City Council - Regular Meeting

Tell me when you're ready. We're going to go ahead and call the August 10th, 2026 City Council, Recess City Council meeting to order. We do have Ward 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and at large all present. And I will ask Councilwoman Moynan to lead us in our prayer.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Gracious God, we thank you for giving us the resources to to spend wisely and for the good of our community. I think it's been widely known that we are being very good stewards of what is before us. May we continue this path with wisdom. Amen.

liberty and justice for all.

well first order of business I will call for a motion to set the public hearing on the proposed budget and proposed tax levies for the FY for FY 27 on September 1st 2026 at 530 p.m. and authorized advertisement of the public hearing and the Seacoast ECHO motion motion by councilman Smith do I have a second second by councilman DeSalvo any discussion

Yeah I just had a couple points of discussion and my apologies council I had some conflicting meetings at my day job that didn't allow me to be at the last budget meeting but I just wanted it won't take long but I wanted to go over a couple items that I wanted to certainly discuss and see if we could potentially just have a you know discussion amongst the council and see what direction we all want to take on it but my first would be the page Pitch five, the Main Street Association fees, I'm sorry, the director's salary at 35,000. What I'd like to do is see what, you know, because we discussed this at length a few months back when we were going over what we're paying on the city-owned buildings and leasing out, and then what we're paying in terms of the insurance and also the utilities. And if I'm not mistaken, on this particular building, we're in the neighborhood of about $70,000 with insurance and also utilities. It may not be that exact amount. But with that being said, i would like to see you know we've discussed before we're seeing roughly from the county about 435 000 a year going to coastal mississippi so what would be the ability for coastal mississippi paying our share since we're already housing it and paying for the insurance utilities using that money that we would have used for that director salary and upkeep of that building because we know that's an old building we know that there's going to be some wear and tear with the new venture and that's gonna be our responsibility. So what is our ability to say, hey, look, Coastal Mississippi, you guys come to the table, a lot of the lion's share of that money is coming from Bay St. Louis, you guys pay that portion, and we'll make sure that we emarc some monies that's gonna be set aside to be able to pay for wear and tear and upkeep of that building.

Didn't we discuss this, Ms. Moynihan?

Yes, we did.

Oh, he wasn't here.

I think what, to have the three government entities City of Bay St. Louis, Hancock County Board of Supervisors and the Hancock Court and Harbor be the main funders, and the rest falls under sponsorships. So I think it's very feasible that we could ask Coastal Mississippi to become a sponsor, as we would with Mississippi Power or Coastal.

But not in place of what we're paying. Not in place of what we would be paying for that director, right?

We could ask them for that.

So where do we stand? Mike, can we get Coastal Mississippi to come address the council? I don't know if they've been here since we've been on, actually. I know in the past they offered a meeting outside of the council I want to make sure it's at the council so love to get him to come here and see if that's the possibility has the steering committee had any discussions about that or anything with Coastal Mississippi we've had we have a list of sponsors that we will be going after in addition aside from

the three government entities. And let me just explain that the depot is a city, you know, that's our community hub.

I agree with that, yeah.

Mississippi Main Street is going to be running it basically making sure that the operations of the Welcome Center in addition to what they normally would do going after grants and dealing with beautification and facade grants and whatnot for the whole downtown area so a part of that being the ability to grants because because at the end of the day if there's something that breaks or if there's something that's so that's on us the city that we repair that

So that's where I'm coming from, is that money can be set aside or earmarked where we have that ability to provide those repairs in addition to, again, the insurance and the utilities. Because we've talked about that. We're not going to get all of our expense paid for.

I know one of the things we mentioned, was that either the last one or maybe the one before, going out for our own 2% tax. Yeah, we talked about that. And the reality of it, the tax that's going to Coastal Mississippi, I mean, I hate to say it this way, but we don't really have control of those funds. It's Board of Supervisors sending it, and then once Coastal Mississippi has it, We can ask them to, but if they tell us no, then we're right back to where we are. If they do say yes, then we can move this and pull it off and use it for repairs. But if they say no, are you good with continuing to fund it? I'm sorry.

Like I said, I would like to have that discussion. I know we're on strict timelines, obviously, in getting this advertised. I'd like to have that information before in the budget, but that's just me. I mean, I can ask to pull it, and then we pull the council, and you guys can put it back in. But I'd like to see it to where, again, have we had a commitment from the other? Where's the county standing in their commitment to this? Where's Point Harbor? Have we had a firm commitment? Have they built this into their budget?

It's in that budget for recommendations.

Supervisors has not met yet for their budget, and Port and Harbor just met today. But they've all been pre, you know, they have been aware of this and have been quite responsive.

You know, and one of the things, you know, we talked about, and it's all good points we got, you know, about it and all, you know, is to get this thing started, and the intention is that they're on their own, and within a couple years, they completely self-funded to where we don't put anything into it at all. That's what the goal is. And by doing that, they're going to have to get their sponsors and everything else to go along with whatever they're doing to raise their money and all. So that's the ultimate goal. That's their ultimate goal, you know, the ones that are putting this together. They won't be self-funded. They don't want to rely on any of the entities to do it. They're asking for help to get started with this.

Yeah, and I want to see some, you know, I'm assuming it would be a year-to-year. I'd like to see it because that's, I mean, I'm not throwing this under the bus, but that's how cruising started is to help them get on their feet, and we're still, 20 years later, still funding them each year. So I'd like to see it that we're looking at something that there is an escape route.

We fund it because we try to get them in. We're funding because we host it. We don't want to be a host and we don't fund it.

I'm just saying there's got to be an escape ramp somewhere.

We've carried downtown emergency until recently. That was a big event every year, that emergency downtown, and not just downtown, the little hotels that we had, any VRBOs back then. That's how they made it through the year, this one big event.

like i said i mean it's i'm just one voice on it i'd like to see it pulled and then i guess my my question is is going back to the if we we invite coastal mississippi we ask them to pay 35 and they say no are you okay with paying the 35 000 as it is in the budget

I'm not because we are, again, we're housing that. We're paying, because it is a community asset. At the end of the day, it falls on our books. No, not to the county or to the Port and Harbor, but that's not on them. They're not paying the insurance. They're not paying for the utilities. They're not paying for the upkeep.

And nor are they benefiting from the sales tax and the revenue.

What would be, have you all done a projection on what that would be? Quantitatively. Because we get 18% of the 7%. So, I mean, we can forecast that out. But I think right now in the upstart, it's going to be a very minimal. I mean, it's just to cover the expenses. So, that's probably a long-term goal. But I think the immediate payoff on the sales tax is going to be extremely minimal. Just like anything. I mean, it's going to take some years of building that up. But like I said, that's just me. I mean, if the council wants to proceed on that, I would like to see it pulled.

Before we go to the next thing, if y'all want to pull it. I think we should vote. Yeah, we'll vote on it. That way we can have it.

I do have a question that Kyle's bringing a point of, because you mentioned the sponsors. So would the sponsors' donations actually be able to pay for salary with them being a non-profit?

No, it would probably be more just sponsorship. I guess it would fall in donations.

I think the government entities would fall more into operational salary. And then the sponsorships would go into, you know, programming.

Nancy, would you have a copy? You remember the handout you gave us? I didn't bring my stuff in. That broke down, like, donations. I gave it all to you.

I don't have it with me.

And we have to remember, they'll be paying us rent that we never got before, too.

What's that?

They'll be paying us rent.

Yes, $1,000 a month.

Exactly.

And there's a lot of other revenue sources that will help them become stand-alone.

Yes, we talked about that in the last meeting.

About the $3,000, we're technically getting $12,000 back in rent. And then the other municipalities or entities, I guess, will be paying, is it $10,000?

And also, I just want to add, I think the support for it is on a year-to-year basis, right? So Kyle's point, I don't want in three, four, five, six years from now that that's an annual contribution that we're giving them. Right now, I view it as an investment, right? We're putting that towards there. Are we going to see the return in sales tax year one? Absolutely not. Someone told us that. I mean, we're not going to see the return year one. But I think if this one-year investment and maybe a two-year investment, if the budget allows it, I think we were fortunate this year to have a little room in the budget where we didn't have to ask for an increase. It's not like we're asking for an increase so we can do this. Where do we want to prioritize the money, right? But I think that this is an investment not for this year to see a return, and maybe if we're fortunate to be able to do it next year, maybe they're self-sufficient by then, but I'm hoping that this will turn around and be a push to, because right now, I mean, we're restricted to the build-out in our downtown and Bay St. Louis, but maybe it could be the way to, I'm starting to see some development further down Main Street South Tulum maybe it could be a way to connect the depot and downtown but it just has to have someone to do that push so you know I'm looking at it we paid a $10,000 fee last year to buy into it that was our first phase of investment I think this is second phase but you know but for this year I'm personally okay with with doing it seeing if we with the hopes that it's gonna eventually pay for itself and it'll be self-funded but but I don't I don't want it to turn into the where we're responsible for a portion of it every year maybe next year it decreases from

And it'll be in the bylaws that they have to come and give us quarterly reports or whenever we need them.

And that's another thing. I don't want to give anybody taxpayer money without knowing what it's going to be used for. So it's specifically outlined what it is. And if we're comfortable with what it's going to be used for, then we'll go from there.

So technically we're earmarking that amount. We haven't officially... Right, because there's different tiers. And that's what I brought up last time when they were here. Like, is this the tier we definitely want, or is there a cheaper tier as well that we can still get benefit from without investing the full?

Network is the next phase that we have to go through, and that cost us $1,500, which I think is very reasonable. And that's already been paid, invoiced and paid.

Okay.

The only concern is the city. That's coming out of Main Street.

Yeah.

And as a dude goes up for Main Street, Mississippi, and he'll also pay all that.

So dudes, we're paying, what, $10,000?

$1,500 this year and next year.

First year was $10,000. Yes. That was in our budget.

That was what was recently budgeted. Yeah. Yeah.

And just kind of one of the, I missed the meeting, but I did go back and watch it, and I knew one of my original concerns was if it was gonna be membership-based. I know Councilman Lewis asked that question, and it's not, so it's gonna be for the benefit of everyone, which when you're talking about taxpayer money, that's what we want. We want to try to inject into the, hopefully it'll help inject into the local economy, so.

uh that's kind of where i stand if anyone else has any comments or not but i'm just ready for a vote mr president i agree with you jordan i mean i i'm all for investing in three or four years still needing the same input into the same monetary time to reconsider from what from what the proposal it seems like it's going to fill a void it feels somewhat of a void right now i mean we can still

ask Coastal if they would like to pick it up. But in the event they say no, I don't want it to die there personally. But it's the power of negotiation. We're at a public meeting and they're going to watch this.

it sounds like again that's the desire the council keep that in there they're still going to have to come to us for an agreement um all those can certainly be discussed and presented and negotiated um lay i know you want to come to a vote i have one other item that i would be remiss not to bring up if jordan allows And that's on page 12, and this is something that's gained national attention, everybody's aware of, but I think it's something we need to follow from a national level, but also from a grassroots level, and talking with constituents and citizens, and that's gonna be what we've budgeted for the software maintenance agreement. Our current budget's 37,000, and we increased it to 183,523. A bulk of that is gonna be the 121,000 that we're using for the flock camera system for the license plate readers and the pan, zoom, and tilt cameras. There is, so that is a grant. So that's a federal grant, right? That's a Mississippi Homeland Security. However, there has been a couple different proposals from the House level, actually, on July 21st. There was one proposed, I think it's Congressman Burchett from Tennessee, that would essentially, it hasn't come to vote yet, but it will soon, that would not allow any federal funds to be used to pay for this, the mass surveillance, and it's actually called the Mass Surveillance Act, I believe is what the official term is. Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act. It's a federal bill introduced, House Bill 9800. So that would essentially leave it to where those funds that we're going after would no longer be available. we would be responsible for using our funds for it. And we've already discussed the concerns. I think, you know, we have neighboring counties and neighboring municipalities. There's about 100 actually just this year alone that had flock camera system that is no longer using it, that they canceled the contract. And its concern is there's potentially a violation. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on it, but it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment and the warrantless searches. And so I would definitely like to have a discussion with a flock representative before we proceed in that $121,000 earmark. I know it's a grant, but I'd like to have a lot more vetting information from Flock because we've yet to meet with Flock. And I don't know if we have a representative that comes and somebody had to reach out originally.

Did you get with Alvin and set something up?

Well, I want it at the council. I want to make sure it's done to the council as an opportunity because I've gotten – I've talked to citizens. I was at the baseball field the other day because there's something going on at Picayune Park River that they're discussing. And people didn't even realize we had it. And so I think it's more of an education standpoint and it's awareness. I've yet to see anybody that says they're thrilled about it, about the safety of it. The concern is that, okay, a lot of questions come up at who can access information. And unfortunately, there's about 80 cases in the country right now where officers have been – terminated and are going through indictment for misuse. And so I think FLOC's supposed to be putting in some guardrails and safeguards to where that can be put in place. Do we have any policies and procedures right now? Who accesses it? How often do we have a check and balance or an auditing tool that we use to see how...

I don't have it in place over there. I don't know who's allowed to or how often or whatever. I don't know if it's just when they get... I think we paid for 11 users based on the original one if I remember whenever Chief Kingston and Drew was here

They talked about they have an audit log. It has to be a crime, has to be used. And they kind of touched on very few people actually have access to it. I don't know if we can get an update, maybe a policy procedure. So I know there's obviously the national level attention, but we need to control everything we can control at the local level. With the existing ones, not even looking at additional purchases. One of the things I did, actually, a resident who happens to possibly be in our audience today, I know it's crowded, but him and I had a conversation as well about the flock cameras. Now, if it does become to where it's, in my mind, though, the money coming in here is going to be from Homeland Security. Now, just because they're giving us the money does not mean we have to use it. But as far as from a budgeting perspective, my thought is if they give us the money, And we can have the discussion as a council whenever it comes time to approve it. Because it's not going to be purchased without our... Well, we've already approved the 25.

The pan, tilt, and zooms were approved in February of 25.

Yeah, but I'm talking about for this $121,000.

So that covers... I'm assuming that's the software, Mike. Is that for the license plate readers on top of the pan, tilt, and zoom? This would be additional or... So it's all-encompassing. So we have the 13 license plate readers, 25 pan, temp, tilt, and zoom. That 121 covers the software and everything, right? That's supposed to cover all that. Have the pan, tilt, and zoom been installed yet?

No. They were ordering both this and that.

So this isn't a purchase of any new additional? This is just software for our current?

I think it's going to be for both of them. in the upcoming year. Once those are installed, this should cover all that.

And when does it, when would that come before the, because that'll have to come before the council to use. I know we approved it back in February, but for this fiscal year, it would have to.

Yeah, we approved the purchase of those, which, yeah, I mean, they're being purchased now, so you can, as soon as they're purchased, you can put them in the, because we're budgeting for the software, so they can go into use. We've already approved that.

Yeah.

Or it was approved. And where are those, do we have those locations set yet?

They do. I don't have them on me, but most of our property down in the harbor, Summit Washington Street over there, our parks and properties.

And that's where, and again, this is more where a flock representative can kind of tell me, because I've got kids. I don't post anything on Facebook. A lot of people don't post their children or the faces of the children. So now we've got cameras at the parks. So who does have access? How readily available is that access? And I want to better understand, can I go, because this is public funds on a public road. public entity, can I go in and do a FOIA and say, I want to see Cliff Rabelais' information for the past 30 days? Is that, because this is not private. This is not a private, I mean, this is all public. Because I just, because I want to know as a parent, like I want to know, okay, we go to the park lot, how often is my kid's image going to be captured? You know, and then how is that accessed? Who has access? So, I mean, it's all information that, again, it's just, this is becoming, I think, more and more are becoming aware of it, and there's a lot of, there's obviously the House of Representatives, you know, has concerns on it to push forward a bill, and I think the more awareness, the more scary this potentially could be, and I'm not downplaying, you know, trying to give our officers the tools necessary to help solve crimes, but how many crimes have we solved up to this point with the license plate readers? And at what point is it worth violation of our constitutional rights. They have solved crimes.

In fact, Mr. Kingston, when he was here last time, explained to us that that very week they had solved a crime.

So one crime is worth violating our potential constitutional rights.

This week they just passed, and I'm a benefit to the information, so I won't go into no detail, but we just had a situation where someone was out of state, was in Bay St. Louis, had pinged three times, And we actually, like, probably saved some girl's life. So it's a lot of information that doesn't get released to the public, but they are definitely beneficial. And just like if you come in and out of Mississippi, your tag is being read. Anytime you cross any state lines, your tag is being read. And we have our own personal security. We hire somebody to sit there and watch cameras all day? Or do we just put it to where only certain user IDs can actually access it?

But we don't. Does everybody fully know in this council? I mean, do we fully know how that is operating? I mean, we've never really fully gotten that.

I do agree that FLOC should present us. We have not met with FLOC at all. We've gotten third-party information from the police department. But they have not approached us.

I just want to be able to better answer questions.

Or have received any material regarding FLOC.

Right. I think if FLOC come in, I think the council needs to pass an ordinance that they have to go by where it takes two people to enter into it to view things. That way... You got less chance of one person going in there by themselves. I just seen one on news that day. Somebody tracking their girlfriend or boyfriend, whatever it was, on the flock cameras. So we need to make sure that maybe it's a two-user system where you got to have dual passwords, but then two people know there's some kind of protection to protect against this because... I still believe in the flock cameras. I still want them. But I think we've got to put safeguards in place to make the residents feel more secure that one person's not just pulling up information, looking at data, and doing something. So there needs to be some security measures in place to protect it.

They would have to have probable cause before they even started looking at the cameras.

Everything gets abused.

They don't just go in there and just, oh, let's watch and see what so-and-so's doing.

No, it's warrantless. You have to go on cell towers. You have to get a subpoena, but not on this. It is no probable cause.

Well, technically, that needs to be in our SOP, our standard operation and procedures, that what you're talking about.

Probable cause?

Yes, right, because like you said, if you have an ID, you can log in. Just like if you're a police officer and you call dispatch and you run in tags on your own personal time, you have access to people's personal information.

Right.

And any and every, I can abuse it once you have that access, but...

that needs to be something that needs to be in our sops and our um handbooks and that's that's something i guess one of the circling back to one of the first things i wanted to touch on was making sure at the local level we're controlling what we can control because you hear i mean i mean you can go back and when technology wasn't this advanced someone just running a license plate to find out whose car was at their ex-girlfriend's house right so Anything can be abused, but if we can put safeguards in place at the local level to ensure that it's not gonna be abused by us. Now I know on the national level there's concerns about where it's stored at. I've tried to do some research. It seems like it's stored on FedRAMP approved servers. Can hackers get into it and hack it? Or can that information be sold?

If we can hack Homeland Security, good luck.

The FedRAMP approvals, I know it's hard to get.

But we all get messages that, hey, you've been part of a data breach.

We can get our department here. We'll try to have them here for the 18th. That's our next meeting.

at Flock here?

If nothing else, Flock and Zoom. I don't know where they're at. They've got to fly in and out. I don't think there's a local representative. If that's what we want, we can do that. Also, if you can send some of the things you're looking for, whether they send somebody or they do a Zoom and all, then they can have some of the information that we're looking at and know who to send or

Yeah, I want to, yeah, and again, I want to, with this being public data, public information, I want to know if this is something that can just be accessed by anybody. Can anybody put a FOIA in and access?

You know, that's a, if we can get something, I know.

I don't know. I mean, I, yeah.

I know last time they came.

Through our department.

And in our department, I know they said they have to have an act of crime. It has to be an investigation for them to pull. Yeah, make sure.

That's in the standing operating procedure and in the policies and procedures. Make sure it's not just, you know, it's documented.

To Kyle's point, if somebody comes and says, hey, I lost my cell phone at the park, so I want to request data from your cameras from this time to this time, do we have to give it to them? That's legitimate.

And then like that's, well, I mean, depending on the value of the phone, but are we going to use the flocks for misdemeanor crimes? Like we probably shouldn't, but it'd be great to have in place for like damage reports to our buildings and properties. Right.

I like that. I think.

And the reality is even this meeting is being recorded. Everywhere we go, everybody's got a camera in their hand. So if I'm at a playground and I'm filming kids or filming somebody swinging on a swing or stuff, It's impossible to get away from that stuff.

The First Amendment auditors.

If I didn't end up filming my kid at the playground, I'd call the police and say, hey, they're violating my rights here.

Yeah, but somebody could be filming their kids and your kids could be in the background.

Well, I think the key is when we have thought come to speed, we need to advertise and let people be aware of it. Cliff, did you know about this a couple weeks ago? Again, I've just had, I mean, it's becoming more and more prevalent and awareness of concerns of it, so I think the public needs to.

I got pulled over so many times by Lawrence, Alabama police. It got to where whoever the good citizen was that was thinking I was committing a crime, you know, was called in, the dispatcher would say, is that that little red Datsun? No, he's not drunk. It got so bad that the local officers already knew my car. I got pulled over every week for three years. So being a crime doesn't necessarily mean that somebody doesn't think it's a crime, even though it's not.

What I concluded from my earlier conversations with Mr. Cliff is that he's a bad driver.

And these will not be issuing like speeding tickets or you know red light tickets right like that so As far as flocks I understand that some you know, you're worried about privacy but if you go to the mall if you go to Walmart if you go to the bank Once you leave Bay St. Louis, you're going to be on them in Waveland. Once you leave the Bay, you're going to be on them in the past.

You can do what you want on private property. I can have one as long as it's not facing the road. I've got ring cameras.

But all I know is that if my children were still young or if I had grandbabies and there was a chance that if one of them was kidnapped and that block camera could get them back to us. I'd be extremely upset the next day knowing I didn't vote to have them.

I'll drink to that.

Yeah, everyone, we've discussed that. But again, having those, those are private entities. This is the government having this information. It's a little different.

So question, Mayor, just so we know how we can proceed for our budget, because obviously that's a discussion we need to have, police department flock, so we're not assuming a whole lot, right? But my question as far as the purpose of the budget is flock cameras are purchased. This is the software and license for it. In order for that to be purchased, it will have to come back for approval from the council.

We already approved it.

I'm saying this part of the contract, though, for the $100,000.

If we choose not to fund it through this, then we need to come up with $121,000, whatever that number is, to fund that, or we say we don't want it no more.

Because, say, if Homeland Security, if federal funds can't go towards it, I mean, that's a lot of local. That comes from our budget.

I think they have this approved already for the budget coming in. I think they got the information.

So that would be future years.

You know, again, if it's not funded through there, we decide that we want to come up with $121,000 or we just want to let those locks go back.

So for the purpose of the $120,000 that's budgeted, I know we purchased the cameras. This will have to come up. We didn't vote last year to spend this $120,000, did we? No, we did $37,000.

We did $37,000, but we would have to vote. I think we had a grant last year to pay for it.

We would have to vote to spend this $120,000 is what I'm saying. We've already spent it.

No, it's in the budget, and that's what it's for.

Yeah, they can be spent on it.

That's the only thing that can be spent on.

Right.

It still doesn't have, even if it's over. It's over $10,000. It's over $10,000.

So would it still come on the agenda? Why not?

It would just be on the docket. But it's specific.

It would be on the docket. Yeah. But that's the only thing that it could be used for is that. It can't be used to go buy.

And right now it's just the in and the out. We've got it coming in on the grant side, going out on this side.

If we don't get it, don't go out. Again, we just don't have it.

I'll say if that bill passes and they don't fund it or something, then we've got to make the decision. Do we pay for it a different way?

We'll get them in here for the meeting at least.

Yeah, let's just get dialogue.

I just want to better understand this. Get them in here. And again, if we choose to take it out of the budget and not go forward with it, so be it. That's what we do. It'll just be a line item we don't accept.

Mr. Cliff, I know we don't have it, but if you... This is a workshop. We'll let you come talk because you got called on twice. You got picked on, but if you don't mind keeping it very brief.

Cliff Rabelais, 702.3. My concern is... And Linda, to your point. Yes, we need cameras. I'm not so concerned about as... the availability, that the city doesn't have true control over what those cameras look at. You know, if the city of Bay St. Louis said, okay, Flock International or whatever the parent company is, you can only get that data from us if we give it to you. Right now, it's the opposite way around. We don't get the data from them unless they give it to us. And that's the issue, is that we're not in control of the privacy data for the citizens of Bay St. Louis. We've turned that over to somebody else, and they have to agree to give it to us. It needs to be the other way around. We need the City of Bay St. Louis says, this data comes in, the City of Bay St. Louis locks it down in whatever format, and then if the National Register, whichever private entity company that's getting federal funds wants to see what we got, they've got to get it. We've got to agree to give it to them. Right now, it's the other way.

Thank you, Mr. Cliff.

Thank you, Jordan, for allowing me to speak.

And what I think, I guess, once again, let's invite Flock here because I think everyone's understanding is, especially with the media, it could be skewed, I think, asking them directly. Because my understanding is, I guess, it's held on a FedRAMP-approved server. Those are hard to get, and we're downloading it back to it from a server, and it's only stored for so many days. I just want to make sure all that stuff's verified.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the lights failure is 30 days. I think the pan zoom until 60. But, yeah, and I don't know the answer to that. I don't know because it's a private entity. Are they intertwined into – they're getting government funds, but are they part of Homeland Security? No, they're not. So it's just funds coming from Homeland Security, but that's a private entity blockage. So I don't think they're tied into the safeguards of Homeland Security.

But that's where we just need these answers. But if they're telling us it's deleted after 30 days and six days and they're keeping it longer, then that's where the...

The equipment is already purchased, too. That's something we may need to talk to the police department about as well. Because if something does happen and we vote against it, then are we able to return that equipment? So maybe they need to, like, pause what they have going on? Yeah. Because I think we should still fund what we have installed and that we had budgeted for last year. That was with the original 12.

Also, just. Y'all want to do this during the meeting or workshop before the meeting? What? Five o'clock. I mean I think we either way we need to just make sure we advertise it right here.

Now for today I'm for leaving the budget as it is. I think it's great conversation, great questions Kyle brought up. I'm all for discussion but I don't want to change the budget at this point in my opinion. I'm one person but I feel the same. Now if FLOC comes in here then if we need to change something we'll go back and change it.

If FLOC comes in here and I know there's a lot of media attention, a lot of national attention right now. But, you know, social media and stuff, it could be really skewing one way or another. I would like to hear the facts from what FLOC's telling us and what they could be held accountable to, as well as that are especially emphasizing our local level to make sure that it's not going to be abused. Yeah. at the local level.

I do agree. I do just want to bear in mind, though, that Flock is selling us a service. So they're going to tell, again, this is a salesman we're going to be talking to, so I think everyone needs to do research and due diligence. And again, 100 municipalities in the past year have canceled where they had Flock in place. So I just, again, everyone due diligence. I'm sure we're all going to have questions, but just Flock is selling us a service. They're selling us something. So there's going to be...

They want to talk about the positives. Yeah. Yeah. They're making money.

There you go. A lot of money. Use car salesmen.

Right. That's what I was like. We may need to hold off any installation of anything so we can return the equipment if we decide to change our mind afterwards.

Anyone have anything else outside of that we can move on to?

Or find out if we can.

Do you know why they canceled? I was there, like...

complaints from constituents or i think there's i think there's a combination i think yeah i think complaint concerns again it's it's going to go to the supreme court they haven't ruled on it but the violation of warrantless searches so i mean i think every municipality probably has different rationales and reasons yeah um about the cost of it too that podcast was good and that's not where i'm getting all my information good though

Yeah, I'm more concerned about that than the 35 on Main Street.

Well, I pay a heck of a lot of federal taxes, too. I know we all do, so there's no such thing as... I know, but it's just local, state, federal.

I've seen some of these... And look it up, I've seen some really abuse flock. I think at the local level, I've also seen where... see outside of a church that had a flock camera i don't know that's we need that yeah that's not what you wanted some of these areas i think went crazy and abused them so i think there's a responsibility at the local level that we really gotta be cautious and careful with but um anyway that's what i had about the placements From what I'm understanding, maybe that'll be a good thing too, Mayor, to see if they can show us the placements. Because I know there's entrances at first and parks and areas that protect children. Yeah, that way we can talk about it.

And we can approve those placements. Yeah. I should be able to.

I think they had that when we approved it already, where they were going.

All right. Any other discussion? Any other line items need to be discussed?

Is that all? The only thing, we do have money in the budget for an election, though. We do. If we do the 2%. If we do want to work on that.

And again, whatever reason we don't use that or whatever, it would go into the reserve.

I think we need to, we talked about it five years ago, I think, when Kyle brought it up and it didn't get done. I think it's time we explore it again.

We're going to start putting that together.

You know, it's later on in the legislature when it happens, you know, local privates and We'll have everything ready for them to go.

So we need to do something in the next two months or something so when they get back in January or February, we can send it up to them?

Yeah, I tried to do a little bit of research, too, to see about, like we was talking, maybe add it to another election. But it's the way our polls are that I think it's going to not do us service. So we pretty much, of course, just host our own.

I have a question.

Yeah, because it's like the county election polls may be not the exact same as the Bay. And sometimes they will have to jump from.

Until my bail be done. Trust me, I get calls every time it's voting time. What do I vote? Fire station or home field? So I think it could be done.

I just think it might be an inconvenience, but yeah.

Just curious last time it was brought up Wasn't it?

I thought last time was brought it was food and beverage and hotel We did food and beverage first Kyle got elected we talked about that it was like election year and nobody would present the bill and

I think.

No, but we've only voted on it once. We was approved to do it once.

So the food and beverage went to referendum and it failed. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. But then.

We've never had anything else approved that went out of the vote.

No. It died. We approved the resolution and it died on the House floor.

Was it ever just hotel motel?

It was just the 2% hosting.

That's what wouldn't go. Yeah. Yeah.

We exclude. I think excluding food and beverage.

Yeah. Because that's a local. That's another local. That's a local. Our locals. Okay.

We did the hotel motel. It just didn't get jacked and didn't get put on the floor. But that's when you make abundantly clear what it is.

Some people might assume it's going to be combined. So education is key on that.

Can you set parameters for the food and beverage? Like as far as Old Town or certain areas, not the entire for the food and beverage tax.

Could you?

Yeah.

I'm sure you could do it.

But then again, locals who want to go to Old Town, that's a tax for them. I'm just asking.

I don't know if there's a way to differentiate the areas. I don't know if there's a way to delineate that. Because you're going to have to... I'm sure there's a way if that's what you want.

Some people got an entertainment area that they tax.

But all of us, we're all resort destination area. So even Casino to Main Street is all resort destination.

But we only have two entertainment districts. The Depot in Old Town is the only two where you can leave with a drink because them are special districts in those areas.

So you think it's only going to affect those two?

No, to Ms. Nancy's point, I would think the only way you would be able to do that is if you said we wanted to do it just in that special district where you got the Go Cups and all that stuff.

Yeah, Go Cups.

Yes, you know, that would be the only way I think you could do that. If not, any food and beverage like Popeyes, everything would have to be extra taxed.

Unfortunately, I think if you tried to bring it up, even with just that district, it would lose any kind of support. They didn't support it last time.

That was the main one that was against it last time.

Things are a lot different now.

If we did that, I would do that as a separate, not combined. Yeah, you don't want to pay for the other.

If you put them together, you're going to waste $82,000.

Yeah. Oh, I agree.

I don't think it would go.

It don't matter what district.

But to have something in, you know.

I think if you do it in that district, then.

well anything else any other questions about well we did have a motion in a second and any other discussion about the motion motion carries 7-0 I'll call for a motion to adjourn the recess meeting of August 10th, 2026. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Salvo. Any discussion about the motion?

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carried.