Board of Mayor and Aldermen - Regular Meeting

All right, I believe we're live. So, we might be a minute early, but we'll take our chances. We'll call the February 12th meeting of the City of Manchester Street Committee to order. Roll call is uh Alderman Thomas Crossson and Mark Mesik, George, Britney, and Christina are all here. So, we have a quorum. So, now we need to approve the agenda.

I move to approve. I second. And vote. Yay. So, that's approved. Need to approve the minutes. I move to approve those as well. I second. I I So we approve those. Uh comments from citizens. Anybody out there got anything they want to talk about? Okay. All right. Discussion on title 17-102 and municipal codes book changes. Britney, you're the reason we're here. So Oh, that's correct. Um, so the property maintenance inspector.

Hey,

uh, the property maintenance inspector um that uh was within my department. Um, a lot of the citations that we issue are uh from this part of the code uh 17-102 premises to be kept clean for purposes of the meeting. I'll read it. Um, it says that it shall be unlawful for the owner, occupant of a business or residential building, structure or property to utilize the premises of such property for open storage of any abandoned motor vehicle, ice box, refrigerator, stove, glass, building material, building rubbish, or similar items. It shall be the duty and responsibility of every such owner or occupant to keep the premises of such property clean and to remove from the premises all such abandoned items as listed above, including but not limited to weeds, dead trees, trash, and garbage. And then it goes on to say, for the purpose of this section, the previous section I just read, an abandoned motor vehicle is defined as one that is in the state of dis a state of disrepair or is incapable of being moved under its own power or which does not have current state registration or valid license plate attached to it, but shall not include an antique vehicle over 25 years old, a vehicle kept within a building, so it shall not be visible from the street, a junct vehicle on the premises of a business operated in compliance with the zoning ordinances. or a vehicle stored in a place of approved by the health and codes department of the city of Manchester. Um so that's what it currently says. Um but if we look at um the specific part of an abandoned motor vehicle um and then later it refers to um it shall not include an antique vehic ve vehicle over 25 years old. I would like to remove um the excerpt uh stating antique vehicle over 25 years old. Um being it's 2026 um this would classify a 2001 or 2000 or 1999

vehicle um that I don't believe is considered antique. Um I just I I feel like that section can be taken out. Um, we'll keep everything else. Um, but I I I'd prefer not to have the idea that a 1999 Ford Explorer not have to be removed because it's considered antique. However, it's in those other conditions. Okay. Hold that thought. We started just a minute or two early and you came in a little later. Do you have something you'd like to Okay. All right. So, yeah.

All right. What do you think, Thomas? I I mean I don't see any issue with it to me if uh the key things are is it movable under its own power? Is it licensed? If neither one of those things exist, then I see it as an eyesore. So, if you got a 65 Mustang sitting in the yard that's kind of rough, you going to make us get rid of it? Why would we not? What's the difference? We're going to fix it one of these days. What's the difference between a 65 Mustang and that 1999?

I tell you, that's kind of sport. That's kind of special. 64. I mean, we're going to fix it one of these days. We're going I've been aiming to get around to that for several years now. So, I mean, we're going to make them tow that off. I I I would. Yes. You don't have to tow it off. You have to do it. They're welcome to build a pull a building permit and build a garage around it. Well, it's kind of expensive way to keep it, you know. I'm just asking. I'm just bringing this up. Just No, I I get what you're saying. But but there are avenues as Britney pointed out. I put a canvas over it other than

No, it's still considered open storage. Anything that's closed storage.

I kind of got mixed feelings about it. I really do. Well, where where do you draw the line? Because you you you wouldn't say the same things about a 1999 44, right? I know. I know. And there's some things that are just, you know, like the 1999 Ford Explorer. It's just pretty common stuff. Yeah. But, you know, you got a they got a 33 Ford Roadster sitting in it and and and really and truly, you bought that. I mean, God, I'm the world's worst at buying old tractors and I'm going to fix them up. Yeah.

And I usually end up putting them on a roll back and taking them to the track to the scrapyard before it's over with. But I got good intentions. And there's a lot of people out there with good intentions that'll keep that car and say, "Well, I'm going to fix that car one of these days." That was granddad's old car. Yeah. You know, no, I I get what you're saying. I just that the idea of legislating that line is very difficult to me. Do we have that many instances of things that we need to clean up like that? Probably. Yes. Probably. Yeah. You said you said that this was most of the citations that your department writes come from this code.

It's not just motor vehicles. I mean it includes other rubbish as well. Um and we do plan we're going to start utilizing the actual property maintenance code um as well. Um but a lot of our citations that we issue because this kind of covers lots of things such as open storage of old appliances and things like that. Um but this one this one little particular thing I just kind of want to black line it out. Thank you for bringing a difficult question. Yeah, you're welcome.

The the original ordinance just says it shall not include an antique vehicle over 25 years old. I think that's kind of definition of antique vehicles, 25 years old. Could you could you somehow say something to the effect that if you got an old car sitting there and there's no work being done on it or something like that in the last 6 months or I mean I just I hate to make somebody build a garage that's expensive. I built a shed last year and it it's just a plain old simple shed that cost $7,000. But so our the the other side of that coin is if the vehicle is of importance, value, sentimental or otherwise, would it be just sitting out in the in the middle of the yard?

If it were in my yard, it would be. Yeah. I mean, really, old cars just sit out and it it's it's not that big a deal. They're not going to rot away. I I don't know. I don't know how I feel about I just have a little little issue with don't like telling people what they can do with their stuff. Okay. And I understand, you know, you don't want your neighborhood all junked up and stuff like that. It's not my neighborhood. It's the city. Any neighborhood, you know, I I don't like that at all either. I understand that. No. And I get that part of it, too.

Yeah. I to me the the the line either exists or it doesn't. You know, I I don't the age of the vehicle shouldn't matter. Um, so to me, if it's not licensed and it's no longer operational, it's either fair game to be towed away to be cited for or it's not fair game to be cited for. So, if I had a 1932 Ford Roadster sitting in my yard, look like crap. Okay.

But I'm putting a license on it every year. You going to leave it alone? That's what the code says potentially. Yeah, a lot of them do get left alone because we simply don't know about them or we don't receive a complaint on them. Um, but in the instance where we do receive a complaint on it and we try to address it, I'd prefer this not become a problem and us not be able to address it. Well, it didn't sound like it was too much of a problem. I mean, is it a big problem or is it not a big problem?

I don't want it to be a problem. So, the the idea is that we're going to be a little proactive. It's happened before. People brought it up. I mean, it it's 2001 Ford Explorer. Um, and I don't want that to happen again. So, it's sort of reactive but also proactive. So, for $26 a year, I can I'm it can sit there till it rots down till it turns back into earth. I don't know if anybody would know that or not. Well, it says, you know,

or it doesn't say and. So for the purpose of this section, an abandoned vehicle abandoned motor vehicle is defined as one that is in a state of disrepair or is incapable of being moved under its own power or which does not have current state registration or valid license plate attached to it. See for me the whole the conversation does go around 25 years is an arbitrary arbitrary number. It is that I think that's the definition of an antique. I can get I can get an antique plate to put on my old truck if I want to. This made sense when the code was created in the 80s. Yeah. Or the 70s. Yeah. We're not there anymore. But now we're going to tell somebody you're 2002, we can ticket it and haul it away. But 2001, we can't.

That's arbitrary. I'm still driving old trucks like I got trucks. 2005. You're driving. You're driving them. I hope you have I hope you have your license. Everything. Not necessarily. He is still driving them. I'm driving, right? And they'll go fast enough to get a speeding ticket in. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your registration gets checked regularly. Yeah, it does. Yeah. If you all don't want to change it, that's fine. No, I'm not saying that. I just want us to think about it and make sure we're doing the right thing. I I propose that we table this until we have a full set of three. Yeah, that may be forever, but Yeah,

but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I don't know that we're gonna because it is a it is a debatable topic. Um and I I have no idea how a vote would go right now, but I think having three people here to vote on it would be

okay. Um in the meantime, I will maybe look up what some other municipalities have and we can work off of that. Also try to try to put some definition or some parameters around 25 years. Is that an arbitrary number or is there something that there's a national standard that says an antique vehicle is 25 years old? So I called um called the registration. I called the clerk's office and in order for a vehicle to get antique tags, it's 25 5 years old. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, that's pretty good enough for me. Yeah, that's good enough for me. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think that's a good idea, Britney. And then let's other municipalities or the the other municipalities. Uh and then let's uh let's bring this back. Let's take on a little while. I'm not big on telling people what to do with their stuff. I mean, I don't think it's our business till people do their stuff as long as we can keep our city clean and don't it's not an eyesore, you know. I understand that that that that become and I I agree with what you're saying, but that becomes a difficult question.

It does. It does. Yeah, it does. So, okay. So, we're going to table this, right? Are you okay with that? You're not going to slap any of us around after the cameras go off or anything? Because, man, I've seen you with a baseball bat. No, it's a it's a good discussion. It is. It is a good discussion and that's I think that's what we should do. So So all right, George, you got any updates?

Yeah, I got just one or two or three. U people's probably if you do Facebook been seeing a lot of comments on the red light system through town. Uh we have been working on different ones. Uh we're having to change out some loops and detectors that's went bad. So, just bear with us and we'll get the uh that's the little things under the car that you pull up on. Okay. And I guess they some of them went bad so we've had to replace them. And uh just bear with us. We're we're still in the process of getting We're still going to get everything synchronized, right?

Yes. Uh we're still waiting on uh I think it's T DOT waiting on a couple more items from them. It'll be from uh Oak Road. out 41 south toward Walmart. So everything will be in sync. Yeah. And it will come back this way. That'll be good when that happens. That'll Oh, yeah. It'll be a lot easier onbody. They've had a lot of turnover at T and I think that's kind of been a long They've had a lot of employees move. Of course, we're still working on our sidewalk projects. We've been doing some remodeling in our uh public works break room. Had to change out a bunch of stuff. And all we got in it is the labor. So

that's cheap enough. Yep. Uh well, and we did receive our uh cold mix hot box today. I was going to ask. Yeah. We're going to do some training on it today because I've still got to get it into the insurance and all that. What's the feedback from your from your team? They like it. Yeah. They're excited to get to use it. They want to go today and I got some training on it. But I think it'll work out good for us. What were you guys doing on coffee street today? Coffee down by the first the church. Coffee street. Oh. Was putting in some 59 shop rock down the edge of them bridges where they washed off. I wish.

I know what you're I wish if you know. So well that might be a good spot for us to try it. Well, I'm all for that. That's what I was thinking. That's been there a long time. Yeah. It needs to be fixed. So, okay, we still have two openings, one heavy and one light equipment. So, hopefully next week we can do some interview with Miss Tina and get that taken care of. Other than that, that's all I have. Okay. Anybody else? My budget, I'm sorry. The budget we're at uh on the public works we're at 46%. And then on the uh sanitation, we're at 79%. has to do the vehicles involved.

Is that through December or through January? It's through February 20th through today. Oh, okay. So, he just adds up today. Yeah. No kidding. I didn't think I thought we was always a month behind, but that's good. This Hey, who looks after the the grounds now at the park? Uh, that'll be Miranda. So, is it not I thought you guys are are y'all mowing? What What are y'all doing down there? Well, actually, we're they took it over. Miranda, did she? I thought y'all did that. No, she took over the mowing, the weed eating, the maintenance, and all. Okay. Now, if she needs help, yeah, we help her, you know, occasionally, but that's very seldom. Okay. But we was doing it back last summer.

I thought you were. Yeah. But in the meantime, Miranda has taken Okay. And she's in the the You're right. She's in the uh the little house there. Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. On white street. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And she has her couple of maintenance people doing maintenance work. All right. Anybody else got anything? You got anything? Y'all have anything? John, you got anything? I mean, we'll let anybody talk. We don't care. So, let's uh let's talk about the bridge Mr. Holland brought up at Bulma. Okay. So, that is that is city property. Yeah. Uh, have you had a chance to look at it or

uh I know T dot inspects it of course that book that we had is they just listed as fair. Yeah. So, but there's a lot of them in town listed as fair. So, yeah. When was that uh rating done? Do you know? It was just uh in December. Okay. Okay. So, that's where we was talking about maybe trying to put some money in our budget because we're in the budget. Now we're trying to get some numbers together for a budget for next year. Yeah. So that's where we was talking about putting money in there. I think establishing a bridge fund is a good ide

impact fee. Impact fee. Okay. The 80% go to schools, 20% went to whatever else. It's not specifically the bridge. It's just uh I think it's general infrastructure or something like something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're going to use that for that. That won't be enough. That won't be near enough. But we make that a line item in Georgia. We can next year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a list where we've been working on trying to get this stuff together. But you don't want I mean, there's bridges in this city that are in worse shape than that bridge. Oh, yeah. So, that's the ones we need to get to. And you don't want to I know Ed was talking about widening the bridge and then it's useless to widen the bridge if you don't widen the road too, right?

So, you know, you're talking cuz you're going to have to bottle probably what five six million bucks there to do all that. You know, it's a lot of money. Yeah. For a project that's not even started. Well, it's it's a good conversation and and being able to line item Yeah. repair money and then and do can and you can maintain a a priority list. That way when the conversation comes up, we can say your bridge is you know sixth on the priority list by rating. Adam is still working on their list to inspect do is not do. Yeah.

And and I every if if you you actually have I understand people have valid concerns about people developing in their area. And we ought to address those concerns and and we need to make it as easy as less of an impact as we can make it to to for everybody involved. But everybody, and I mean everybody, one of the first things they say is traffic's going it's going to ruin our traffic. We won't be able to get in and out, you know, and And I respect Mr. Holland. I've known him a long time and he's a sharp person, but he's a mile and a half up the road from where traffic will be from that project. And if I'm going to listen to somebody, I won't listen to somebody that'sffected.

Yeah, I'm not I'm not knocking at all. I mean, I'm not knock I'm not knocking him, but but I I do think his concerns about the bridge were it was valid. He got a valid point about he definitely worth investigating and seeing what we can do. But most of the bonner traffic now comes into backway. It comes in off camp. Yeah. There's not a lot comes in through there anymore. So, yeah. Yep. So, but yeah, that's all right. We talk we'll put that on on the that on the ballot for next time if you want to talk about it or whatever we can. Anything else?

I'm good. I move to adjourn. I'll second and we'll all vote a Yes, we will. All right. Go home. Thank y'all. Thank you. How's campaign coming? I had really gotten started yet. All the buttons disappeared. All the buttons disappeared. Just punch it. I pushed in the stream and like all the buttons went black.

What? I just push this button right here. Now all the buttons are

I'm not saying anything about y'all, but you know what? She killed it. It shocked me. Everything's still green. You be quiet. I'm still recording.