Board of Mayor & Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Good evening. This is August 11, 2026. We are right at 7 p.m. And this is the meeting of the Board of Mayor and Alderman for Hendersonville, Tennessee. We welcome you and appreciate you all being here and those who are watching us online or on TV. We're going to begin our meeting as we typically do, and that's with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. And tonight providing our prayer is Doug Skinner. He is the pastor of Victory Baptist Church. He's a new pastor there, but the church has been involved in our community for a long, long time and has been a very important part of our community. Pastor Skinner, we appreciate you being here and appreciate what you're doing for our community.

Thank you. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this good day of life. We thank you, Lord, for health and the opportunity to be here this evening. We thank you, Lord, for the wonderful country and nation that you've allowed us to be born in or to live in. We're grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy. We ask that you be with those that make decisions for us on a grand scale, Lord, with our military, those that keep us safe and sacrifice a portion of their life to protect the liberties that we have. We thank you to God for your son. Most of all, without him, there would be no hope for any of us. We're grateful for the death that he died at Calvary, the price of our sin that he paid to make a way for all men to have equal access to what we need most, forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We ask you, God, that she would be with those that have less than we, those that are struggling, those that struggle with things perhaps we've never experienced. Specifically, Lord, we ask that you be with Keith Free's mother-in-law. We ask that you give wisdom to those, Lord, that are caring for her tonight. Be with this meeting, dear God. We pray for wisdom as well for those that will be taking part in leading our community. We ask in Jesus' name for his precious name's sake.

Amen. Amen. And again, thank you. That's Pastor Doug Skinner at Victory Baptist Church. Thank you so much. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, invisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you all. I'm going to entertain a motion that we accept the agenda, and keep in mind that all three items under ordinance and resolutions are waiving our two-week rule. I will hope that you will allow that. I gave you an explanation by email of why those are important, namely that we won't meet for a month. There is one item on there that I have told a couple aldermen, and I need to do it publicly, that I anticipate that I will withdraw after some discussion. And that's resolution 2026 dash 26. We had a conversation in, um, uh, in general committee, uh, and we, we received a great, a great amount of input and that's what I'm hoping for tonight. And so I'm hoping that y'all will allow that to be on the agenda. I need a motion please. Oh, 26, 28. Sorry. Okay. Um, I need a motion. We have a motion from Alderman Goodwin and a second from, from Alderman Dixon. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the agenda as it was provided, I'm sorry, Alderman Collins.

Go ahead. I would like for us to not hear item number two, which is resolution 2026-28, because, and I think this will probably come up in citizen comments, but in the general committee we learned that there's actually another business entity that's interested in the exact same concept. And so we need to do a RFP rather than a letter of intent, in my opinion. When you have competing businesses for the same goal, it's just more transparent if you do that as a request for proposal. So I feel strongly that that's what we actually need to do, and then there's no need to discuss it because we would issue an RFP and then They would submit their proposals, both of them, formally. So I move to table resolution 2026-28, which is item 2 under ordinances and resolutions.

So you could only make a motion to table the whole motion, not just part of it. So you would need to request that we remove that item from the agenda.

Okay. That's fine. I request that we remove it from the agenda.

Okay. So that would be item number two.

Okay. We have a second from Alderman Bergdorf.

Okay. As I mentioned in General Committee, I think the input from our General Committee was very worthwhile. And I'd like to hear from you all tonight, but that needs to be on the agenda in order for us to hear from you all. Any other discussion on this? Jason, you ready for us? Okay. All those in favor of removing item two from the agenda, press the green button. Those Opposed to removing item number two, press the red button.

We're missing Alderman Goodwin.

Okay.

So that fails with a tie vote of six to six. So we're now back on the main motion, and that is to accept the agenda that was provided to you. Any other discussion? Any other motions? All those in favor of approving the agenda as provided to you, please press the green button. Those opposed, press the red one. Okay, that passes 12-0. Appreciate that. Now we're on to presentations. And could I have the Cal Ripken 12 and under team just sort of line up right here just like we were just a second ago? And it would be wonderful if I could meet the coaches over here by the podium. So first I'm going to tell you a little bit about these guys, and then I'm going to ask one of the coaches to fill in some of the details. Let me read here real quickly. Whereas the Twitty City 12U baseball team has demonstrated exceptional athletic skill, teamwork, and sportsmanship throughout the 2026 season, proudly representing the city of Hendersonville on the national stage, and whereas the team achieved an extraordinary milestone by winning the inaugural Cal Ripken 12-year national championship. Let me say that again, national championship. forever securing its place in youth baseball history as the first-ever national champions of this prestigious tournament. And whereas the championship games were broadcast nationally on CBS Sports, providing Twitty City and Hendersonville with the opportunity to represent Hendersonville before audience across the country with excellence, integrity, and determination, and whereas through countless hours of practice, discipline, and teamwork, these players have inspired young athletes throughout our community by demonstrating that hard work, resilience, and a commitment to one another can lead to extraordinary success. Now, therefore, I, Jamie Clary, Mayor of the City of Hendersonville, do hereby recognize and congratulate the Twitty City 12-Year Baseball Team for winning the inaugural Cal Ripken 12-Year National Championship and commend the players, coaches, families, and supporters for this achievement and for representing our city with pride and distinction. Now I want to introduce you to them. Sam Anglin. Perfect. Okay. Collins Brown. Okay. Tripp Elliott. Okay. Weston Duke. Jax Johnson, Jagger Medley, Nolan Murphy. That's a good first name. Bowen Parsons, some guy named Tiny. His real name is Whit, but he asked me to refer to him as Tiny Sanders. S.J. Sewell, Klein Watson, Eli Weeks, and Jason Word. Congratulations, guys. I appreciate many of the parents being here and know that you've got to get them to practice, you've got to get them to games, you've got to get them to tournaments, and you've got to get them to everything else that they have going on. We also have assistant coaches Josh Elliott, Kyle Johnson, Jeff Parsons, Clay Sanders, and head coach Zach Duke. I'm going to ask Zach to fill in some details of what these guys actually accomplished. Go ahead.

First of all, thank you. What I had to say will be nowhere near as eloquent as what you just said, just so you know. But what I just want to put into a little bit of perspective of what these boys actually did accomplish this year. As a team of 12-year-old boys, they went 70-5. Every tournament that we entered, which was, I think, between the fall and spring combined was 10, we were in a championship game of every single one, we lost two championship games. We won everything else. And that is... exceptional because it's not like we were just playing teams from the nashville area we put these boys up against the best possible competition we could find up in cooperstown for the ripken nationals we beat teams from california florida north carolina south carolina you name it and what what makes travel baseball different than what you're watching right now little league world series on espn everybody's watching that so the rules for Little League International is that you have to live within the boundaries of a Little League zone. Travel baseball, those rules do not exist. You can put together a roster of kids from wherever you want, however you can recruit them and get them to play for your team. What makes us unique is we are all from right here, and we can compete with teams made up of kids from five and six different states, and we can beat them. And we proved it. We proved that we belong on that level, on that stage, and these boys don't shy away from it. And I'm so proud of them, so proud to coach them. What they bring every day is exceptional. They truly do represent the absolute best that this area has to offer. And it's an honor, and I appreciate all the parents' trust and support. My goal is not for them to be content with their 12-year success. My goal is for them to be leaders on their high school team and continue to develop and possibly earn opportunities to play after high school. So this is step one for them. I hope they all continue to work and continue to be the example for the younger generations that they have been to this point.

Coach introduce your assistant coaches, or I guess they were assistant coaches.

This is Josh Elliott. He's actually our GM. We'd say he handles all of our communication and team details. We have Kyle Johnson behind him. We have Clay Sanders behind him, and we have Jeff Parsons in the back. And they truly are baseball royalty in this area. They're sort of, well, except for Joshua's basketball. But I think Clay and Jeff have a rich history of what they accomplished as players in this area. Kyle played in college as well. I'm kind of relatively new to this area. I moved here about 10 years ago. But I quickly learned that these are the guys that I need to have in my corner if we're going to do something special. And they have been instrumental in developing these boys to this point and will continue to be moving on. Thanks, guys.

Congratulations. Coach, make sure to grab your proclamation.

Wow. I bet Gilly knows where he lives. Text Gilly right quick.

Next item on our agenda is public hearing, but we don't have any. And then the minutes. Those are the minutes that were provided to you from our July 28, 2026 meetings. We have a motion from Alderman Garza and a second from Alderman Goodwin. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the minutes that were provided to you in your packet, please say aye. Those opposed, please say no. That passes unanimously. Next, we have citizen comments. We have four people signed up. Speakers must identify themselves by name and address. Public comment shall be limited to five minutes per individual, which time is not transferable to other speakers. All comments are to be directed to the presiding officer, that's me, not to the alderman, city staff, or other members of the public. Comments must address issues, not individuals or personalities. Personal attacks shall not be tolerated. Comments may support or oppose particular issues or measures, but the motives of those with differing views shall not be questioned or attacked. Malicious comments will not be allowed. Speeches for or against particular candidates running for office shall not be allowed. We have Thomas Killian of Carolyn Lane in Galveston.

How are y'all doing? So I was wanting to speak to, I think it's a resolution, the second item there, just to clarify. A month ago, thereabouts, the whole country was proud to be American, swept up into 50th fever. Also, at that time, the board was ready to celebrate Hendersonville's history by protecting it. Now, just a month later, we've got a resolution for the Bradford Berry House to be considered under development. My opinion of this is that the city is now looking at a choice. They can choose to maintain ownership of the property or to let a developer take it over and do what they see fit with it within the bounds. Now as a historian, my opinion is that the city should retain the ownership of this property because it's a historical treasure. It represents some of the first founders of Hendersonville as they moved here from their fight in the Revolutionary War. With that, I think that one of the best things that the city could do is to retain that and use it as a historic city center. If you allow the sale of this, then as my understanding, you'd have to ask them, hey, can we use this to do certain things that we might want to do as the city there? You can own a piece of your history if you continue that. The developer, I assume, has some historical obligation to it, but I've seen that in the past, and they have not. They have not done things in the way that a historian would appreciate things to be done, even when they're told, like, hey, you need to do things to maintain the history of the site. I think the best way for the history to be preserved and bear in mind that this is Hendersonville's history, uh, is for it to be restored very respectfully to the full history that represents the entire history of that site. And you probably know a lot of that history, so I don't need to go through all of it here again. Um, but it needs to have its rightful place as a historical monument for the town. instead of whatever somebody wants to do with it. One of the things that I've been working on with the site is we know that there's graves there. Currently, there's one monument there. Well, there's two. One was put up by the DAR, but one historical monument. In the 1930s, the WPA took up a project to document historical cemeteries around the state and other places. And depending on whose report you read from that WPA finding, there's 11 to 18 graves that were known, and most of those were marked at the time. At this point, I haven't found but one marker up there. So there's a lot more going on and that's of the graves that we know of if we just go on the WPA It's not It's history so it can be what it can be but we're also aware that there were slaves owned at that property and Those graves are typically not marked and they're not necessarily easy to find I don't know if there's any of those are I highly suspect that there are but we haven't had the time, bear in mind that we've had an agreement and I represent the part of the Bradford Berry Society. We've had an agreement.

Mr. Clayton, 30 seconds.

Thank you, sir. We've had an agreement for a month. It's hard to do things in a month with that. And I would prefer for those graves to be found in a respectful way, not when somebody runs a track oath room that has happened before with developers that had archaeologists attached. So I would respectfully request that you delay or preferably just reconsider a different... Mr. Killian, thank you.

Next we have Rick Fox from Walnut Drive.

Good evening. My name is Rick Fox. I live at 108 Walnut Drive, Ward 1. And as some of you know, I'm not only the representative for the beer board from Ward 1, but have been honored the last few years to be elected as its chairperson. And that's a responsibility I am very grateful for and hold with a lot of respect and a lot of dignity. And it would be inappropriate if I didn't immediately thank my two aldermen, the Marks, for all their help and support. That's about the cutest way as I can say it. You folks have been very good about always congratulating and thanking those of us who serve, but there's been a couple of events recently that have involved the beer board, and I'm going to try to do this without emotion, that I thought it was time that we stood up and said the same thing back. I would put our beer board up against any volunteer board I've ever worked on in my life, and I've been around for a day or two. And I know there's others that are good, but we've got a great board and great membership. But as good as they are, I think there's three other things that need to be mentioned, and that's why I'm really here tonight. Three-point sermon. One of those is the staff. I have a fair idea of what goes on before, after, and during our meetings, between our meetings, to get us ready and make us so efficient and so effective, but I don't know it all. But I've got a great appreciation for what our staff does to help us. And we've got two sitting up there. that really, really help us on an ongoing, regular basis. Second thing is the board liaisons. We've had some great liaisons. When I started on this beer board, it was Russ Edwards. Then it became Karen Dixon. And for the last two years, it's been Terry Goodwin. I know that my board members and I would put Alderwoman Goodwin up as the shining star and the excellent example of what it means to be a liaison. She's there at every meeting. She's professional. She's helpful. She's appropriate. She shares when she should. She gives us guidance and direction. She supports us. And the neat thing about having Alderwoman Goodwin as your beer board liaison is that you get two for the price of one. But the other thing that really brought me here was there have been times with a number of you where there's been a beer board issue that I've needed to reach out. Maybe it was something that happened with somebody and, you know, had come to us or a business. Upon occasion, it's been a time for somebody to be re-nominated, and I wanted to be sure that happened. Most recently, it's been where we had a beer board representative relocated out of state and we had to get a replacement. I want you all to know that every conversation I have ever had with the senior alderman from Ward 6 has been nothing but happy, positive, professional, helpful, supportive. You can list all the adjectives you want. I've been greeted with a smile. I've been greeted with respect. And there's never been a time when I haven't hung up that phone or walked away where I didn't feel that the plan of action or the consensus we came to would not benefit the people involved or the business involved, the citizens of this city, Hendersonville as a whole, and the beer board. So I'm gonna bend the gavel rule a little bit. I want to thank you for everything you have done to support me personally and support the beer board. I will miss you. I wish you a long and happy, joyful, well-deserved life. Eddie, may God bless you always. I yield.

Thank you, Mr. Fox. Appreciate that. And for the record, the other two people he's talking about are Gabby and Lance. Next is J.D. Tatum of Merrick Drive.

Good evening. My name is J.D. Tatum. I live at 1011 Merrick Road. We also have a property in Mansker Farms and behind the hospital over off Homestead Place. My husband and I have been in this community. I've been here over 25 years. He's been here his entire life. This is our home. We have been spending countless hours and many years working on trying to put together a food truck and music venue park for our community that fit our community, not just one that you see up the road that might last a few years, but one that's truly for our community. Tonight you're going to hear that there is a letter of intent to be presented on the same property that we're interested in. You're going to hear a lot about the Bradford Berry House and those of us that want to preserve it both inside and out, making sure that it remains with the city while still being able to have our venue that will bring so much to our community. across the way. Terry and I have dedicated countless hours to researching successful venues and studying why some concepts succeed and why others fail. We visited similar facilities, met with food truck owners, consulted industry professionals. We've analyzed operating models and completed extensive market and financial research. Based on that work, we've developed a comprehensive business plan with a detailed concept drawing specifically designed to create a financially sustainable family-friendly destination in Hendersonville, all while partnering with the Bradford Berry House Presentation Society to make sure that that property is renovated in such a way that it's back to its original condition using the correct tools and the correct people. I'm not asking the board to approve our proposal tonight. I am respectfully asking that no decision be made and no letter of intent or other agreement be accepted, authorized, or executed for this property until we have been given a reasonable opportunity to formally present our proposal. We are prepared to present our complete proposal promptly and would welcome the opportunity to meet with the appropriate city representatives. We are simply requesting a fair and transparent process in which both proposals can be reviewed before any decision is made. Thank you for your time and consideration.

JD, thank you. Tom Williams, Tyne Bay.

I apologize for my slowness here.

My name is Tom Williams.

I live at 209 Tyne Bay Drive in Hendersonville. That's Ward 2. And Mr. Mayor, I appreciate the opportunity to speak again. Some of you have already heard a lot of what I'm going to say. And then I'm going to have to add libs. That scares the devil out of me. Last month in a BOMA meeting, actually probably June, I recall a unanimous approval by the board to allow the city to enter into a partnership with the society, the Bradford Berry Preservation Society, for the purpose of allowing the society to proceed with explorations and plans to find ways to save the house and eventually turn it back to the city as a potential historical, cultural, and educational venue. So as I asked earlier in a meeting what has happened to the spirit of that meeting that goes to the proposal That's I think on the board here November 28th 2023 Boma approved conveyance of Bradford Berry at all that would be the property from Mayfair development the Bradford Berry house and cemetery combined were 1.63 acres and were proposed for donation to the city in addition a $100,000 donation and the construction of a rod and fence around the cemetery were proposed for gifting to the city. BOMA approved the amendments and donations. Then the developer proposed an amended plan that would have included 13.24 acres and no monetary gift. And I believe the deed of the property does include the total 13.24. Let me see. Resolution is defined as a firm decision or intent to act or not act in a particular way. It is the act of finding a solution to a problem, dispute, or challenging situation. Over the years, there have been many resolutions made concerning the Bradford Berry property. On February 24th, 2005, Resolution 2005-1 designating the Bradford Berry House Family Cemetery and property to be historical landmark that was signed into the city records. Now, ordinance is defined as a law, rule, decree, or command usually made by a city or regional government. As far as I can tell, there's only been one ordinance concerning the property, and that's Ordinance 2005-12, designating the property as to be historic and was approved on May 24, 2005, and upon second reading, passed on June 14, 2005. Now we've learned of the new resolution, possible ordinance being presented allowing the lease of the property, and ultimate transfer of ownership. I think we've discussed that in depth earlier. The lease would be for two years, and at the end of that two years, the proposed owners would become, proposed lease-owners would become owners. So my question was, what assurances do we have that they will retain the historical nature of the property? Under their control, will Bradford Berry House and grounds ever be accessible to the citizens of Hendersonville? So I have to ask a couple of questions. What is the status of the total acreage? I know this has been bounced around before. Can a property designated as historic be developed commercially? I think those of us on the board, on the society, we have a passion for saving our history and and advancing our history and teaching people our history. As I said in the last meeting I attended, there are people who've lived here most of their lives who've never heard of or seen the Bradford Berry House. So that's kind of sad, but that's what happens. Those of us on the board all remember what it was like when it was up and running. So there's a lot of questions, and I think as we consider these, Proposals that are coming before us tonight. We need to look at the overall picture what what is brought to the table what is going to be left for the city and what the city's responsibilities will be and what the Proposed owners will be and I've talked to both groups a little bit tonight. So I think I think we need to slow down on making any firm decisions at this point and and look at all comers and all gives our committee again, a chance to make this happen. Tom, 30 seconds. Okay. Ultimately the last question that I have to ask, I said this earlier is I have to put on my dad hat from when my daughter was dating. I would ask the young gentlemen, what are your intentions? Thank you. Thank you, Tom.

We have nothing on the consent agenda and now we're to ordinance and resolutions. The first one is resolution 2026 dash 25. This is a resolution authorizing the city's Department of Parks and Recreation to apply for a property conservation grant with public entity partners. Alderman Garten, would you like to make a motion? We have a motion from Alderman Garten. Second. And a second from Alderman Evans. Alderman Garten, would you like to speak or go to Alderman Goodwin?

You could go ahead. This is just a resolution with public entity partners. It's a 50-50 match. Asking for $8,000, we'd have a $4,000 match contribution there, and this will go towards lights or cameras.

Thank you, Alderman Garten. Alderman Goodwin.

We brought it through Public Safety tonight, and it passed with a positive recommendation, and they are on a time crunch.

Alderman Goodwin, thank you.

Alderman Sasse.

Just to get clarification, I wanted to make sure the full $8,000, as I understand it, was appropriated in the budget. Is that correct? The 2027 fiscal budget? This will actually reduce that amount to $4,000. So I wholly support this and will be voting in favor of it. Thank you. Alderman Sasse, thank you. Any other discussion?

All those in favor of Resolution 2026-25, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say no. That passes unanimously. Next, we have Resolution 2026-28. This is a resolution approving a letter of intent between the City of Hendersonville and Landing Spot Properties, LLC, regarding the proposed lease and future conveyance of the Bradford Berry House property. I so move. We have a second from Alderman Dixon. Marty, you shared some information in general committee a few minutes ago. Without objection, I'd like to suspend the rules and hear from Marty Cook, the attorney for this project. You shared some information toward the end of the consideration in the general committee. I think it would be worthwhile for all of us to hear. Do you want to give us a little bit of explanation of what's going on here? And if there's anybody, so there's a couple people here with this group. There's four of them. And so without objection, if y'all have some questions for any four of them, I think it'd be good for them to speak on that. Alderman Robertson.

You sent us a map of the area. Could you put it on the screen so that the public can see it as well?

Jason has it, yep.

Okay, thank you.

Give me just a second. Marty, Jason, did I, the map? Oh, I didn't.

I can send it to him if he's got his email.

So Alderman Dixon is going to email it to you. There is a picture that I sent him that I want to show at some point. Alderman Dixon is going to take care of that. Marty, go ahead. Thank you.

Sure. So I think what we discussed in general committee is just what the process would look like. I was approached some time ago by my client's landing spot properties who had this idea, this concept that they wanted to bring to the city, and we discussed that with Mayor and with City Attorney, and as we see often in any kind of business deal, the first step is you do enter into a letter of intent, which is not a binding contract, it's simply both parties saying agreeing to begin negotiations. And so usually in that letter of intent there is a general framework that is agreed upon by the parties. But it always contemplates what we'll oftentimes call a definitive agreement that will come later on in the process. And so that was the goal in putting this letter of intent to the city and in front of you all was to begin discussions of what a potential partnership, private-public partnership of this property could look like that would accomplish purposes of restoring the Bradbury House. I don't think there's any question I've been involved in discussions over the years of how that could happen, and as many of you know and can imagine, the largest hurdle is the cost. MR. Marty, let me interrupt you real quick.

Lance, what Marty just gave us, his explanation of a letter of intent, would you agree with it?

Yes, it allows the parties to evaluate the feasibility. There may be a couple of abiding terms to it, like exclusivity or whatnot. But for the first time in my life, I will agree with Marty. Go ahead, Marty.

But yeah, I mean, you know, I don't think there's any question that to do anything with this property is going to take an incredible amount of money. And so it is going to take some collaboration that makes sense. And the purpose of us putting this before you all was to look at what that might look like and then move forward towards seeing if an ultimate deal could be reached that would then become a bonding agreement.

Mr. I appreciate that. I want to say a couple things that I sort of hinted at earlier. I've seen a couple comments. past couple days about how I don't care about Hendersonville history. About the only thing worse you can say about me is I don't love my children. So I felt like I need to try to explain a little bit, hopefully with a smile on my face. I've got to appreciate first, though, Alderman Mark Skidmore. He and I were both here in 2003 when really this situation sort of climaxed and required action from the Board of Mayor and Alderman to save that house. What had happened was the house was owned by the family until about 1968, 1969. GE bought it as part of all the property. I want to say like 29 acres or so. That property was then sold to Bosch Automotive, which included the house. Bosch allowed the Arts Council to use the house. for good Porsche at the time. Then the Arts Council moved to Mott Haven, and there was a family living in that house with Bosch's permission. At that time, what we're talking about when Bosch had it is really, so what is now the Aladdin plant, which later became Aladdin, and from Gallatin Road past the house and another 10 acres behind the house. That's really what was one lot at that time. The The May family bought it, and I can't remember the actual name of the organization. It wasn't Jack May himself, but the LLC bought it, and they told the tenants to move, and that was the beginning of the decline of the house. In 2003, anybody who was on the board then had a very fresh memory of the Halfway House. Halfway House was a historic home, not near as old, probably half as old, that sat on the corner of Centerpoint Road and Gallatin Road. That property had changed hands in the middle 1990s, And there was sort of a grassroots effort of residents who wanted to preserve that house and restore that house. It slowly deteriorated. The city didn't really step in. It was owned privately, didn't really step in to do anything. The community didn't get moving as quickly as it needed to. Slow deterioration of the house and then a suspicious fire. So that was very much on our minds in 2003 when now we have the Bradford Berry House looking like it's headed toward a similar destiny. Does anybody know what's on the lot that was the halfway house?

It's now a tractor supply company.

Because of the time and because of the delays, the house, like I said, suspiciously burned. Basically, the community the city moved to slowly. So when Mr. May bought that property, he presented a plan to the city for a Walmart on that property, which include demolishing the house and removing the cemetery. Alderman Skidmore and I acted. We saw the need for the city to stand up for the community that wanted to see the house preserved. I actually met Frank May at the house and got him to lock the doors. After he had the family move out of there, he didn't step in and become responsible for the house. And I met him over there one day. He claimed that he was going to take care of the house, but the doors weren't even locked. I remember meeting him over there. Alderman Skidmore and I led the effort to create a historic zoning commission. That prevented him from demolishing the house. Ideally, it would have prevented demolition by neglect, ideally. But you see what happened during the time that he owned it. The board did approve a plan to move the house. As part of Mr. May's development, the house is going to be moved and deeded to the city, and the board approved that. I proposed that no development would take place on that property until the house was moved. Ideally, I'd never want to see the house moved, but I felt like the best we could do is make sure that nothing happened on that property to give him an incentive to take care of it until the house was restored. Does anybody want to take a guess at how I was appreciated for that effort? Mr. May was the number one, by far, contributor to my opponent when I ran for re-election in 2006. Good things came out of that, personally. But the owner of the house, he did not take kindly to our effort to prevent the house from being torn down. Fortunately, Mayor Foster suggested some alternatives later, but Mr. May was unresponsive. In fact, he rejected any certified mail that the city sent him. He was unresponsible for the house, which allowed the demolition by neglect, really starting in about 2004, 2005. The city became the default caretaker of the house, even though the city didn't own the house. When I became mayor, I continued that. encouraging our city staff to take care of it. There were some things that we couldn't do, but spent some time over there because we knew that eventually we were going to become the default owner of the house, so why didn't it make sense to take care of that before it got worse? Unfortunately, you can't fix a roof when you're not the owner, and there's some things you just can't do. One of the first meetings I had after I became mayor was to meet with Jack May's representatives and tried to get some things worked out. Um, and, and weren't, weren't real successful that fortunately Jeff Cundiff, who was later later hired by Mayfair. That's what I was thinking later hired by Mayfair is a local guy who also had interest in seeing the house, uh, house preserved. Um, so the city was deeded the house end of 2023. A couple of things have happened since then is we have spent much more time, um, maintaining the house and protecting the house, not restoring the house. We did have some engineers and architects take a look at the foundation, the whole house inside and out. We spent money on that. The board approved that money and came back with an assessment of about $1.5 million that the city wrote a check to restore that house. I let Bowman know that back then. I've let you all know a couple times since then. Nobody has stood up and said, hey, let's spend that money. I have a hard time spending that money, too, because I think we have a higher priority with public safety. I think we have a higher priority with roads. and I committed to looking for folks that could possibly donate to that house. We also researched grants. We were able to find some that we might be eligible for if we do some work on it, but none of them are $1.5 million. So I continue to look for some of those, and I think I said to Boma about a year ago that anybody I talk to about... Using the house, we would expect the house to be restored and maintained. There wasn't an appetite that I saw from the board to spend $1.5 million or more, and I have a hard time maintaining a piece of property that really doesn't give value to the residents. That might be a little bit questionable because I think there would be some value in that, but I have a hard time maintaining something like that and hopefully could find somebody to help us with that. Another thing we did is we looked at really separating that instead of, the 14 acres, really 10 in the back, and the up front is about four acres, I think 3.9, which is the house, the cemetery, and some surrounding property, as we talk to people about helping us with the house. I probably talked to a dozen different people or different organizations, and for the most part, they had one person seem like she was willing to write a check and just give that money to the city, but that didn't work out when it came to some of the tax needs that she had. But everybody else I talked to, they were looking for a way that they could recoup the money that they would invest in the house. They wanted some equity in the house, some way to make some money on the house. And so that's where we are today. I talked with Genevieve and Terry, talked with, like I said, probably 10 or 12 other folks that have been interested in the house. I do feel like when we get to the point that we have a letter of intent, I need to bring that to you. I need to let you know that that's where we are. It's not a final agreement by any matter, but I felt like we were at the level that no other organization has reached with the city as far as what they want to do with the house, as far as their commitment to the house. This was the only one of everybody I talked to that said, we're going to put money in that house up front. And as I said, I felt like the board and myself expected restoration and maintenance of the house at the very, very least. And finally, we had somebody that was interested in restoring the house before anything else, anybody else who wanted to do that. So we also made an America 250 project. I sought media about this house and what we were willing to do. Nashville Media did many, many online updates. We did a request for proposals, and this was the only one that got to this level. And so I felt like I should bring that to you. Meanwhile, and I explained that I feel like pretty well a month ago when we talked about the preservation society that I thought the preservation society, the point of that was to look for multiple partners, not just one. And I think I got an agreement that that's what we're doing is we were talking about one partner and the possibility of more. And I feel like we all agreed with that. Nobody ever told me that preservation society would have exclusivity to the house's restoration. Nobody ever gave me the impression that the Restoration Society could veto somebody else. I thought that when we approved that, that we were looking for multiple partners, and I hope we still are. And that's the impression I get. But in some of the comments I've seen lately, Like somehow we're pulling the rug out from under the Preservation Society. I would have never voted to do that a couple weeks ago if that was the case. I voted in favor of that partnership, hoping that one day we could hand the house over to them or somebody to restore the house. I have no desire for the city to own this house long term. My desire is to see the house restored and maintained and used. It doesn't bother me if the city's not the one doing that. I would like a report from the Preservation Society. I know it's just been a little while, but I think all of us expected something at some time if we're in partnership. We've gotten a lot of information from the folks that are interested right now with a letter of intent. We haven't heard anything from the Preservation Society. And so... Hopefully, we'll get that soon. But right now, as I sit here the past couple of days, I worry that this is 2003 all over again. First similarity, halfway house. Second similarity, well, the halfway house, as I mentioned, there's all sorts of ambitious plans, but it took too much time, and then the house suspiciously burned. Very suspicious. Moving slowly has its risks in these situations. Just the other day, Jason, can you pull this up? This was last week. Had vandals get in the house. Right next to City Hall. Police pass by there and park there on a regular basis. Right next to, right there. Vandals in the house. I'm not as worried about weather. I am worried about weather. But weather for a couple weeks or a couple months, and we've sort of gotten through that. But vandals are what I worry about. And what kind of damage they could do. The second similarity with 2023. Supposedly we're moving too quickly. We heard that with the Halfway House as well. We heard that back when Jack May wanted to demolish the house, that the city was moving too quickly. Third similarity, we're supposed to accept promises from groups without resources. This went back 2003 when when Jack May talked about the house, and we had a lot of people stepping forward, but they didn't have resources. And so that's why we had to go with everything else, with whatever we had. The fourth similarity is poor information is being repeated, just like it was in 2003 when Mr. May was up here. And I'll give you some example. There's one cemetery, not two. We've had some people, some grave explorers over there. It doesn't make sense. Slaves were not buried at the front of the house. You had the family cemetery, and then you had the slave cemetery further away. We have not found any graves, any reasonably there's graves, on those 3.9 acres other than the cemetery. Very similar to some of the concerns as far as poor information. Also, architects and engineers have already assessed the house. We don't need any more architects or engineers over there if it means more time. And I've heard lately that we need to have a full architectural evaluation of it. We have that. In fact, I provided to all of you all probably about a year and a half ago. I've also met with more than a dozen parties to restore and maintain the house. This isn't the only one. The city owns the house, not the Preservation Society. I can't tell you how many people have talked about how we're looking at taking this away from the Preservation Society. They don't own it. The city owns it. Also, it's very important to me, and this is something that has bothered me, that restoration comes first in this letter of intent. We haven't given away the house expecting something later on. I don't think that that would be responsible to the city. Also, I've heard this is irreversible. It's not irreversible. This is just the first step. This isn't an agreement or contract. This is not a rezoning. This is not a subdividing. This is not transferring public property into private hands. Like I said, I've got an obligation when we have this kind of opportunity to bring it to you. I'm excited about the options. I'm excited about some of the options we heard from JD and Terry just a little while ago that I heard several months ago. I'm excited that we have a preservation society that's interested in it. I'm excited any time I get a phone call or any time I get an email that there are other organizations, other people interested in that. But we don't want the house to fall down. We don't want to be vandalized. We need to take advantage of the time we had. To do that, we need money. We don't have much time. We don't have much money. If we've got somebody willing to help us and make an investment, I think we've got to take advantage. Having said all of that, I don't have a problem waiting for a month. The reason that I wanted to move this and put it on the agenda, this meeting is because we don't meet for a month, and I felt like these folks that have put a lot of time and expense already coming up with this proposal, not in the House itself, I felt like they deserve some input from us. Um, there are some items in the letter of intent that I absolutely think that needs some tweaking, but I would love to hear from y'all. Um, and I think they would too. That's why they stuck around. Um, but like, like I said, um, we need money. We don't have much time. Um, and if we defer it for longer than a month, I worry that more demolition by neglect, um, more vandalism and, we're possibly going to lose something that is very important to the history of Hendersonville. Also, if we defer it for a month, I would hope that the Preservation Society would tell us what they actually have on hand. We've heard of some ideas. We've heard those about a month ago. I want to know what progress has been made because we've got some folks. We have at least two organizations right here that want to make progress right now. So any other discussion? Or do you want me to just go ahead and withdraw it? I'd love to hear some input. I know that some of the folks here. Alderman Collins, thank you.

Um, I alluded to this earlier, but I just want to reiterate that, um, as we now all have heard, we have two very similar offers coming to us. And while I know it certainly is true that you can have multiple letters of intent and work through those, I think the cleaner, more transparent way is to issue a request for proposal and allow people to respond to those. And I don't want to shut down the concept of a private-public partnership. But I do want to be cautious about it. I think an RFP is... One thing is, Jesse, I asked him about the RFP earlier, and he told me that the last one was issued in 2022. And that's before we had the deed restrictions lifted. So that in and of itself to me indicates that it's appropriate to issue a second RFP and see now that there are no deed restrictions, what ideas might come from the community for that. I think that it's the most transparent way. It protects all of us involved from being accused of backroom deals and cronyism and all of the things that we know are going to be said. An RFP protects everybody. Does it slow down the process? Yes, it does. But I think it's worth it to be transparent and upfront about what's going on. So I strongly encourage an RFP and to the point that I'm not going to vote for a letter of intent at all. Thank you.

Alderman Collins, thank you. Alderman Evans.

I just want to follow up with that too. Um, I too would like to, now that I hear that the last time we had one was 2022, uh, I wasn't on Boma at that time. So I would like to, to have that out there. I think again, to Alderman Collins, uh, comment about the transparency. I think that's important here. uh... one thing i think it's important to note is that i don't know about the rest of you but i've not seen any of this this letter of intent or any of this information to late last week and the fact that we're getting this late last week and it's tuesday so maybe four five days that we've had this too digest it read it as a lot of information i have a long list of questions i have about it and and i understand that uh... what a letter of intent is but You know, now we're finding out that there is someone else that, uh, would like the opportunity. And, and I think that there are others, I think that we should be cautious and we should step back and, and not rush through this. Having, uh, I get the understanding of wanting to, um, wave the rule and, and, and try to, but this, to me, it seems like it's been pushed too quickly. And there's a lot of questions on this and. And I can't be in favor of voting on this to push this along today. I'd like to have another, some more time on this. And I too would like to hear from the Preservation Society about what the progress is there and the plan there. I think that this is now gaining some momentum and that we're hearing from a lot of different people that we can make a good educated decision about the future of this. And that taking a little bit of extra time is prudent in this manner. I did hear Attorney Ray mention something about when he talked about the letter of intent, and I heard him say the word exclusivity. And I want to be careful that when this one letter of intent comes to us, we're not saying that that just gives them the exclusivity and that no one else has the opportunity to present a letter of intent as well.

Just for a limited time during their due diligence.

And, see, I have a problem with that.

But just to be clear, it's not.

Thank you. So that's all. Thank you. Did you want to ask questions? No. Okay.

I appreciate it. I will ask the questions at the perfect time.

Now is the time. I think we all need more time to discuss this, ask questions, and do more research. Alderman Evans, thank you for your input. Alderman Garza.

Yeah, I'm coming from a little bit of a different angle on this. I was here in 2003, and I saw that there was nothing really done, and it's so easy to kick the can down the road. I'm not saying anything about this letter of intent. I'm saying it's time if we're going to do something to get off our butts and do it. And I'm not saying it's going to be fast, but it's so easy to keep postponing, and we'll work on this, and we'll change that, and we'll do this. And that's not leadership, right? We've got to get on top of this thing and find the right partners. When you're due right by the city, and themselves too, they're here to make a profit. I don't know what that is. It could be many different options, and maybe this refusal proposal will bring more people out of the woodwork and look at it. But I want to go on record. I'm not supporting this tonight, this resolution, just so you know, but I want to go on record as it's time to do something. It's easy to do nothing. That's all I've got, Mayor. Alderman Garza, thank you.

Alderman Robertson. Who here would represent the Preservation Society, if I have a question to them?

Tom, would you want to do it?

I don't know that I can answer all the questions. I defer a lot to Mark, but I think between the two or three of us, we can.

I guess the basic question is, where does the Preservation Society committee, uh, stand as far as trying to get money to help restore the house.

Well, we do have several board members who are very active in grant seeking and, uh, they've turned over every, um, stone, lots of them. If you would like a summary, I don't think this is necessarily the time to do this again, as we're reading this particular, um, uh, resolution. I would be happy to share that stuff with you. You can go to bradfordberry.org. If you'd like to know any more information about that, I believe we've published our minutes on those, too.

Okay, so we have applied for grants, but none received yet.

No, we have not applied for grants. We are seeking the process. We've only been actively seeking for about a month.

Okay. And I know, Alderman Bergdorf, you've worked hard on this project. I've seen you at a lot of events, you know, with your poster and your handout cards. So, all right, as we move forward, and I like what Alderman Collins is suggesting, a new RFP. But let me ask you, Mayor, and I apologize for my lack of knowledge on this, is Parcel E, does the city own Parcel E on the map? Is that part of the land that was given to the city?

Parcel E. I don't see a parcel E. And that E, parcel E. So the one that says city-owned, is that parcel E?

That's my question.

You have to scroll down on this map.

Jason, you scroll down a little bit. There we go. Yes, so parcel E is also ours. Okay. it is the back 10 acres and it includes part of the parking lot for Aladdin. And, and no restrictions on that land, correct? I wouldn't say no, but it's pretty close to none. And we have to thank Jesse for that.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Great. So what I would like to see, uh, on an RFP, just so that at least two of the interested parties are here is I'm not really interested in, uh, giving up any of the city-owned land where the home is. But if we could possibly use some of the land that's identified in Parcel E for this purpose of the food trucks and then the restoration but not affect the land, if that's a possibility, does the city have any plans for Parcel E?

Jay, have you heard any? So the city has no plans. I would have brought those to you. Jay has had some conversations with some folks. Do you want to share those, or should I just leave it at that?

Okay. Well, to me, that's a possibility is for the city to provide this land for these food trucks in Parcel E, and part of that is to restore the house. And I'm also opposed to... to giving any part of the ownership of that house to an outside private entity. I would like for that to be maintained by the city and then at the appropriate time, as you mentioned, deeded over to the Preservation Society. So those are just two of my wishes as the RFPs look at proposals. Thank you.

Mr. Robertson, thank you. I do feel like this is sufficient of mine. Jay, is the back portion significantly more valuable than the front portion? Okay. Okay. Just to let y'all know that. But I appreciate that input and that's certainly something that we should entertain.

Alderman Evans. Going off of what Alderman Robertson was just saying, I'd like to hear as a part of the whole discussion to hear from Director Ritterback about what might be used or what's being proposed in that Section E. I think that makes a difference as far as what we might be looking at in the future here.

Can we do that in a month? I don't know.

Yeah, in a month. Whenever we look at everything. I think just having a big picture of everything and what we're looking at would be helpful. Okay. Thank you. I think you're right. Thank you, Alderman Collins. Alderman Collins.

Just a clarification for Mr. Redenbach. Is it more valuable because it's 10 acres or is it more valuable per acre? Is it significant?

Go ahead, Jay. You're not really prepared for this, but And don't answer anything that you can't back up, please.

I believe it would be more significant because it's a green space. It's not developed with a house in the middle of it. So it's basically a blank canvas. And it is larger. And the way that you can access that potentially from multiple directions make its potential much more than the Bradford Berry House.

Alderman Collins, anything else?

Uh, no, it sounds like we have a really good bargaining chip with that 10 acres. So we might be able to really milk it.

Alderman Collins. Thank you. Alderman Skidmore. Uh, thank you, Mary. I just want to say a couple of things, but I'm, I'm not going to go into detail on what I, what I really want to say because I don't think it's appropriate to do it this evening. Um, A lot of this, you know, and I'm going to remind the board, and I know they know this because this happens every time when we waive the rule. Sometimes I don't have a problem with it, and tonight I do have a problem with it because this really, honest to God, is a serious issue that is coming before the city on a historical level. I mean, this is probably the last home that the city – right now is responsible for. Um, and I cannot, and I will, and I'll say this anywhere. So that's why I'm saying this publicly. I appreciate, uh, mayor Clary years ago, stepping up as he did when he and I helped with, uh, actually I'm just, you know, I'm not going to be, what was, what was that in the old days? I think Al Gore said that he was the, He created the web or whatever. He invented the Internet. I'm not going to say that we saved the Bradford Berry House. I'm not going to say that. But by the actions that were taken by that board at that time, I think the house was saved. And I'm forever grateful to that, Jamie. I'm forever grateful for that. that showed a lot of foresight. And so now when I'm like everybody else here tonight and on TV, is when I go by, I see Jim and Nick's and Chick-fil-A and Starbucks, you know. Whether I like them or not, I love Jim and Nick's and I love Chick-fil-A and I love Starbucks. But, you know, I still look and I see the Bradford Berry House, you know, and it bothers me. to see the condition that it is, but we've got a unique opportunity to hear, to, to try to advance and make that place back to what it was and be proud of it. I'm still, I know it's dilapidated looking now, but I'm still proud of that. Uh, not only am I proud of the house, but for the people that lived in that house back in the history of Hendersonville, I'm proud of those people. Um, and the things that they went through. And if you really think about that, that's what we should be looking at. I want to look at that, and I'm sort of perplexed about, and I'll finish, Jamie, on this, but there's a lot of things that I want to say that happened that I'm not going to say because of one thing. When I step in... when I walk in that hallway and I come in, I'm an alderman. I'm not Mark Skidmore and I'm Mark Skidmore, but I'm not Mark Skidmore, the citizen. I represent the city of Hendersonville, but more importantly, ward one and the city. So my personal feelings sometimes have to be set aside and I won't comment on it. Uh, unless I say I might have an interest or something, not on this property, but if something comes on that I've got a conflict, I'll say something about it then because I think the people of Hendersonville deserve to know that because I've represented them for a while, which I'm grateful for. But I think this whole thing that we're talking about tonight is exactly why we wanted to defer it this evening to allow the whole board of aldermen to review what has transpired and i know that we've talked about what the mayor has said and and and there are some things that i agree with him on but there's some things that i don't agree that i think we need to wait you know we need to step back and i still think we need to step back and i don't think a month is is is not it's not I think it's very reasonable to allow the Bradford Berry Preservation Society to look at. Because I will tell you this in closing, I'm not sure they've been in existence in a month. And to raise money within, and I'm going to tell you, to raise money, and you all know this, gosh, all the people that have been involved in schools, and raising money for PTO, it takes more than a month sometimes to raise money. I mean, in my ward, for example, when we plan like a book fair for our schools, man, we've been planning that a year. And I'm being realistic about this. I'm not making a joke out of it. because it is important, just like the book fair is, or like when they have things for the kids to do outside, the summer and the fall festivals and things. You can go ask those teachers. You can ask school administration, and they're planning that a year before it ever happens. Well, this is the kind of thing that I want to do to the Bradford Berry. I want to plan something. And make sure people get involved in it and have knowledge of it. Because like I think a gentleman said about it, you can go, I could probably go right up the street off of Riviera and ask them where the Bradford Berry House is. And they'd go, what are you talking about? Well, it's a historical house. Okay, well, that's great. I'm glad we've got some history in town because we don't have very much of it left. But where is it? Because people just don't know. They've got their own lives to live, my God. They're making a living. They're driving to Nashville and back. They've got children going to the park. So it is up to not only the city, but the Bradford Berry Preservation Society to engage and educate the people of Hendersonville. And I don't see a problem with that. I really don't. But what I do see a problem is is when the Bradford Berry Preservation Society, for example, goes to these heavy hitters that have the money to donate to the city and to their society, but we're sitting up here arguing about this. They want to see someone or some organization, whether it be the city of Hendersonville or the Bradford Berry Preservation Society, they want to see us working together, and we're all in on this because they're not going to give money to people when they're saying, well, gosh, well, damn, they're up there arguing about what they want to do with the house. Would you give money to that? I wouldn't. I mean, Preservation Society, I would because I know what they're doing. City of Hendersonville, yeah, I would because I know what they're doing. But when we get up here and argue about it, we should be united, figure out what we've got to do. And if I'm on the losing side, that's fine because I want to save that house. And I think every member of the Board of Aldermen want to save that house. And I think the city of Hendersonville, its people, which I represent not only as a ward alderman in Ward 1, but also the city, I think they want to save it too. I really do believe that because, you know, it's the greatest thing in the world being living in America and living in Hendersonville. We're, you know, you look at where we came from, we're all a bunch of – mutts, I guess is the word. And we really are. And we came from England and other foreign countries. We were kicked out and we came to this country. And then we fought for our own independence because we believed in a better for people, not just for a country, but you all know this, for a better society to live and to raise your children and to to go to church where you wanted to go to church. And the Bradford Berry House is a living legacy of that, people. It was given to the man who lived there from the American Revolution. I'm gonna get off my soapbox. But I want you to understand the importance of what that house is. It's more important, and I hate to say this, but it's the truth, it's more important than the halfway house that burned down. That's a living legacy if you really, truly think about it. Came from the American Revolution, a guy who fought for the freedoms that we have for today, that we still have the freedoms today. in this country because of what he did. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And I know you do too.

I know all of you do. Thank you, mayor. Thank you all. I'm in Skidmore. That is exactly this kind of input in this kind of discussion is exactly what I was hoping for. That's why I pushed this to have the only agenda tonight. Um, and appreciate that discussion. I think it's very, very helpful. Uh, and I will withdraw this, uh, at this time, since I am the only sponsor of it. Um, and, uh, and, uh, uh, we'll get some information for you now in our next meeting, which is in, uh, which is in, I think right at four weeks, we don't meet in two weeks. So we're going to move. Thank you all for the discussion and for the input. Um, uh, next we have resolution 2026 dash 30. This is the resolution authorizing the creation and placement of the bronze legends plaza and Memorial park, authorizing Henderson arts council to coordinate the project and authorizing acceptance of donation funding Alderman Collins. So we have a motion from Alderman Collins and a second from Alderman Robertson, am I correct? Okay. Any discussion on that? Hold on here. Alderman Collins.

Respectfully, I request that we waive the rules and hear from the members of the Arts Council who are here to make a very informal and brief presentation on the sculpture project.

Is that just Renee?

I'll let Renee. I'll introduce Renee Shepard as the chairman of the Arts Council, and then I'll allow her to introduce the members present.

Without objection, we're going to hear from these three representing the Arts Council. Thank you. Go ahead.

Hello there. Again, Renee Shepherd from the Arts Council. And with me tonight, I have Jamila Logue with the Arts Council and Bill Clifford, also with the Arts Council. Bill is going to talk a little bit about what we're thinking and what we envision for this briefly.

Thank you all for having us here tonight. I really enjoyed hearing all the passion about the Bradford Berry House. We're kind of here for a similar reason tonight, more recent history, but important history just the same. We've been working now for the past three years, we've been working on an arts festival, and we've started on another project where we're interested in creating a four-figure bronze statue capturing the likenesses of four of Hendersonville's most legendary musical residents. So we've got Johnny and June Cash, Carter Cash, excuse me, and Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty. And what we'd like to do is continue to explore looking to have us four-person life-size sculptures installed in Memorial Park. right around the affectionately called Donut area right near Kids Kingdom by the water that would have a base in the style of the water fountain that we have there in the front where the Christmas tree goes up each year. And so far we've reached out to five different sculptors, some from Nashville and some from around the country who specialize in doing, bronze casts with good likenesses of the musicians. Informally, we've created some images that we can show if you're interested about what we're envisioning for how the sculpture would look. But we'd like your blessing to continue looking and exploring and trying to more formally start moving forward with the project.

Alderman Collins, did you have something for now, or do you want to let him go ahead?

Are you? Yeah. I think you're finished. Yes. And so I just wanted to. Sorry.

It's been a long time since I've talked in public. I appreciate you all. You're patient.

I just wanted to say that I'm really excited about this project. When I became an alderman five, almost six years ago now, I was told that politicians had pet projects. I'm super excited to have one for myself now. And I think this is going to be lovely. I want to point out that in Ward 5, we get a lot of people coming to the cash home and to what's now the realtor's office, Halo Properties even, And to the extent that the city had to put in a little con, um, pavement pad for people to turn around on Caudill because they were coming to the cash home and disrupting the school traffic. Um, and people also of course visit the grave site. And so this is another stop that they can make, which would hopefully pull them in to where they could go to some of our local restaurants that are on that side of town. So I like it from that perspective. And I want to point out that the Arts Council is not asking for funding at this time. But by sanctioning this, it will allow the Arts Council to be able to ask for the community to contribute the money that's required for this. So this is not a financial ask. This is a blessing for the project to proceed. Thank you.

Alderman Collins, thank you.

Alderman Evans. I was just going to ask a question around the financial part of that. What's the plan around that? I know the thought is probably to raise the funds, but once you get into this, what is going to be the thought if you don't raise enough money? What's the plan? Are you going to stop or are you going to ask the city then to kind of up front or give the rest of it? What's the plan there?

I think we're really in preliminary stages.

Okay.

First of all, so we don't really have a plan that's that specific. We would expect to ask for donations and get donations for this purpose. I will say that we've got some interest already. It's not confirmed. Again, as Rachel said, we just need you all to sanction the project so that we can move forward and get more specific with that.

Okay.

because if you all are interested in this and you think it's a viable, something to do for the city that helps us, um, to be able to have those conversations.

Well, I appreciate that. And I'm, I'm interested in it, but from the fiscal side of things too, I'm also concerned about committing to anything else. Um, yeah, especially cause when you look at this, you're talking about upwards of $700,000 or more. So I'm concerned about that. So hopefully we will be able to raise the funds and get this done. And I also want to say, Having it at the location of the donut there, I think it's a great location to have that.

Because you can see it from everywhere, right, as you drive by. It also brings some complications. So I think one of the first steps we would need to do is create a specific project plan. Initially, we've just done some research to say, what would this cost? What would it look like? Because we didn't have any idea. And what's the process? What does it look like to commission a bronze statue? Um, so, so we've kind of done some of that research. Um, I understand we'd have to work with the core maybe in that area for that, you know, for that site. So there's still a lot of work to do and what comes first and what comes second. We have to figure all that out.

Thank you so much.

Alderman Evans. Thank you. Alderman Sasse.

Uh, thank you, mayor. Um, I would just want to echo a lot of what, uh, Alderman Evans was saying. This is a very exciting project. Um, I'm, I'm fully support this. But the first thing that came to my mind was potential safety. And I'm only mentioning this so you're looking into this when you're talking to these sculptors and such. But I've visited other bronze statues, and they can get pretty hot, especially when they get direct sunlight in that area. It's going to get direct sunlight, quite a bit of it. And as we all know, it gets hot around here, 90-degree weather. It can get up to 190 degrees on a bronze statue. So just keeping that in mind as you're researching it. Maybe there's an alloy. I don't know. I'm not an expert at all, but just wanted to make you aware of that, and hopefully we can find something that will be cooler to the touch maybe, because we do have kids playing in that area, so just something to think about.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Renee. Thank you.

Appreciate you all working on this, your initiative on it.

Thank you.

Any other comments? All those in favor of Resolution 2026-30, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say no. That passes unanimously. Thank you all. Other agenda items, we'll move down to reports. Brief committee reports. General Committee, Chairman Garza. I will try to be brief.

It was pretty long tonight. We had Resolution 2026 on a public hearing for the 1765 Advent Lane. We approved that to go to BOMA. Resolution 2026-27 also related to this as to annex certain territories upon rent and consider the owners, and incorporate said property into the same one, 1765 Abbott Lane. That also went to BOMA approved. And then, the ordinance 2026-09, an ordinance rezoning approximately almost 33 acres of property at, again, 1765 Abbott Lane, also was approved to go to BOMA. Then we moved on to Ordinance 2026-10. It's an ordinance that adopted a revision to the zoning ordinance for the City of Harrisville. That's going to go through the city, also approved to go to BOMA. Ordinance 2026-11, amending the Hendersonville Municipal Code Title I video recording for the Nonprofit Contributions Committee, and that's been also approved to go to BOMA. We had a reading of Ordinance 2026-12. It's amending the Municipal Code here, Title 12, Chapter 2. relative to the amendments to the revised edition of the International Residential Code, also approved to go to BOMA. This next one is the only negative one we had for the evening. It's the reading of Resolution 2026-28, approving the letter of intent. Here we are again with the City of Hendersonville and landing spot properties regarding the proposed lease and future conveyance of the Bradford Berry House. We did send it to Obama with a negative recommendation, and, of course, tonight it's been pulled to a later date. So that was the purpose of that, so we can start and continue the conversations with that issue. A reading of Resolution 2026-31, declaring certain real city property to the surplus property, excuse me, and approving lease agreements with Pope John Paul II. Also a positive recommendation to Obama. And a reading of Resolution 2026-29, a resolution to amend the City Employee Innovation Program, Two more of an employee recognition program also approved to go to BOMA. And the last one, which we just spoke about, was Resolution 2026-30. It's a resolution authorizing the placement of the Bronze Legend Plaza at Memorial Park. And that was our report for General Committee.

I appreciate that, Chairman Garza. Chairman Goodwin, Public Safety.

We had a brief committee meeting. We discussed the resolution for the parks and sent that on to BOMA with a positive recommendation. and had a brief discussion on Stark Knob boat ramp that we are going to monitor and watch. That concludes my report. Thank you very much, Chairman Goodwin.

Timothy Whitten, I assume that the only reason you are here this late is to provide our Planning Commission report.

Good evening. Timothy Whitten, Assistant Planning Director, standing in for Keith Free. Planning Director, standing in for Michael Martin. Waldman for Ward 2. So the Planning Commission report for their meeting Tuesday, August the 4th, they took the following action. On the consent agenda, they approved Forest Park Phase 1 amenity center site plan, Imperial Point Building A site plan, Milestone Phase 7, Section 2, Final Platte, and Pope John Paul II Edition Phase 1 Site Plan. And then they approved a wall mural for Deg Tai, which is a new restaurant coming to the West Main Street area. And then they moved the following items forward to General Committee and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. The annexation and plan of services for Avalon, as well as the combined development plan for Avalon, And then they also recommended a batch of zoning ordinance revisions as well.

Any questions for Timothy? Thank you, Timothy.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So you approved a mural for Deg Tie? Yes, sir. And can they open yet?

I believe there's no holdup on our end. I'm not sure what status their billing permit is in or their UNO. I can check on that for you and let you know.

Once again, I want to be very clear, it was rumored, but I heard rumor that one of the reasons they were not open yet was because they were having too much obstruction from the city. I'm not saying that's true. I'm just saying. Yeah, I'm not aware of that. Because they've been ready to go now for about three weeks.

If anybody was struck in it, it would be that guy right there. I know. You said he's not aware of it. No, I understand.

I'm just saying, you know, my calls come in going, when's it going to open, and they heard this, and I'm not saying it's true by any means, but we need to get them open. They've got a big investment in that place. Thank you, Alderman Garza.

I do hear the same thing about Rio Brado, and I know Rio Brado, there's no holdup on our end. They've gotten all their approvals that they need through planning. It's helpful. Thank you.

Alderman Evans, I'm sorry, do you have a question?

Yes, I do have a quick question. I wanted a clarification on when you talked about Avalon or Avalon or whatever it's called, can you share with us all, was that a unanimous approval on all of those annexation?

Let me see.

I believe if I'm not right, I think it was a unanimous on all of those. I believe it was. I just wanted to make sure everybody knew that.

Vice Mayor Skidmore, can you come on down here, please? I've had bronchitis for about two weeks, and I'm running a fever right now. So I'm going to go lie down and let you be led by our Vice Mayor for the last two items. Thank you, Mark.

Thank you. Now that the mayor's gone, we're going to do things our way. No, seriously, I hope he is. Bronchitis is a rough thing, and I hope he starts feeling better, and I just hope that our city attorney, Lance Ray, if I screw up, that he'll be able to help me along the way. I don't know. Doesn't matter how long you've been doing it. It just takes one time to mess up. But anyway, so we are now on to the review of the employee pay and benefit report. And, Josh, I think you're here to give us a presentation on that. Is that?

I mean, the BOMA report.

Oh, is it a BOMA report? Oh, okay. Well, oh, yeah, that's right. I'm sorry. Thank you. Are you ready for the? Yeah, go ahead with the BOMA report.

I don't fill that well either, so if you want to go right to your employer, that's fine.

All right.

So this report is wrapping up some of the fiscal year 26 and it opens up some of the fiscal year 27. Our financial information we get from the state on revenue is always a month behind. So this report will go between two fiscal years. Our next report will all just be fiscal year 27. Just remember we get revenue a month behind because we get that information from the state. So this report starts on page 29 of your packet. Probably one of the most important things that we're seeing is that local sales tax is up 4.1%. Our interest earnings are down a little bit from last year. And now if most of you follow the Fed, you'll see that there may be actually a chance for that rate to increase rather than decrease. So that is good for our interest earnings. It's not good if we want to borrow money. So our interest that we expected to get this year may actually be higher than expected. It's likely that there could be actually a raise of interest rates. When we look at sales tax combined with revenue from permit fees, that's actually down 1.3% from year-to-date, 25 to 26, and that's mostly just due to the permit revenue being down. General fund expenditures are slightly up. We haven't finished all the accruals for year end, so we have to book the accruals back, so that's still happening. So the general fund operating expenditures are an estimate at this point until we finish the year end accruals, which we will probably finish in September. If you go to page 31 and 32, this is reporting on our PIP fund. We've tried to do everything we can to be as transparent as possible with this fund. There's really no surprises. Um, some of these, uh, uses of funds are more than we budgeted for the current year. And that's because we carried over some POs from the prior year where we actually spent them in this year. If we go to page 33, you'll see that, uh, fire calls are up a bit. Police calls are down a bit, um, really nothing out of the ordinary when we look for, uh, calls for service for both, uh, public safety departments. Page 35 shows our residential and commercial permit activity. That's pretty much within the range of what we'd expect. Residential inspections are below previous year's numbers, but the activity is kind of within the range that we've had the last couple years. We can go to page 37. This is going to be something that's going to be kind of neat. If you would put this on the screen, Jason, I gave you two slides that you could put on the screen. I don't mind which one you put up first. Okay. The landing ship tank LST 325 is coming to Sanders Ferry Park September 23rd and 29th. This is going to be open for tours. So I understand this is the oldest operating World War II LST ship, and they're going to be docked right at Saunders Ferry. So when this comes next month, it's $20 admission to walk through it. For kids, it's $10, and then five and under is free. So this is a pretty neat opportunity where this ship is going to be right at Saunders Ferry, and you can do a tour of it. So on the weekends, I've been told there can be a line to get in. You can buy tickets there or you can buy them ahead of time. We'll still have one more time to announce this before it's here, but that's something to put on your calendar. That should be pretty neat. And then if you pull up the next slide, this is the food truck festival that's actually happening this Saturday, August 15th from 48 at Veterans Park. Bring your canned goods there. It supports Feed Sumner. So if you're going to attend, please bring your canned goods. And that really highlights the events that are on page 37. Page 38 shows stormwater projects and paving stormwater projects are off to a really good start We've completed 10 of the 23 we budgeted for the year Paving is supposed to start at the end of August So we'll start to see those numbers in the future reports. I think August 24th is a start date that they gave us Right away really no change there and then when we look at page 39 Vacancies for fire are zero and PD vacancies are at four. So really low for both of those departments. I

That concludes my report, sir. Thank you very much this evening. I appreciate that. Does anybody have any questions from the board for Jesse at all on the report? All right, hearing none, we'll go ahead and move on to the review of the employee pay and benefit report. And, Josh, I think you're going to give us a little – Jason, rather. What did I say, Josh? Boy, I'm batting 1,000 tonight, right? Yeah, you look like a Josh. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Anyway, so if you'd give us our report, thank you. We sure would appreciate it. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Happy to do that. So this is really just a report out of where we are at with the pay and benefits study. Tonight I'm not trying to make any decisions or do any of that. This is just simply to report out the information and then let you kind of mull it over. If you feel like there need to be changes or things we want to address, maybe looking toward mid-year budget or the next fiscal year, I'll let you all determine that. But really, it's just designed to give information, let you kind of look it over. I won't go through both reports. Both are in your packets. You have both the finalized pay study as well as the benefit study. Let's see. So on specialty pay, I just want to hit a couple quick things here. The purpose of specialty pay and why we do that is it's to compensate employees who have this specific skill set. So what we're trying to do is if somebody has specialized training, we recognize them for that. I will say that as they did this study, specifically within FIRE, there were areas that not all agencies did. So they had to kind of group them together. As I go through this, you'll see that there's some gaps. There's an asterisk there, and that asterisk is They had to kind of put an average to everything, because not everybody provides that. It'll make sense, but the examples they give, combined dive team, rope rescue, fire service communications, right? Those are, in some areas, very specialized. In other agencies, they combine them all into one. So just as we go through this, there's not an exact science. Not everybody offers the same exact pay benefits. So let's talk about shift differentials really quick. Just high-level shift differentials are exactly what that sounds like. It is paying people additional money for working specific shifts. If you work a later shift or a midnight shift, that's that second and third shift, then we're going to give them additional money. The rotating shift would be they have a variety of times they could get called in. Just to point out that there is no participating employers that Burris Thompson had that did rotating shifts. We were the only one. The others, out of all the employers they surveyed, only 37% offered it. So I just want to put that in context. That's the graph below. That means that 63% of the employers don't offer differentials. So when we start looking at what's the 65th percentile, it's only the 65th percentile of that 37%. In other words, it's the top one-third of one-third, if that makes sense to you. You do have a total survey median, which is all of the people who reported out, and then trying to grab that top third. So where we stand, we are low in that. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that we're good. In comparison, we're low. That might be something that we need to address. I was chatting with someone earlier, and the differentials haven't been changed since they were implemented, and I believe that was back in the 80s. So they've served their purpose, but I think it's time to readdress them. You have the AEMT, which is advanced EMT. We do not offer that with our firefighters, but other agencies do, so we put that out there. You'll see the AIRPAC and the dive team, while they have kind of an asterisk with annual amounts. Remember, those are the ones that we had to group together because we're one of the few that offer that. In other words, only 10 percent of employers that they surveyed offered the AIRPAC or the dive team. You have EMT. One of the things worth noting with EMT is while it's only 13%, other agencies combine it. So in certain areas, I know that they will combine it with a firefighter, and it's baked into their base pay. So it's not an add-on like we do. It's just done differently. The other is the FTO program. With our FTO program, if someone serves in a training capacity at the police department, they will get an hour overtime. So what this calculation annually shows is that it is five hours of overtime a week for 12 months. Now, that's being very generous, talking with Chief Jones about this. Average, realistically, maybe six months out of the year they're training. So you could cut that number from 11 to 50 to about 5,500, and that still puts us ahead of the curve. Some others here, we have the heat pay or SWAT pay. Again, only 23% actually provide that. But when you compare our rates to others, we are low in that one. Hazmat as well, only about 10%. And again, with insufficient data, that just means they didn't have statistically enough people to give you that number. But you can look at it and show that ours is a little lower. Canine is the same. Now, one of the things that's not explained in canines is there are some agencies that will pay for food, others that require that employee to, here's your budget, and that includes food for the animal. So those are things that are nuanced but aren't represented in the numbers that you see here. Motorcycle and mounted, this one was interesting. We are only one of two agencies that offer it. That's it. So when we start looking at it, there's not many that actually offer that. Sorry, let me back up.

Just out of curiosity, what are the other, thank you, thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, appreciate it. What are the other agencies? You said there were only two.

So it's us, and I believe it was Sevier County. Sevier County, Pigeon Forge. Yeah. Okay, all right, thank you. So the Burst Thompson survey goes all of Tennessee, not just Middle Tennessee. Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Uh, negotiator pay again, only 10% offer it. But again, ours is low in comparison on call is probably one of the, is actually the highest that's in the report. And I want to point that out because 50% of the agencies have it. Um, ours annualized as $420. The average was 3,600 a year. So that might be something that impacts all departments, our public works department parks department. police, in some cases even fire. Areas that do have on-call, that might be one that we address that helps all employees who have on-call. Paramedic, again, similar to the EMT, not all agencies provide this, and the ones that do, some of them bake it in, so they're not represented on this. And then the scuba or interspirotech, that's specific to fire, and again, only about 10%, but again, that falls into all those unique ones that the fire area has. Others don't. One that I know has been a topic of conversation for the board over the years has been e-pay or education pay. So the way that our stands versus others, only about 20% of employers offer this. You can see kind of the up and down between them all. But even with all of the survey results, our pay for education pay comes in higher than most of all those other employers. We're above the 65th percentile there. All right. On the benefits program, just a couple of things to highlight here real quick. I'm going to summarize this the best that I can. So each area had a possible score of nine. So that's where that green bar at the top. Our overall score was six. Our top areas were short-term disability. We were tagged as having one of the most generous plans for employees who have to take time off, whether it's for, you know, a surgery or some other medical reason. And it is employer paid. So our short-term and long-term disability are fully employer paid by the city. Retirement, our TCRS, no surprise, is one of the most generous. I will say the quote there is a strong traditional public sector retirement. So when you look at benefits from a public sector standpoint, this falls squarely in them. The other one is life and accidental death and dismemberment. Our basic life insurance that we provide that basic life insurance is more than what other agencies are providing. Plus our AD&D benefit was listed as one of the most generous. Some of the others on the other side of this, our sick leave accrual, which is down at the bottom and gets a rating of five, is considered consistent with all other public sectors. Our dental is generally comparable, but there is above average for basic services and then below average on annual maximums and orthodontia, so it becomes a balance. And then the last one, which may surprise some people, are paid holidays. We rated lower on. So that is the lowest category. This is predominantly because the city is not closed on additional holidays. So there are a few holidays that others recognize that we do not. And so that would be a choice if we wanted to add those additional holidays or how we want to approach that. But overall, again, this is just to report out where we're at. The rest of the PACE study, this has all been complete. The remaining part of the PACE study is doing the job descriptions. So we've got two departments done, and we're working through several others. So that concludes my report.

Does anyone have any questions? Eddie, yes. Hold on. Let me get over there to you, brother.

Go back to the evaluation sheet that you had. Sure. Jason, can you pull that PowerPoint back up? Thank you. In the retirement, I read this. It's on page 76. Unless I missed it, I don't see that we looked at any kind of what some of our public safety employees are requesting, the early retirement benefit. It's not included in the discussion of retirement. But do we know of the peer group how many offer some kind of early retirement?

So, no, off the top, I do not. I can ask the consultant for that information. I can say offhand I only know of a handful of agencies around us that offer it.

Okay. But overall, we received, I think it said that is among the most generous applications than the typical public sector benchmarks in retirement because we don't require, it's a non-contributory benefit. Okay, thank you, that's all.

Director Gallo, you did identify a few areas that we were not super strong in, shift differential, on-call.

Mm-hmm.

paid holidays, do you intend perhaps for the next fiscal year to propose changes in those areas?

It's a good question. Yes, to some extent, but there is the part that goes with it, which has been brought up in other topics, and that's the point of funding. And so while I can make the recommendation to increase things, the bottom line is it does cost additional money to do that. Okay.

Yeah. It's not for this year.

Yeah. Understood.

It would be nice to know. I mean, I don't know what the impact of bringing us up a little bit in shift differential would be because I don't really have a grasp for how often that's utilized or the on-call pay. Like that might be something that's not really utilized that much. So it might not be a huge impact to the budget, and we could be more competitive.

So just so you know for context, employees with on-call pay have it paid as a monthly stipend, regardless of if they get called in or not.

Okay. Well, I'd like to learn more about kind of the details and the nuances for next year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes.

motion to adjourn and adjournment proper second on the adjournment all in favor say I know I know I think all opposed no no I know so the no's have it so everybody remain I'm not ready to go home no it's adjourned thank you guys appreciate that