to a agreement, a joint services agreement that the uh city entered into with the Jefferson County Commission back in 2021 regarding South Shades Crest Road. Uh this was one of the items that Commissioner Stevens briefed the council on during his visit. Of course, that involves widening a bridge component and a lot of other work along that area. Uh the project is now completely engineered, preparing to go to bid and the city has engaged with the county um to uh request a consideration of the amount that the city had already put into the project which totals around $1.3 million. That covered preliminary engineering, railroad, railroad coordination, utility relocation, basically uh everything that it took to get it to this point. And the original terms of the agreement capped uh the county's uh participation at $2.5 million only for the project, meaning that the city would incur the amount we already have plus likely at least another $4.5 million. Um so as Commissioner Stevens mentioned during his presentation, what the county has proposed is that that they acknowledge the city's uh participation in the project. uh strike section D from the existing agreement which you have a copy of uh and the county would then uh bear the entirety of construction cost for the project. Um so we would be done other than just you know completing the few items that we have outstanding really no significant uh additional incurred cost. Um this would take us from around a 70% project share inclusive of design services uh to around 15% of total participation. So again thankful for the partnership with the county and for their consideration

of that request. Question or comments?

What section were you suggesting be strict? So, um, as outlined in amendment one, one of the things that, uh, that actually denotes is that, uh, paragraph D, I believe it is, in the original agreement would be stricken. And that president or that, uh, uh, that paragraph reads that the county will invoice Hoover for their respective share of construction cost, etc. So, they would take that out. There's some other text amendments, but the net effect of the all those is as described, which is that the county would bear all construction cost and we would uh not have a need to invest in this further.

Very good. And item D is deleted in our copy here. Uh I believe uh so the first attachment you have is the original uh agreement and then the second attachment is the expenses incurred to date. The final attachment is what's titled as amendment one, I believe, which is relatively brief. It's only about a a two-page document. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. So, just to be clear, the the city's liability here is capped at the 1.3 million that we've already spent. Is that right?

So, it is not capped to a a dollar amount. It's capped based on those activities. So, we do have some incumbrances, maybe some outstanding bills uh that are coming in, but I don't anticipate that it would go above maybe 1.4 total, and we would not have any obligation towards construction. Uh, and the county would also take over uh the railroad uh coordination items during construction, paying for the flagging and things like that, which is, I believe, in excess of $400,000. Any other questions? All right, we'll move along to resolution number 8823-26, Mr. Welch.

Good evening. I think we can combine resolution 8833-26 and 8834-26 together. Um, resolution 8833-26 and 8834-26 concerns the 2025 municipal water pollution prevention annual reports for the Everest and Riverchase wastewater treatment plants which are required to be submitted in accordance with our ADM permit by the May 31st each year. These reports provide a detailed and easy to understand overview of the wastewater treatment operations, plant performance over the year, and the process used to safely treat waste water before returning it to the environment. At this treatment point, at the treatment plants, waste water is processed to remove solids, bacteria, and other pollutants prior to discharge. Throughout the report period, both facilities consistently met our regulatory requirements, producing high quality effluent while maintaining reliable operations. The average daily flows was 0.885 million gallons per day at Ines and 1.191 million gallons per day at Riverchase. The Aes plant is designed to handle 1.2 million gallons per day, while the Riverchase plant is designed to handle 3.0 million gallons per day. The report also outlines sanitary sewer overflows, respond efforts, including response times, containment, and corrective actions, and measurements implemented to prevent reoccurrences. During the reporting period, a total of 11 overflows were reported, including eight in river chase and three in. Most of the overflows documented in the report were caused by blockage within the gravity main due to grease, roots, and rags. staff responded to each event and res and and resolved the issue in accordance with the ADM permit requirements. In addition, the report includes

information regarding sludge handling operation. Residual solids generated during treatments are routinely tested and maintained in accordance with the environmental regulation to ensure safe handling and disposal. Sludge is hauled to the Chevy County landfill with the average annual sludge accumulation totaling approximately 591 tons in Everest and 433 tons in Riverchase. An additional sludge testing is required and result must be submitted to ADM for review and reissuance of the waist certificate authorizing slud disposal at the landfill. Financially, the reports provides an overview of the system rates and how revenue supports daily operation, maintain activities, and long-term planning efforts. They also detail major equipment purchases and replacement completed during the year. A total of $844,83.80 80s in equipment was replaced including $271,334.34 at Inessous and $573,4696046 at Riverchase. These equipment replacement ensure continued efficiency operations and ongoing compliance with the regulatory requirement. The report further highlights current and incoming capital improvement plans designed to maintain infrastructure, improve system reliabilities, and support future growth. Overall, the Emerous and River Trace treatment plants continue to operate efficiently and are fully compliance with the environmental regulations.

Mr. Welch, um, were these reports prepared by staff or by a contractor? Um, by staff and then reviewed by contractor. Okay. So, they were prepared by staff and reviewed by the contractor. Who were who was the contractor? Um, um, Clearwater Solutions. Clearwater. Okay. So, last year we had some challenges with some errors in these reports. Tell us what the process has been to ensure the accuracy of the reports this year.

Uh, we made sure that we put multiple eyes on it. Um, this year um, dotting every eyes and crossing every tees. Um, we reviewed it in house and then like I said we had the consultant review it also to ensure that we comply with everything per the permit and that we corrected all the grammar errors that were in accounted last year in the report. Yes, sir. Any questions from the council? All right. Thank you very much, sir. Madam President, u Mr. Welch, so there there were no shortfalls in this year's report? No, sir.

Okay. Um, Miss Dickerson, I believe myself and Miss Levelvel, we can't locate uh resolution 8834 in our paperwork if it's supposed to be in with 33. Thank you.

And those 100,000 pages I'll reach out. Thank you. If you if you click on the link, it takes you to 8835. Just so you know. Thank you. Yes. Go ahead, Mr. Schultz. Council Schultz. Mr.

W. The uh looking at the um towards the end of the report, uh it's it basically says current and and future improvements, upgrades, and any major projects will be funded through existing funds. user charge revenues, impact fees or possibly borrowing and rate increase. Last year we had an issue where we had to take some funds from another uh aspect to make some improvements. Are you anticipating that to happen this year or do you anticipate everything to be not needing improvements like last year? Um, we definitely do need improvements still, but I believe how we're managing the budget now and some of the surplus from that money that was actually taken in from last year, um, we're actually able to get a lot of projects done.

Mr. Welch, um, I believe the all the department is going to be working starting next month on next on the next budget. Would you make sure to be specific on the needs of uh capital needs for the sewer system when you're working on that budget? Yes, sir. Thank you.

And just one more follow-up question to what councelor Schultz was asking. Um, you know, last year there were some emergency repairs that had been on the minds and hearts of the engineering staff concerned about uh some things that could have uh become big deals if they had not been put into into line for repairs. Are there any things that are not mentioned in these reports that are quote keeping you up at night or making you worried about the ability uh to keep the the public safe and keep the system operating appropriately?

Um when it comes to wastewater, you're always up at night thinking about the whatifs just like last night. Even though we have redundancy in the system, it's mechanical. So failure is bound to happen. But I believe that we got a good staff on board to be able to help rectify those issues. So, uh, we do have some challenges in the system, but I believe that we're we're maintaining. Thank you. All right. The next item is for you as well. Is that 883526, which is uh for change orders related to the pump station improvement project?

Yes, ma'am. So this resolution requests approval for change order number one and number two for the riverchase number six pump station improvement project. These these change or change change orders address field conditions and necessary modifications identified during constructions that were not included in original contract. The scope, quantities, and associated costs for both change orders have been thoroughly reviewed by the engineering department staff and the engineer record responsible for the inspections and the management of the project. All items have been evaluated for accuracy, necessity, and compliance with the project requirements. Um, so during the during the excavation of the existing gravity man, the issue was encountered with the with the existing line. It appeared that over time the manhole became that was disposed along the riverbank. Um the piping entered into the wet wells settled. Um resulted in a grade break and searchcharging in the newly set manhole. Um the corrective work required the contractor to reposition a newly installed manhole structure and raise the existing piping entered into the wet well. Additional field material and fleximat using stabilizer soaps were included in change orders pricing. I believe these minor design modifications were necessary to ensure the long-term reliability and functionality of the pump station. The design engineer original contracted construction estimate for this project was 1.2 million. However, with um um changes in the design scope, um the bid for the the bid for this project came in at $334,410. Um the combined total for change order number one and two is $36,680.326 bringing the revised contract amount to $371 and $371 $371,90.32.

Um the current project completion date is May 15, 2026 and funding for change order 1 and two is included within the approved budget and no additional appropriations are required at this time. Does the council have questions for Mr. Welch on this item, sir. These items, are they budgeted? Yes, sir. Thank you. Any other questions? President, um I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Welch, for allowing me and um Scott to come out and tour the facilities. Um it's one thing to see all this, but then when you actually go out and look at the situation and see how complex the issue is, uh these numbers tend to make a lot more sense to me personally. So, I appreciate that.

Thank you. Thank you, councelor Levelville. Anything else? All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Welch. We appreciate you. All right. So, next we'll have resolution number 8836-26, um, which is a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute an agreement with the state of Alabama through the Department of Transportation for installation and maintenance of traffic control systems. Mr. Prime.

Uh, yes. So, this is actually a clerical nature resolution related to uh the lights that are involved in Valley 65. There's two intersections as you go on and off the interstate there. Uh they're installing a new signaling. Uh and so this is just basically for Hoover to take over control of the system, which is good news because we actually take care of the lights that are upstream and downstream from Valley. So, it's good for our traffic control group to be able to control them all. Uh, so we were just contacted by ALD do to update our resolution through Wendy and so it's actually been approved council session or two ago. So any questions for Mr. Kramer on this item?

Sir, there's no money involved in this. No. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Resolution number 8837-26 is a hazard mitigation plan. Mr. Tate and

good evening council members. Uh thank you for the opportunity to come and discuss this hazard mitigation plan. This is a federal requirement uh all municipalities and counties uh to adopt a hazard mitigation plan. Uh we go over quite a bit of uh information from this u that we gather from uh not only the the cities but also our citizens um regarding threats, hazards that are identified and how we mitigate those. Uh so uh the document that is before you uh for consideration uh is a regional plan um that is a division G for us uh except for uh Shelby and Tallaladega they went on their own um this year um and uh this is again requirement if we have a god forbid a disaster that occurs in Jefferson County impacts the city of Hoover uh if we want to get mitigation funds um after the fact to help rebuild um and recover uh without this plan you won't get those. Um, so this is a requirement every 5 years and we appreciate uh the opportunity to come talk to you about it. If you have any questions, happy to answer those for you.

What questions do we have for Mr. Tate who is the Jefferson County EMA deputy director? Any questions? All right. U Mr. Mer. Yes. So, uh, one question that I had reviewing the critical facilities list and the values assigned in the event of a, uh, a qualifying, uh, emergency or qualifying response, uh, are we anchored to those or would those be based on the actual replacement value for purposes of FEMA?

You're not anchored to that. That is, I believe, table 21 or something, uh, somewhere in that range. Um the the paragraph just above uh those two tables 18 and 19 uh within that section uh state uh specific that these are estimates um and they are not inclusive. So, um if if there is something that happens, we um if there's an omission, if there's a facility that is not included, uh if one is demolished, um or we gain uh an asset or facility uh within the city, uh we are and and I say we because I'm also a citizen here, but um we the Hoover uh city and the the county are not held. That's for the entire plan itself.

Great. Thank you. You bet. And Mr. Mr. Tate, you mentioned that Shelby County had gone on their own and obviously we straddle u both Jefferson and Shelby County. Can you tell us more about how that works in terms of cooperation or um division of responsibility?

Sure. Yeah, it it is a little bit complicated when we get into some of these plans um because the city seat uh is within Jefferson County. We we do uh cover a great deal of of operations um for the city of Hoover. Um, however, when it comes to federal declarations, there's a county line. Um, so, uh, if there's something that happens and it crosses, which we've had, um, a handful of times, um, the city does need to have one that's approved by, uh, both Jefferson County and Shelby County. Um, so it does get a little bit complicated when we have to do that. In fact, um you have a uh a document currently up uh that is through Shelby County because Shelby County's plan um did not include the city of Hoover uh on their last round. Uh that was a uh basically a donnut hole that was not uh realized until this past year. Um we we included everything that needed to be in ours. Um they they I believe thought that we covered the stuff that extended into Shelby County, which we can't. Um that was realized and that has uh been uh it's not resolved completely yet. There's an addendum to their plan that has gone up to uh to FEMA for that application uh approval process.

And Mr. Manger, do we know when we expect to have that finalized? Have you heard anything on that? I do not have a timeline on that, but I can check. Okay, I can get that for you as well. We we work very well with with Jason and Mindy and Hub over there. We're we work very well together. So, that one is getting resolved. So, what would happen if there were a disaster today in the Shelby County part of the city of Beaver?

It's a great question. And so because we have the process started um it's been signed off by the city um for the Shelby County uh portion that's been sent up through the state. The state's uh given it their blessings. It's gone to FEMA. Um even though they haven't blessed it that I'm aware of right now because again it's a Shelby County plan. Um my understanding is that we are covered. Um again I'll say we because I am a a resident here in Hoover. Okay. All right. There's been some issues with uh with FEMA and lack of personnel here lately. Um so some of the stuff that's they're backlogged right now. Very much so. On a paperwork basis. Understood.

All right. Well, we'll look for an update from from you andor our city on that would be great. Yes. Uh councelor Schultz. So, so that I'm clear are does FEMA cover the county or does it go by municipality

in if you could specif um so the city of Hoover responsible for the city of Hoover Jefferson County um will be here as we have in the past to assist the city with their uh emergency responses. We are we are coordinators. We don't come in and run the show. Uh my job is that if if something happens, in fact, we were here. Goodness, Chief. Um it was last two weeks ago, I believe, at uh Chase Corporate Drive where they had an incident there. Um I I don't go on scene and say, you know, hey, chief, this is this is my thing. Uh my job is go, "Hey, chief, what can I get you?" I'm I'm a coordinator. Um whatever they need, my job is to to ensure I get it as quickly as possible at uh in the best way I can. Um, in terms of a disaster, um, the city again is still responsible for the city. My job is to come in and help. Um, I can give you another example. Uh, North Carolina's disaster. They had the city of Hoover um, deployed personnel and assets to North Carolina. We are we and they are grateful that we are resourcerichi and we were capable of sending those resources. They did phenomenal work out there. There's a ton of paperwork on the back end that we are still working on right now. Um, as an EMA, my job is to assist the city of Hoover in getting that paperwork compiled, corrected, uh, submitted, and then, um, as I just got this morning, uh, a reply back from North Carolina saying, "Hey, we need a few more additional documents." I'll come in here. I've already worked with the Hoover personnel to acquire those documents so that y'all can get reimbursed for the expenses that Hoover incurred for personnel and equipment. Those are the things that that we do at the emergency management level for the county um on behalf of the city.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions? All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Tate. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Next, we have resolution 8838-26, which is an update on fire station 1. We are all dying to get this one, Chief Bentley.

So am I. Um, council, Mr. Munger, thank you for the opportunity. I've got Tim and Mac here with AU Architects. They can they're going to answer some questions if you have some if I can't. But um I wanted to take just a few minutes and kind of give an update of kind of where we are and kind of a timeline. I don't feel like I've really um kept you up to date publicly. I think we've all talked individually at times about fire station one. Um but we gave a notice to proceed work in April of 24. So we are uh two years into this project. the project was supposed to be 15 months. Um so we're eight months behind and so uh we have um we have owner architect meetings each month and we have expressed our concern throughout the whole process about the progress of what's happened. And so um you know plans are are revamped and promises are made and so we are where we are. Um we have gone through the process um with city uh attorneys and uh with architects to make sure we do things the right way. um in February of last year, not not this year, but last February, we um notified their shity bonding company about the progress and and put them put them on notice. that sped progress up to some degree and um we were happy with the progress but as summer progressed um things we knew that they would not be complete by August which was really the

completion date uh in that in that time frame. And so after seeking um um and consulting our attorneys and architects, we uh got the shy back involved and um we felt like that was in September. We felt like that uh they were not going to be able to uh complete the work. And so eight months later, here we are. And um we have done everything that we know to do to uh complete the project. And I'm happy to say that um last Friday uh Blake Miller and um Aaho Architects were able to get a contract signed by Mr. Kaiser uh to have the work completed and all of the um punch list items completed uh by the end of May. and it's signed. We are in position to call the shity and and and and stop work. But as we have worked through this process and we've we've done the best we can with the contractor, we feel like it's best that we uh stay the course. And so we're giving them the opportunity to complete the project by the end of the month and then uh have substantial completion and then turn the project and turn the building over to us. There's a lot of different um issues that we're concerned about that if we um call the shity and we terminated the contractor, it would lengthen the process, it would cost more money, and then we're concerned about warranties of equipment and those type things. Um, I'm getting calls on a regular basis. I've had three calls today from

citizens. Um, not happy. Uh, no one is more unhappy or upset about the situation than I am. Um, I think these two gentlemen right here have we have we have talked every day for the past two years. they have done a phenomenal job and um you know I couldn't ask to go through a process with anyone else other than them but it's been an arduous task and so um there's change orders in front of you it's it's quite lengthy um this project has had uh several change orders um but I don't think that the change orders really reflect something that we change because that's something that we wanted. We thought that, you know, the these were the things that need to be changed. Some things were out of our control and so those things had to be changed. We told the contractor uh two months ago that we would not come back to council with another change order until it was the last change order because we uh Blake and I both were, you know, we didn't want to come back and ask something every month. Um there will be a final change order to balance everything out when the project is completed. But the change order is in front of you. Um you can see and if you'll look at the the letter from IO architects that kind of sums it up. It's in a chart on two pages and I think it'll kind of give you the information you need. Um, I think that they can complete the project and if they complete the project by May 30th, um, we will be somewhere around $45,000 under the contract price.

Some of that's due to us charging them liquidated damages and that type stuff. Uh so we're fine financially. These change orders do not require any additional funding and um we're just asking for your approval on that. We're here to ask any answer any questions you might have. Um I'm I'll be transparent with you. I'm a little embarrassed about it. I wish that it was different. I wish we uh but you know when you look at hindsight, you can always make better decisions when when you know it comes to you and it's complete. But in this particular situation, um, uh, we feel like we've stood the course and we've done the best we can with the contractor and we're asking for 30 days to complete it and, uh, I know the question will be asked, what happens if they don't complete it on May 30th because it's kind of like, I've told you to complete it. I told you to clean your room or whatever that is. I told you. I told you and we've told them a lot. The answer to that is if they don't complete it by May 30th, we'll be back to you and you will have to make the decision to uh separate employment with this contractor and we're leaving we we leave all of our options open on the table. We've done everything legally the correct way. and to separate employment with them would require a council vote and we'll come back to you at that point with the decision uh with a request for a decision at that point. With that, I'm open for questions.

All right, Councelor Schultz.

So, with this May 30th deadline, some goals, in order to achieve a goal, it has to be attainable. Is this goal attainable for what? very attainable. Uh this this work could be completed in two weeks. I I'll give you a little bit of history on what's held us up. They damaged some electrical wiring that services the street lights on Highway 31. Street lights are still operational, but they have damaged that. Um, we're not going to get into did they locate it? Did they get the locator out there correctly? Did they do it correctly? It is beside the point. They damaged the electrical and ALDOT was involved and they were requiring us to do some required them to do some things that were significantly expensive and um Friday um Blake Miller was able to talk with ALDOT and get an a reasonable repair and I think that's kind of what started the process to move forward. One item on this change order is is faucets going from touch-free faucets to manual faucets. Was that something that was changed by

by you? Okay. All right. The um upstairs the upstairs faucets are for faucets for firefighters to to use to shay whatever. And uh it's not a a public area upstairs. and those were installed um uh like a a public faucet would that would turn on and off automatically and that's not what we need upstairs.

Other questions, Mr. Aaho? Yes, sir. Except for any changes that Chief Bentley wanted to make, were all of these items included in the bid? Some are a result of coordination with items that weren't fully established before. Uh so for example, uh there was a desire to add a baby box, you know, a safe haven where a child could be abandoned safely. So that's amazing that that we have that.

Yes, sir. So we included a certain allowance for that. The cost was a little bit up in the air prior to bid. Uh, so one of these changes is to reconcile that estimated cost with the actual amount. It's 1,500 give or take. It's it's only about $1,500 ad, but that would be an example of the kind of thing. Something similar with the um the fire pole and the shutters that close to prevent exhaust fumes from getting into the rest of the station. We've got change orders from 34 to to 46. So, that's quite a few. Um,

how many of these should they be funded and how many of these should they have dealt with on their own?

Um, I think that what is before council are things that we have evaluated to make sure that they're fair, that they're necessary, uh, and that the price is reasonable that they have provided. Um, so we feel good about recommending all of these. These are the ones that just have not been before you previously. Um, previously the ones that have come before you total about $11,000 increase to the original bid amount, but as chief said, uh, we're now taking more than $55,000 off of that. Uh so there will be only a net uh or there will be a net reduction of the contractor's uh contract price of around 44 $45,000.

But that would those additional funds would have been money that the city would have kept anyway if uh if they did not deserve to be able to to uh obtain these funds, I guess, is what I'm saying. Um I just want to make sure that they deserve it. they deserve what they're getting. We feel that the u the ones that we have brought before council are fair and reasonable. Um there's a lot of back and forth involved in this. Many of them have gotten revised uh in the city's favor. Um but yeah, there's a there's a whole process of that before we would bring it to you.

Thank you, sir. Madame President, um dealing with a um situation similar that I've had to deal with. Do we believe that um this is just to assure the the people of Hoover that is this competent quality work that's being done um and not rushed and obviously it's taking longer. So is the is the work being done right? Is this something that's going to last and be quality uh for the people of Hoover? I certainly hope so. I want that. You hope so.

I I know that's a not the answer you probably want to hear. Um neither we nor the city were there 100% of the time watching every screw being put in. Um we did identify a number of things that got them corrected. The punch list uh that was completed on this was 240 give or take 240 pages long. Um the vast majority of that has been worked down to it's less than two pages at this point remaining and as chief said we think about two weeks. One of the reasons for the strategy to stay on this horse rather than changing midstream is to make it very clear in terms of any warranty responsibilities. That's my next question. Do we have any contingency plans in in the event that there's something that's not competently put into the facility? Yes. So, that's that's this is a an example of all of the safeguards that we put in in place for public projects working well uh to keep the public's interest protected. Um we hope not to have to take advantage of that. But if the contractor uh a year from now were not able or willing to take care of a warranty item, then it falls back on the bonding company or the shity. Uh so by taking the approach that we have t taken with these recommendations, it keeps those people on the hook uh for a 12-month normal warranty plus an extended warranty on certain items.

Thank you.

Can we get another update on this at the next council meeting since that will be between now and the end of March May? Thank you. And then um for the city attorneys um this was a new to Hoover um company that we're dealing with here. I believe a new to Hoover contractor. Um can you check and see if we are availing ourselves of all of our rights in terms of evaluating and vetting anyone who is new to the city before we accept the lowest bid from that group? Yeah, perhaps we could, this predates our service, but perhaps we could work with staff to give a checklist that you might want to do. You might want to ask for more references than what you've had, you know? I mean, um, when some when there's a bid and there's a company that makes the bid, it's not just the low bid, but it's also they have to be a reliable company, the lowest responsible bid. So, I'm not saying these people don't know if they're responsible or not, but going forward, you you might want to maybe do a little deeper dive.

Thank you. And Mr. Mer. Yes. So, the term that usually would be used on that's pre-qualification of contractors. I do not know if pre-qualification was utilized on this job, but perhaps the architects could give some context on that. It's my understanding that there were known issues prior to letting this bid be accepted. Um but because there was a nominal amount of savings with the bid amount uh the administration then decided to go with this particular company.

That that is correct. They everyone at bid pre-qualified. Um there was a contractor that was low a million dollars low and we knew that day that there was an issue with that. um our um purchasing department, you know, called them and said, "Hey, this is uh you're low." And they said, "Our numbers are good." They called back the next day and said they'd use the wrong multiplier for the roofing system. And so they were out. And then that brought us to the current contractor, Kaiser, and there was there was limited there was not much difference between the two next biders. Um, and we we did know that uh this company was um um slow on some things, but um this the attorneys at the time and staff, they said that there was no reason for us to uh not accept this company since they pre-qualified.

Thank you. It's, you know, not a criticism of of that decision, but more of a forwardlooking process. How can we support you better in making those decisions going forward?

At the end of the day, we've got a beautiful fire station. I'm not concerned about the stability or anything like that of the station. The roof has a um an extended warranty and you know, appliances and those type things. Um, but we did, um, I'm I'm pretty peculiar about things and we did catch some we did catch a lot of things that had to be redone. And that's just been kind of the the MO of this entire project. It's just been um, do it and redo it. Do it and redo it. Thank you so much, Chief Bentley. We'll see you at the next meeting. Yes, ma'am.

Thanks. Next we have resolution number 8839-26. Mr. Shore is going to talk with us about uh project at the Riverchase Galleria. Happy Thursday council. How y'all doing? Doing well. Thank you.

Absolutely. So this is uh Leadership Hoover is back. I am representing a group with Leadership Hoover. We call ourselves the storytellers. And obviously with our Leadership Hoover projects, they are communitydriven. They of course have to be attainable. And they also have to be sustainable. And my group wanted to do something that could accomplish a couple things. One was to be able to utilize uh vacant space in our city. And two, to be able to use that vacant space to promote our city that's brand driven. And most importantly, something that we and I feel like a lot of members of this council believe in is is telling our story. And there is a large space in the common area corridor on the second floor of the Riverchase Galleria around the white barn candle company on your way to the Hyatt Regency. There's a vacant white wall that they've have a couple posters up to kind of judge it up a little bit and it's used for storage. Has a couple doors altogether. It's almost 50 feet in width and 14t in height of wide open space. Um, we wanted this to be kind of the acorn that grows the great big oak. And we wanted to be cost effective with this as well. And what we came up with was a uh a gallery. And essentially what it is, it is eight panels along this white wall and it's murled. And what it does is it's it's creative imagery that we can um promote our history, our culture, and our community identity. and it's curated imagery and storytelling. So, as you're walking along, you're getting this curated story with vast amounts of different pictures that uh basically is the story of Hoover, what unites us all. Um the cost of the project was $1,000, which I had knowing I was going to be in leadership Hoover, knowing that we I we've been wanting to do a project like this from a tourism standpoint has been

budgeted and is covered. Um what we need to what I need is an approval for signature with the River Trace Galleria with uh Hoover Mall um to basically sign off on a zero fee agreement that we can have these panels uh up on that white wall. Um right now we've talked to at least having somewhat of a year to have that up. But the sustainability of this is as well is that if they do have and if they do that is great success for them that if these panels should come down they can go somewhere else in the city and that's the point of sustainability is that we always continue to tell the story no matter where it is. So today I just come before you to get the approval of a signature.

Councelor McClinton you represent us on items of tourism and such. Do you have any comments or questions? Um, I'll just say that uh, a lot of the stuff I know that Jamie has done um, and marketing has done is really gotten a lot of lowhanging fruit that has not been taken advantage of before. Um, the marketing team is an exceptional job and I just think this one baby step in the right direction. Any comments or questions from the rest of the council? Madam President, I've got one. Do you have a mockup or anything?

I do. Now, we've got a few things we've got to fix up. And I actually was putting notes out to uh the graphic designer on the team is Willie Wells, by the way. Escape Graphics does an amazing job. This is a prop for him. But yeah, I'd love to get an idea of in my mind. This is just like I said, we got to fix a few things. Okay. section.

Jamie, I was going to ask, have you worked at all with the arts council or the historical society? I I so originally I have worked with society. The original project actually was obviously taking more time and resources was to try to use space to create kind of historical section. Let me pause you for just a second because we do have people who are watching online. If you can go back to the mic, that would be fantastic.

No, absolutely. For the sake of that, absolutely. Um, so originally this project was more centric with the Hoover Historical Society. Uh, we wanted to utilize an empty space to kind of have a historical center in the Galleria with historical society. Obviously, the constraints is we had six to eight months to get all of this done. Um but they have been in cooperation with us on this. Um the arts council um you know not as not as much. I've I've popped in some meetings a time or two. Uh you know my background funny enough is in the arts. I my previous job I worked for UAB Center for the Arts. So Ava and Dale Steven Center. So this is kind of an opportunity to at least open that door up to have more of that relationship.

Yes. This very well could be an ongoing project. much like the uh art pieces that used to hang here in the lobby of city hall. 100%. Um and if it goes on for a while, I'm sure that they may have some vital information. Absolutely. No, and then like I said, this was just our this is our acorn and hopefully this will start some conversations. Thank you, sir. Absolutely. Thank you, Madam President. Of course. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Mr. Shore. We appreciate that. And Mr. Pepper, we have you for the next few items, starting with resolution 8840-26 for the America 250 Alabama logo for official city purposes.

Yes, good evening. Thank you for uh having me. So, this uh first item, this first resolution is dealing with the logo America's 250 celebration. This would give uh the city um permission to use this logo on our promotional items and that sort of thing. We have a very uh fun lineup um of activities the first week of July that um you've probably heard about. So this would give us permission to use that logo. Any question? No money involved. All right, we'll move to the second one. 8841-26, which is submission of a grant to application to Jefferson County Community Services Fund for improvements at Lock Haven Park.

Yep. Um this was a grant through Representative Mike Shaw. That's $25,000. This would help support the uh project that is funded through the engineering department, the TAP grant that they had received. So, this would uh support that uh that project, but we would looking to um asphalt some trails, work on some bridge crossings of creeks, also uh some ADA um compliance uh projects there uh at Lock Haven Park.

Any questions or comments? All right, your last item is 8842-26, which is a letter of understanding with the Alabama Tourism Department regarding tourism promotional activities. Yep. This is uh through uh Representative Mike Shaw and Lee Hulsey. They've both committed $2,600 each, so it's a total of $5,200. And this would help offset expenses occurred during the SEC baseball tournament. All right, any other questions, comments? Thank you so much, Mr. Pepper. Thank you. Next, we'll have Miss Cobalt, um, regarding 8843-26, which is a service agreement with the Miss Hoover Foundation for Marketing and Promotional Services.

Good evening. Yes, this is a service agreement with the Miss Hoover Foundation to market and promote the city at the Miss America pageant that will be held in September. This includes ads in the national program book and representation at the preliminary and final finals events. Um our um current well our current Miss Alabama's teen who was just our Miss Hoover Greer Feldman is representing Hoover at numerous events and um the funding that for this would not exceed $15,500 questions or comments. Madam President, is has this been done before?

Yes. um last year when um Miss Emitary u represented uh was Miss um Alabama, they went for that and then also when Abby Stalker was um named Miss crowned Miss America. So fantastic. I do want to just take a moment and commend our legal council for taking the initiative to create templates that we can use when we engage with nonprofits. Um, we recognized that there was a lot of inconsistency in how we engaged with nonprofits and a need to have uh protection for the public dollars that are going to all the great nonprofits that we work with here in Hoover to ensure that uh the city of Hoover and the taxpayers are protected when we're engaging with those nonprofit organizations. So, this was a test case and um I understand there are probably some growing pains for our nonprofits out there. So bear with us as we shore things up and and get things in line to have the city protected in these arrangements as we should be. Um and very grateful that we've been able to reach an agreement with this organization.

Well, Madam Prod, the person responsible is Mr. Barnett who's here. So, thank you, Mr. Barnett. We appreciate you. Thank you, Miss Cobalt. Uh next we have resolution 8844-26. And looks like Mr. Morris is not with us. So this is regarding uh municipal and commercial uniforms and equipment for police department and accessories.

Good evening, council. Sean Steven on behalf of Chief Morris. Um this the council had previously approved a resolution awarding the bid for the police department's uniform purchases to MAC Uniforms. And the resolution before you now authorizes the mayor to execute an agreement with MAC Uniforms. so the police department can begin to purchase uniforms under the bid terms specified in the bid that was already approved. Any questions? All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Steven.

All right. Next, we have a couple um with Dr. Lopez, our chief financial officer, starting with 8845-26 regarding budget amendments for the fiscal year ending September 30th.

Good evening. Okay. Um, so on the amendment, uh, if you have I don't know if you have your exhibit A in front of you. I'll just go down through these things relatively quickly. The first two items are related to the $5,000 at the last meeting that Lee Holsey gave. Uh, 5,000 for the police and 5,000 for the fire department. Uh so this is just budgeting the revenue and the expenditure to be the money to be able to spend those funds. The third item was discussed previously and is the uh budget for the grant related to the Alabama Department of Tourism for SEC for 5200. So that's the in and out as well. Uh and then we have a few uh payroll items. Uh item four down there is going to be uh for the police department. uh related to the reserve police officer positions. So, we're going to add three reserve police officer positions. Uh they're going to be 24 hours each and uh they will be budgeted 52 weeks a year at a step three of the appropriate grade. In addition, it's changing the existing four positions and moving reducing those hours 29 to 24. So, there'll be seven total positions at 24 hours. Uh, and they will all be at step three. Uh, and those will be used for schools, library, court corrections, the goal to be able to help over time reduce some of the overtime. Item five is for the library and this is where they're wanting to they're going to delete two vacant part-time 19-hour positions in order to upgrade four

full-time library assistants to library specialists. Uh for fiscal 26, there's no impact uh in a future year. It's about $5,300, but there's no impact for the current fiscal year. uh this will help them deliver their services and and be more equitable I think in some of their positions. I forgot to mention item four, there's an overall cost of 42,500 on the reserve officers uh for the police. Uh item six, these are the some changes related to the finance department. One of the things that uh I'm trying to do while I'm here is uh figure out the best way to organize the department. So, this proposal uh involves deleting two vacant positions, one part-time, one full-time to create two assistant finance director positions. Um it also includes three change of titles that have no impact on money. It's just developing some consistency. Um and so, uh overall, there's no impact on the 26 budget. on future budgets. Uh there is about 143,000 potential impact. Uh since we are finding savings uh on audit fees, we look to we can use some of that to reduce next year to offset that. Item seven, uh the park board had a meeting on May 5th. Uh I'm not sure if y'all know there's a fund 114 and it's it's park uh park board activity accounts and uh basically we keep that separate. There's almost $2 million built up in that fund and they were working along with the mayor to figure out uh they wanted to use about a half a million of this money to do some park improvements. I think they're still

deciding what those will be, but this will allow them to go ahead and as they make that plan, budget those funds. Uh, and then the last item, item item eight, is overall it's um offsetting uh the little bit that was left, the 15,500. Uh, that's some revenue, excess revenue we had in surplus property to balance everything. Questions? Dr. Lopez, the uh $500,000 is that acred through fees, through the various parts of park and wreck? It comes from their activities, their athletics, all those registrations, that sort of thing. Yes. Thank you, Councelor Schultz.

On the police department, and I don't know if you going to be able to answer this, um, three reserve officers, uh, those are positions that are not current right now. Is that correct? That is correct. So, right now those those roles are being filled by our current police officers working under the offduty job, the ODJ. Um, they are drafted into that position like the library position. Am I correct in that?

Uh, right now I think overtime with the current officers is being used, but I'll let him I'll let Sean talk about that. Yes, the majority of those hours are going to be filled in an overtime capacity, either drafted or somebody volunteers to work it. So, these reserve positions will be at a much lower hourly rate. These hours are getting filled regardless, and we're trying to fill them with reserve officers at a lower hourly rate than an officer working overtime. Where are we getting these officers from? They are going to be hire back retirees from Hoover.

Okay. So, they're ex police officers that will be coming back. So, it's it's Hoover PD that's just coming back to to to uh serve in that role. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Other questions on that item? Just one quick one uh for me, Dr. Lopez. Um do you know how much, if any, of the 500,000 for parks and wreck will go to Shades Mountain Park? I do not. I I don't know that anybody knows that yet. And when will that when do we expect that decision to be made? Uh I think they were going to work on that over the next month or so. The goal here was to budget the money and give them some flexibility when they decide what the best plan for that is.

Okay. I I can kind of address that. Okay.

The the goal here is for certain items that normally would have to come in front of the council in order to get approved. this particular fund will permit them to address it immediately versus waiting for it. As far as where it goes, it's going to be it depends. Let's take the Shades Mountain Park for example. There's a particular item at Shades Mountain Park that needed to be addressed which was the restrooms. The restrooms are we did uh approve that on the capital improvements um budget and so that's a significant amount that would not come out of something like this. that would be the city's role to pay for it. But there was an instance that we used as an example a broken uh pipe at that at the M. Okay. That would have taken a significant amount of time to get approved. This fund would permit them to address it immediately without going to the council. The money is there already and the money in the original bylaws was designated for that. And then several years ago that money was removed from the board and now it has been restored to the board so they can do what they need to do with it. As far as what it's for, it all depends on the amount. Shades Mountain Park, for example, has a lot of needs and uh depends on what it is. If it's little, the board can approve it at one of their meetings. If it's big, it comes in front of us. So, just to be clear, we're we're being asked to approve a half million dollars in park improvements that the park board will decide how to allocate those funds and we won't have a say in it.

The the money is theirs to begin with. Okay, that is that is under their bylaws. The money is theirs. The last administration opted to remove that money from the control of the park from the park board to put it under the city's control. And at that point the in this administration is is restoring those funds to the to the to the park board. It's their money to to use uh it is but from the from as far as the control it's it's their money. It's not the city's money. It's the park board's money.

So So let me let me clarify a little bit. So before 2006, Parks and Recreation had four checking account. I think it was four checking accounts. It's going back 20 years, forgive my memory, but uh they had four checking accounts. Craig Moss had taken over as the director. And he came to me and asked it was dealing with a lot of checks, writing umpires, all these checks plus uh no way to really report on it. He said, "What can we do?" I said, "Well, we could bring it under into the CH city's check checking account. We could put it in its own fund, but it has to go through the city council because it's a city checking account." So, that's how we kind of progressed all these years. Um, recently, uh, I think, well, there was a question about what we could do differently. And so, we had a part I attended the park board meeting Tuesday night, presented three options. they came up with uh the third option which is basically kind of like we've been operating all along. But the difference is um in order to spend some of these funds and give them the flexibility that they would like, we would go ahead and approve because the council has to approve something. But it truly is their funds. It's just for the use of purchasing software and budgeting software and and you know having one account versus park employees in charge of $2 million. We think that overall this is the best internal external control for the city to handle it this way.

So just to be clear, you recommend that we handle it this way. I do. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Before we move on to um Mr. Martin. Uh, Mr. Tate, I believe you had some follow-up information you'd like to share with us.

Got to love modern technology. So, I was talking with Jason Johnson, the de director over at Shelby County. Uh, the addendum uh for both the city of Hoover and the city of Birmingham uh have gone up through the state EMA approved there and they are sitting on somebody's desk at FEMA. They have no idea when it will be addressed. Um, so I can't give you that time frame, but I do know that their plan is uh up for their five-year renewal uh next year. So, they will be in front of uh this body uh either later this year or next uh basically doing the exact same thing that I'm doing for the Hoover portion of Shelby County. Thank you so much for the update. We appreciate that.

All right, Mr. Martin, you're up. We've got um an ordinance related to the sale of consumable hemp products 88 uh excuse me, ordinance 262695. Pardon me, Dr. Lopez, I sent you home too early. I'm sorry. I was gonna let Mr. Martin.

If you would like to um talk to us about uh getting people to pay their taxes this year, then that'd be great. Uh so this item of course is the annual uh uh levy of our municipal property tax the and nothing's changed. It's still 30 and a half mills overall for the city. Uh so but we just it's something we have to do annually. Any questions? Madam President, this is strictly housekeeping. Yes, it is that we do this every year. That's right. Thank you. All right, Mr. Martin.

All right. Almost there. Past the seventh inning stretch. Um so yes, the first item planning and zoning has on the agenda is an ordinance to amend the zoning ordinance related to the sales of consumable hemp. Uh this would create a business use classification in the zoning ordinance for that use and define the locations where it could potentially go within the city. And uh since uh the state law has placed consumable hemp under the purview of the ABC, the state alcohol review board, uh it seemed logical for us to treat this particular use in a similar fashion to liquor sales. And so uh you'll find that the use permissions are very similar uh to that of liquor stores for off-remise consumption of liquor. and um only allowed by conditional use in select commercial districts with certain distance requirements from uses like places of worship, schools, parks, and the like. Uh there haven't been any changes since uh we went over this for first reading, but if there are any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them.

Just a quick question. This might be a legal question. What will happen to the moratorum that we currently have in place for these sales? We won't have it. Okay. So, this will automatically remove the moratorum. All right. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Martin. Um, next one is a reszoning of a property from R1 to legacy.

Yes. Uh, this comes to you with a positive recommendation from the planning commission. Uh this is for uh let's see 22 233 Farley Place and uh the applicant desires to add a covered but unenclosed front porch to their residence. The legacy single family district would permit them to do that without obtaining variances from the board of zoning adjustment. Um and so the recommendation coming to you from the planning commission is for approval. Any questions?

All right, moving along. Uh 881326 declaring a public nuisance. Yes. Uh this is our location on Tyler Lane. Uh where we have a tree that has fallen over across and through a uh an abandoned residence. The owner is from out of state. Uh we have sent them notice of the upcoming hearing. Uh I have not received a response as of yet, but uh the hearing has been noticed per state law and uh we have it on the schedule for Monday night and should the council approve after the public hearing the declaration of the nuisance, it starts a 45day clock uh for the property owner to abate the problem. um to deconstruct the home themselves and get the property in a safe condition or after the expiration of that 45 days, the city's authorized to take on the work.

Any questions? Madame President, uh Mr. Martin, uh from this first picture, it looks like there's a right and left side to the structure. Left side looks to be a garage. Um I assume that if the city gets involved, we would demolish the entire structure.

That is correct. Um both uh code enforcement and the building department uh went to the facility, looked at the home and the tree was long enough to where it appears, especially in this picture, to have compromised the building envelope, not just the garage, but the home proper. So yes, sir. The quote that we have that we're working off of right now is approximately 18,000 to clear the home and the tree from the property. Thank you, sir.

Next item is uh regarding a special event allowance taking that out of the short-term rental ordinance.

Uh yes. So, as of right now, we have one clause within the short-term rental ordinance that permits uh short-term rentals to operate within single family residential districts for a maximum of one week during the year. um provided that they go through an application process and submit plans for review not just for uh compliance with the code um pertaining specifically to short-term rentals but also life safety uh that would be reviewed by the building and fire marshall's office. Um we have not received a single application to that effect uh since this ordinance went into place and very difficult section of the ordinance to enforce. And so our recommendation is to take the oneweek provision for short-term rentals in single family or residential neighborhoods uh out of the ordinance.

Go ahead, Ma. How do we currently um find people who are who have the Airbnb? Is it strictly by people reporting it or do we proactively look for for these things?

Uh our code enforcement apparatus is complaint driven. Uh we have two code enforcement officers covering our 50 square miles and uh they handle a a variety of cases uh including complaints about short-term rentals. So, we start a case if we receive a complaint from a neighbor or a resident in the community uh suspecting that kind of activity at a residence or seeing an advertisement to the same.

Mr. Martin, could you not uh do a query of the database between uh uh R1 properties that do not have homestead exemptions? Would that or you think a lot of these properties still hold homestead exemptions? Some may very well, but uh just as far as tracking down whether or not there's a short-term rental taking place, uh there are a variety of different um variety of different providers for that particular service. And so I could see some difficulty getting all of that to align with the database for our R1 zone. You know, I remember number of years ago, Madame President, u Jack Wright found that uh every time they added a new revenue officer, it brought another million dollars worth of revenue into the city. I'm wondering how much revenue we could bring into the city with short-term rentals, at least for a period of time, if we were to put some part-time staff on to try to uh find these properties.

What would be the penalty for being in violation of the ordinance? Well, it would be, and correct me if I'm wrong, on the legal side, um I believe it's a $100 penalty if found guilty in municipal court. That's currently Yeah, you could increase that, but it's right now it's a graduated scale as I recall. We could make it $10,000 if we wanted to. You'd be you'd be limited. I don't I'm going to Scott, I'm I'm going to assume this is a class C. I don't think we get 10. I think you might get 500 bucks.

Okay. Whatever makes them uncomfortable. If you start doing it with a few, other people may decide that they need to get a business permit and start paying tax. Well, you may want to look at the cost of the business license, too. How many complaints do you does your team get about potential short-term rentals? Generally, at least um at least one or two a month. Okay. one repeat offenders.

Uh ab actually not as many as you would think. Um our code enforcement team has had a good deal of success in tracking down we get an initial complaint tracking down the owner of the property. Most of the time the owners had no idea that we had an ordinance in place that restricted it. Uh so not many repeat offenders on this topic. Thank you very much. Uh I think the next one is a car wash canopy behind a business at 140 Corners. Yes. Uh this particular conditional use u for the relocation of Enterprise Rental Car and their car washing services um comes to you with a positive recommendation from the planning commission uh with a couple of conditions that they recommend. uh one that all remaining technical comments on the plan set are addressed at time of permitting which we have gone through those with the engineer for the project and he understands what he needs to address on that end. Uh number two the car wash does not operate outside of the business hours for enterprise rental car and thirdly uh the certificate of occupancy and business license are obtained for the new location. I will note that um in accordance with uh the presentation given by enterprise rental car they confirm that this is for their use only not a public ex.

Councilman Smith did you have a question or comment? Councilman Smith. Yes, ma'am. Did you have a question or comment? You give me a half a second. Uh, did we not did we not see this once before and for whatever reason we needed to put it off to come back? We had the first reading. First reading, but this is shows to be a resolution. That's right. Well, each of the we set the public hearing the last time. Okay. It was a public hearing. Yes. Thank you.

All right. Last one for you tonight, Mr. Martin, I believe. um regarding uh amending the zoning ordinance for revisions to office and technical use regulations.

Yes. So um thank you. the the council made an inquiry of city staff to take a look at our zoning ordinance and see u how say a data center would fit within um the definitions within our zoning ordinance and how such a use would be treated in our current uh zoning. So staff undertook this particular exercise and we found that um the closest uh use that we have described and defined in our zoning ordinance uh pertaining to data centers would be the office technical use. That is defined as an office use combined with a equipment intensive use wherein 20% or more of the net usable floor area of a building is devoted to large equipment used by administrative employees for business process functions such as data processing and communications equipment. Uh that was the closest match for what we generally perceive as the modern data center. Uh no other use defined in the ordinance. uh more closely u meets that criteria um than that. So if uh we're operating off of the from the standpoint that the office technical use is the appropriate category uh for which data centers would fall under. We found that the zoning ordinance is quite permissive of that use. Uh making them permitted by right in the vast majority of our nonresidential districts. Uh meaning that if we had an application that came before us, they would proceed directly to site planning and permitting. Um no additional hearings related to that use

with our planning commission or city council. Uh so our approach after doing this analysis is that uh given the concerns that we've heard from residents in the community about potential impacts uh that it might be wise for us to take another look and see if there was a little bit more scrutiny that we could add to the process. Um so with that in mind, the amendment that sits in front of you would be to take uh the use permissions of the office technical use uh in those non-residential districts and instead of having them permitted by right in those districts, uh we would change them to a classification of conditional use. uh meaning that it would require an application for conditional use to appear before the planning commission for a recommendation and then this body for final consideration. Uh that process allows for staff to meet with the potential applicant uh go over the concept and advise them on the kinds of studies that they would need to look at the potential impacts of that use. uh as well as a a plan in place for how the use would lay across a a particular site and we can look at this on a siteby-sight basis and present our findings and those studies to the planning commission who could formulate a recommendation and bring to this body. Um so I I see this uh mechanism helping us in a number of ways. One, if we have a potential applicant that comes and agrees with our interpretation that their data center falls under that office technical classification, then we

proceed to conditional use process. Uh if we have an applicant that uh wants to debate whether or not it falls under that use classification, then we do have language within the zoning ordinance that allows for the zoning official to um bring it to the planning commission and city council for conditional use consideration. Anyway, a couple of you on the council that have been around for a few years will remember that we amended each of the zoning districts to include language uh that follows uh for additional uses which are not specifically listed but are substantially similar to uses permitted by right or with conditional use approval uh may be considered for conditional use approval. So, you know, it's hard to capture every use imaginable within our matrix, within our table, in the zoning ordinance, but we felt like uh there needed to be a pressure release valve of sorts in the zoning ordinance to give the city the ability to consider uses that may not neatly fit into those use classifications. So if we have an applicant that feels like the office technical use use classification is not appropriate for them, my interpretation of the ordinance would be well that's the closest thing that we have in the zoning ordinance. And so what you are requesting there's no other use specifically listed in that table that matches any closer than that. Uh so you still get the same result with going with a conditional use application. And of course if there is a if a potential applicant is agreved by the zoning officials interpretation of the ordinance uh there is an appeal that

they can make to that but that goes to the board of zoning adjustment. Uh so I feel like with this particular change uh we are we're being proactive in how we deal with uh this particular use classification. Um you know time has as time has gone on uh data center uses have evolved. They're they come in all shapes and sizes and forms. This would allow for us to have a process by which we review and ultimately city council gets to decide if the use is appropriate for a particular location.

Mr. Martin, what about properties that already exist like the AT&T property on Data Drive or I don't know whether Mloud Software over 280 whether or not they have uh that type of uh an equipment set up where they might would qualify. What would they need to do? Well, if there are adjustments that are are taking place, uh modifications within the building footprint that they have on the campus, then this particular section of the ordinance would not trigger a revised conditional use request. um you know they are certainly entitled to making adjustments, updating equipment, whatever they need to do within the envelope of the buildings that are on the campus. If uh if they were to want to expand the use, expand the building footprint, expand the the impacts that um or expand it in such a way that impacts could be felt. um under the current uh proposal those particular users would come for conditional use application.

I'll recognize councelor Schultz. So let's take the Nebus um data center in Birmingham. They were already zoned for it. So they did not have to go through anything. They ended up uh afterwards coming up with a process that data center would have gone with this particular new ordinance that would have to go through conditional use and it couldn't have just been happened like it did in Birmingham. Is that correct?

That's correct. My understanding is uh the zoning district that the Nebus project is located in within the city of Birmingham uh that particular use is permitted by right and therefore could go straight to permitting. There was a I believe a special exception application that went before the board of zoning adjustment for Birmingham, but that was related to the utility connections and the substation that would serve it, not the data center itself. So, it would be fair to say that we are what we're doing here is is being very proactive in future uh requests.

That's certainly my perspective. We're being proactive. Um you know, we don't have any pending applications right now. Um we we want to be in a position to where we have the ability not to close the door but to thoughtfully consider uh a use of this nature in our city and have that process in place by which we can measure the impacts, consider conditions that can mitigate those impacts. or if the the planning commission and city council don't feel like the project is a right fit for the particular property they're looking at, you have the option of denying it. I notice this is listed for immediate consideration. There's always a delicate balance to be struck when we um don't go through a two reading process for an ordinance change. Can you describe for us why you think it's important for us to hear this one immediately on Monday? Again, as right now, we don't have any applications pending for permits. Um, the longer that we sit in a situation where uh the use is permitted by right, uh the longer you have opportunities for permit applications to come in uh without conditional use consideration.

Thank you. Any other questions, councelor Levelville? So although we can't control what other municipalities choose to do in their area, would you agree that this is allowing us to protect our residents and control what we can control within our city limits? This certainly does give you more control over that particular use. It gives you the ability to vet the project and its potential impacts to a far greater degree than we sit right now where they're permitted by right. Thank you,

Mr. Martin. Do you think that after this is passed that we may need to come back and and uh adjust things going forward? uh um with the statement that you made to Miss Levelvel. Um it sounded like that it's not the perfect plan, but it's it's uh it's good enough to get started. Um certainly view this as a great starting point. Um, you'll notice in the zoning ordinance that we do have sections uh for supplemental use regulations, those that are more tested and tried and true and we're more accustomed to uh where we've figured out as a city and you as a legislative body the special conditions that need to be in place or considered for that particular use. Uh so there's certainly an exercise we can go through uh at some point where we better identify uh the potential impacts of these specific uses data centers and can account for those within supplemental use regulations. Um but I think uh given the wide array of facilities that you see out there that are classified or classify themselves as data centers, the size, the scope, um do they have a lot of generators for backup power? Do they have their own power um generating facilities? There are a lot of different kinds of facilities out there. And so that's going to take a a very thorough concerted effort to try to come up with supplemental regulations that capture all of those uh nuances. Uh this certainly a great starting point at least gives us the opportunity uh staff to work with the applicant to go through

any red flags we see, any potential impacts. we can go ahead and communicate those uh communicate to them to get whatever studies are necessary to us to consider impacts and conditions for mitigation and then bring it to planning commission and city council. Thank you. Any other questions or comments?

One last comment. I think that a lot of us have done quite a bit of research on data centers and um at least from my perspective, my conclusion is that not all data centers are created equal exactly as you were saying. So I believe that this will allow for us to really case by case um for each one. So I think that that's really going to capture kind of what you were touching on. And uh to the extent that we have defined data centers either in an overly conservative manner or an underconervative manner, we'll have the opportunity to adjust that in the future. Is that right? That's correct.

All right. Um the last item is that we'll just have a first reading and set a public hearing for setting the licensing classifications and requirements for the consumable hemp products. Um Dr. Lopez, do you want to say anything about that one? As little as possible. Let's do it.

Uh I I will say that uh Ken Davidson uh who retired at the end of April worked I think a lot with Mr. Barnett on this. Uh basically, uh as you said, this is going to change our section 816 of the city license schedule to include consum consumable hemp products. There's going to be basically three license classifications for selling uh hemp. These three are dictated by state law. Uh basically, it comes down to each of the licenses will be $500 or what we do is follow one half of the ABC board rate. And if you have any other questions, I'll I'll try to answer. I think we're good. Thank you, Dr. Lopez.

Thank you. Any other questions uh comments from the council before we go? Madame President, uh Scott, is is this going to be the ordinance that would affect the thousand foot radius from the various different establishments including other licenses or was that in the zoning itself?

That's a specific zoning um aspect. However, um there is a provision in here that allows you all when you're issuing a business license as a city to consider that. So, uh when it comes before you in the public hearing as just as you do uh in your ABC applications, as this will be, uh you can consider proximity to sensitive areas. That's correct. Is that going to include the drinks? No. No. This is consumable hemp in the in knows the answer. Now uh

reason why I was asking because before the legislature started to look at it you could see the drinks in almost every convenience store right in the convenience stores and grocery stores they they sell the liquid versions and of course this does not this is other styles of consumable hemp. Thank you sir. And I I believe there is a provision in there somewhere about the the liquid consumables, but they have to be in a particular type of store, not in these types of locations that we're talking about. That is correct. So like grocery stores and they have to be a certain size. Um can't just be little convenience stores. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other council comments? All right. It's been a long one. Have a great night.