City Council - Regular Meeting

I was scared to death.

Drone and jeez, where's everybody? All these people I'm aware of

Okay, we're going to go ahead and call the December 16th, 2025 city council meeting to order. We're going to start with a roll call to establish a quorum. We have ward one, five, six, and at large present as well as ward two. Okay. Going to ask Councilman Smith to lead us in pray. Dear Father God, we thank you for everyone gathered here today. As we surrender ourselves in adoration, we ask that you would come by and send your Holy Spirit to inspire our hearts today. Come fill our lives with your love, fill our conversations with your grace and truth. Bless our council and bless everyone here and touch our hearts and minds. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you Councilman Smith. Okay. Are there any agenda amendments needed? Okay. If not, I'm going to go ahead and move on to our announcements. December 25th and 26, city hall will be closed for Christmas. January 1st and 2nd. 2026, city hall will also be closed for New Year's. And January 6th will be our next city council meeting. We do have some guests here tonight. We will start with the OA girls volleyball state champions. We have a proclamation. Congratulations as well.

Never gets old. Never.

Whereas the Lady Crescent's volleyball team triumphed over the Alcorn Central Lady Bears in a thrilling three set victory in the 3A state finals October 9th, 2025 in Clinton, Mississippi. Whereas the extraordinary win marked the president's fourth consecutive Mississippi High School 3A volleyball championship title and the 18th overall state title. Wow. Whereas the city of Bay St. Lewis proudly celebrates this historic accomplishment accomplishments and joins the community in honoring the exceptional talent, teamwork and sportsmanship of the crescent. Now therefore, I'm Michael J. Paul, city of Bay St. Louis together with the city council and all the citizens do hereby recognize and congratulate the Our Lady Cresman Crescent and I think y'all are the queens of the court. court of Queens for their remarkable season and that championship victory and that lasting legacy in the state of New [applause] Bells are making fun [singing] [singing] sle [applause and cheering] We wish you a merry Christmas and a

happy new year. Thank you. Thank you.

Good to see you. Happy holiday. Are you standing up? I'm standing up. Can y'all see Councilwoman Davis in the [laughter]

Thank you. Congratulations, girls. That's awesome.

You want to h? Yeah. Come on. Okay. Give him a second to exit the room. Okay. We do have a another guest speaker, Miss Janelle Nolan with Coast Electric. [laughter] Come on now.

Good evening, mayor, city council. Um I'm Janelle Nolan. I'm the director of community development at Coast Electric. Um for the last three years or so, we have um donated our Santa chair for your Christmas holidays. Um, and I'm excited to share with you guys that this year we have gifted the chair to the city of Bay St. Louis for you all to use in future parades and festivities as well. Um, thank you all for all that you do in the city of Bay St. Louis for our families and our children. This is an wonderful event that you guys host every year and we're glad that we can gift this chair to you guys. I know my kids have sat in this chair, my dogs have taken pictures in this chair, so we wish you all the best with it and merry Christmas. Thank you so much.

Jordan, do you want to make a motion to accept the donation? Yeah, I make a motion to accept the donation from Coast Electric. Uh accepting the not the donation of the Santa chair from Coast Electric. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Smith. Any discussion? Vote the motion. I I I

I motion. Thank you. Motion carries. I believe this is the nonend. Do we have the other public form? This is the Okay, we're going to move on to our public forum regarding our agenda items. Um, we do have uh Mr. Johnny Raffio signed up. I will say this is the agenda item comment period. I'll call you back up for our uh non-aggenda items. Okay. And then we do have Miss Anita Warner here to speak about the tree ordinance.

Anita Warner behalf of the live oak registry and I'm really happy that we finally have proposed additional tree ordinance. I do have a couple of comments about it. I think it works well if people uh follow the requirements of site plans and all of that prior to getting their building permit. But I have questions as to what happens when people just decide that they're going to go out and cut a bunch of trees and then they don't build for a while. So, is there any way to about that. Um, one of the things I think may be problematic is a permit is not required for minor pruning of a permitted tree, protected tree. But I didn't see what Okay, minor pruning is cutting, pruning, or otherwise altering any limb, branch, or portion of a tree, protected tree greater than 6 in in diameter measured at the point of the cut. Um, you can do a whole lot of pruning to a tree that might be considered minor, but you can do a lot of damage to a tree. Um, if you cut everything that's within that size range. So, likely about like this. You can always um I just want to make sure that we we're clear about that because pruning an an oak tree is there's an art to it. Um, and the same thing with magnolia. Um, one of the things that I would really like y'all to consider at some point is the requirement that when people build that they install, they must install trees. Other places where I have lived, if you build a house, you have to install three trees. It doesn't have to be a live oak.

That's not appropriate for everything. But there are plenty of smaller trees. Grape myrtles are one example. Sweet bay magnolas which have a very small flower about like this but which are really pretty. Small leaves not the same thing as a magnolia grand flora. They also have what are called little gem magnolia which are like a miniature of a big uh magnolia. And I remind everybody that the magnolia is the state tree of Mississippi. You can also plant things like sweet olives and uh swamp maples, red maples. They're easy. They're fast growing. But we really need to put more trees when we let people come in and clear cut. Then they build a big old house and all you see is grass. We need trees. We need the tree canopy. And crepe myrtles are a really good example because they can get tall. They give you flowers all summer when everything else is burned up. That's what the birds and bees eat on. So, I'd really like to see you add something in here that requires anybody who builds a house to install some trees. Thank

you. Thank you.

Okay, we do not have anyone else signed up for our public forum. We'll move on to our uh uh minutes approval. I'll call for a motion to approve the minutes of December 2nd, 2025. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilwoman Davis. Any discussion? Vote the motion. I I I motion carries 5. Okay, moving on to our consent agenda. Does anyone have any questions about any of the items? Okay, I will call for a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Do I have a motion? Motion.

Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Dalvo. Any discussion? Vote the motion. I I

I motion carries 5. Moving on to project updates. Okay, good evening everyone. We do have three action items tonight that should be in your agenda packet. Um the first one is change order number three uh for manhole adjustments. Uh this is for the ARPA citywide sewer improvements project. Um this is the project where we've been improving um the sewer system, lining it, cleaning it, lining the manholes. U we found several manholes that are buried or paved over. Uh and so we've asked the contractor to submit a price to raise those so that the city will have access to the um to the manholes. Quantities are uh estimated. So we'll pay, you know, once the contract completed, we'll pay on how many manholes were adjusted and things like that. But um we've estimated some quantity in this first in this third change order. So we're asking for that to be approved tonight. It's all within the scope of work of the Arbor project. It's all part of the sewer improvement for the city. Um, so we're asking for approval of that tonight.

Any other questions? So, this is hopefully not to exceed this. I don't we I don't think we will, Josh. I mean, we we've gone throughout the whole city and looked for all the manholes and um we've added some quantity to this to be sure we had it covered. So, we should come in below that number. Great. Make a motion to approve. Have a motion by Councilman Dalvo. Have a second. Second. Second by Councilman Smith. Any discussion? The motion? I I I motion carries. 5 Z.

Thank you for that. The second item, uh, change order number one. So, this is also part of the ARPA citywide sewer improvements, but we do have a separate contract. This is with FY motor winding. Um, so what we did is we went through all the lift stations in the city. um inspected the control panels, looked at all the piping, looked at all the valves, looked at all the pumps to see what improvements we need to make. Uh what we did notice is that a lot of the u the elbows that are part of the discharge piping in a lift station were corroded. Um the the bolts were corroded. So really that affects the operation of the pump station. So instead of pumping the sewer, you know, downstream, it's just circulating within within the uh the pump the lift station itself, the wet weld. So, we do have a change order number one for Bay Motor Winding, um, to go in and change out a lot of these elbows. I think there's three stations that we found that had elbows that were broken. So, we're asking for approval of that tonight.

And all this was all comes on our right. We'll have another project hopefully in January. We'll have some funds remaining um that we need to um appropriate either for some additional sewer lining or additional manhole lining or maybe some lateral lining. Um, so this is all covered under the RPO sewer grant. Motion. I have a motion by Councilman Dalvo. Second. I have a second by Council I'm going to read the motion actually just to read it in. Okay.

I have a motion by Councilman Dalvo to approve change order one from Bay Motor Winding and the amount of $82,50 for the lift station assessment project for Arper Sewer Improvements. And I have a second by Councilman Smith. Any discussion? Vote the motion. I I I motion carries 5. They have to be uh closed out by the end of 2026.

All the funds have to be expended by we have a a year left. The state says uh they want the final closeout packages to be submitted around September and then the federal grant says by the end of All right. So the final motion that we are asking for tonight this is to award um the main drain debris removal project. This is an NRCS funded project. Um, we did receive grants. Uh, we actually I'm sorry, seven bids were received on November 12th. Um, the low bidder was um Miller Enterprises, but they didn't have the proper paperwork to be submitted. So, we're recommending rejection of Miller Enterprises bid. Uh, so the second low bidder was Brother Service Company LLC. Um, their base bid was $1,491,950. Um we've approved we've reviewed all the bid documents and everything is in order. Um it does fall within the grant amount and so we are recommending award of the main drain improvement to brotherhood services. You should have a bid tab with all the bids that we receive.

And should that be awarded, we need to make sure the motion includes that Miller Enterprises did not was rejected because they did not include um include a complete bid proposal. Trying to see if it says in here exactly what they didn't have. Yeah, it's on the bid tab. The addendum weren't acknowledged and the questionnaire was not submitted. I'm write that into the motion. going to clean all the main

sort of um the NRCS funds can only be used for debris removal um and then for uh stabilization. So there's some areas that we're we've experienced some erosion, some wash out, we can go in and add a rip wrap to that. Um and then cleaning out any debris, any sediment that might be blocking flow. So, we're not increasing capacity from the standpoint of rerouting any ditches or or widening any ditches, but we are increasing capacity by removing debris, removing sediment reestablished in the flow line of the Any other questions or discussion?

Okay, I'm going to read this motion. You tell me if I get it right. I'm going call for a motion to accept Kenichi's Engineering's recommendation to deny Miller Enterprise LLC due to an incomplete reject reject Miller Enterprise LLC for an incomplete bid proposal due to a Yeah, I think incomplete incomplete an incomplete bid proposal bid package

bid package and and award the contract to the lowest and best bidder, Brotherhood Services Company LLC, in the amount of 1,491,950 for the main drain debris removal project and authorize the mayor to execute all e all all contract documents. Have a motion. Motion motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? In seconds. Any discussion? Where is it from? Loose. I think fail. Yeah, my computer. Any other discussion? Vote the motion.

I sorry. I motion carries 5. Okay, moving on to the city clerk's report. Thank you for that. Y'all have a merry Christmas. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll go ahead and start by calling a motion to approve the professional services agreement with Harper Reigns Knight and Company HRK to update the city's financial manual for a fee not to exceed $25,000 and to approve the use of the municipal reserve funds to cover this unbudgeted but necessary expense. Motion

motion by Councilman Smith. Second by Councilman Dalvo. Uh any discussion? I will bring up this is something that was recommended from our auditors to update. The last one was 2008 17 [clears throat] which is almost 10 years ago. Staff has changed, processes have changed, and when we gave it to the auditors when they first started, this was something they said, "Hey, we got to get this up to date." And so you'll notice that's a weakness in our audit. So we want to go ahead and get that process done. This company actually 8 hours in 2016 17 um as part of a grant that was done back then. So basically it's an hourly rate not to exceed 25,000 to help them update it. I did get another quote from BDO formerly corn. Um and that proposal was put there with your agenda. It was 53,000 to 67,000 on an hourly rate but it was about twice twice the hourly rate. the lower one is familiar with us.

Any other discussion? Vote the motion. I I I I motion carries 50. I'll call for a motion to approve the docket of claims 25-067 dated December 16th, 2025 in an amount of 2,612,988.30. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Dalvo. Any discussion? Vote the motion. I I

I motion carries 5. Moving on to the mayor's agenda. We'll go ahead and call for a motion to approve the BFIS insurance renewal for the fire department. Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second by Councilman Davis Jordan John is here our insurance agent. You want you want to come talk for me?

John Rossetti with Metro Associates. Um the DFS program. I don't know of a fire department that's not in DFIS program. It's all inclusive. I think we put the city in there probably about 15 years ago. It covers everything. breathing apparatuses, the hose, fire suits, the helmets, the jaws of life, all the equipment that's all in there. It's the liability limits. It's the building, the flood went, everything to the full limits of excess of $10 million. Um saw an increase, a little bit surprised about that, but overall for the city of Bay St. Louis, you're going to see a decrease. So, you're going to be under budget for insurance for the total package for the year. you know, we got this small increase. We're going to be on the budget when we do the rest of the stuff. So, seeing rate decreases, especially with inactive hurricane season. Um, so the larger insurance pack any question?

Thank you, J. Thank you. Thank you. I'll call for a motion. Second. Any other discussion? Vote the motion. I I I I motion carries. 5-0. Okay. Going to move on to agenda item B. A motion to approve and increase the annual salary of the building official from $64,290 to $69,240 as an exempt employee. Motion motion by [clears throat] Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Dalvo. Any discussion?

I think that's position is becoming very competitive along the coast to have building officials inspectors. So definitely need it. And he was hourly as well with overtime. So this just balances it out with that. And like I said during budget time, the building department actually brings money into the city also. It's not just taxpayers money now. They they work off the fees and permit fees they collect. So, I think it's money well spent. Yes. Yes.

And just so you see it coming forward in January, there will you will have an update to your ordinance. So, you may see that on the consent agenda, but just know that that's what that correlates to. That make sense? Yeah. We have this one and we had one other change, but for payroll and police. So those two changes will show up in your spreadsheet list.

Any other discussion about the motion? I I I I motion carries 5. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to agenda item C. It is just discussion uh regard regarding the draft tree protection ordinance. Um I guess uh council woman do you want to start off any discussion on that? Um no I like it. My computer's not working.

I'm fine with it. I uh I guess just kind of answering some of this Warner's questions about defining pruning. Uh is that something that is there like a minimum in your ordinance? It's this it's six. You're welcome to put it whatever you want.

I think it's six diameter if I'm I don't have it right in front of me. But there was a lot of discussion about that Jordan and some of it is being what's practical in your building department. So, you know, you have to come in, you have to get a a permit, takes administration, it takes time. Um, so it was trying to figure out, okay, what what is not going to just completely bog down the building department and hopefully make people do what's right as well. So, that's where six was looked at. We looked at multiple different ordinances really from around the the nation and six seemed to be the sweet spot. So that's where that number came from, but yall are welcome to change it to whatever you want. [snorts]

I just wanted to I guess my thing on looking at it would be just in general a PL lot that's been there for years. I don't want to make it unbuildable, but then somebody comes and does a subdivision and don't do the homework right and don't subdivide the lots correctly. I don't think she'll get them permission to cut the trees because they should have made a buildable lot at the time they did the subdivision. Exactly.

Well, and that's something that I um commend Jeremy Burke on too is telling people up front. you don't need to. He's really started driving that home when subdividers come in or developers come in and say, "No, you can do that, but that's not a buildable lot and you know, you're going to have that tree there." So, and you know, moving forward too, that's something for you guys to know that that itself is grounds to deny. If somebody gives you a plat and 40% of their lots have oak trees in the middle of them because they're drawing them to make more money rather than shifting all the lots 10 feet and they may lose a lot. Um that's that's reason to deny a subdivision. So it's always something to keep in the back of your your brains when those developments come forward.

Any other discussion? We will move on to council business. Look, when y'all look out, if you have anything, just make sure you send it in. I will.

And Kaitlyn, can you go ahead and push that forward to the next agenda for approval just so it doesn't get forgotten? You okay with that? that will be adopted that will become part section I think it's chapter seven for environment the zoning ordinance Bob generate this fit right or

so yeah so that's what we wanted to go ahead and pull that one out and get it finalized because it's a it's a need that we needed to to do and we didn't want to wait until all the zoning is done so we go ahead and get that adopted it and then it'll just once you're adopted then it will just be plugged right. So basically you'll adopt it and then a few months you'll it'll basically be pulled back but just push back into your zoning ordinance rather than a standalone ordinance.

Um ordinances in general who puts on uni code whose responsibility is it to update un code? Because I looked for some ordinances I know we have and couldn't find them online recently. I think one was the field dirt ordinance trying to find. So Caitlyn does that, right Caitlyn? Um the issue and and so what we need to check is because up until around what four or five months ago, they would only do one sweep a year input ordinances. So any sort of ordinances like that, we just need to make sure that they got uploaded during that sweep because I guess for the first I mean four or five year or more than that from you know up until a few months ago it was I guess send them in and then we just need to make sure nothing was forgotten.

Separate link on the website maybe to those ordinances as we put in place. So now they you can definitely do that. you can put under like news newly enacted ordinances. I've seen a lot of cities do that. Um but now they're immediately pushed out in. So what you may want to do, Caitlyn, is I mean because we really haven't had that many ordinances. We don't, you know, we don't pass ordinances left and right. So what you may want to do is just go back and look over the last several years and pull out our different ordinance and actually they're all in a book. So, if you just get those and then maybe just check to make sure they're in MUN code and if for some reason they're not, send that information to Mini Code and get them to drop them in for us. Thank you.

You're welcome. [snorts] You got something else?

Moving on to council business. Uh we do have on the agenda to discuss going out for an RFQ for the first and second floor of the depot building. It was submitted by Councilman Lewis. Um I know he's not here tonight, but I think we can still have uh some discussion about uh what we what what the process should look like, what we'd like for it. Um kind of keep the ball rolling on this because I mean it's something that we do need to get done. We spent a lot of time. Um, so just I guess if we want we can go through and guess answer the who, what, and why, what we'd like to

and and let me maybe there might be a little education moment here. So it says RFQ which means request for qualifications. So that's typically what you would see if you're going to hire a professional such as a um engineer, architect, attorney.

Um so so you wouldn't want to go out for an RFQ for something like this. All right. And then if you're wanting to go out, you will see sometimes people going out for proposals. But if you're doing that typically, so so that's where whatever conversation you're about to have, you need to know the kind the parameters of the law. So if you're interested in doing business with a nonprofit, okay, nonprofits is where you can come in and you do not have to do fair market value rent. You can do fair market value rent, but you don't have to do fair fair market fair market value rent. You can also go in and negotiate a certain price with a nonprofit. So, if you're wanting to go do the nonprofit route, you might be able to request for pro uh request for proposals from say nonprofits because in that way you can you could see what all they're offering and kind of look at what's the best use of the building. Um, if you're wanting to go out and just do a straight uh fair market approach, then we need to get the fair market established. And that's here's our price. This is what you pay. That's straight real estate transactional deal. You can even use somebody um a licensed broker, you know, you can go that route with it. So, that's an option. Um, and then your other option, which is a a prop, I guess kind of proposal, but it's more of a bid. That's where you put out you say, "Hey world, this is what we have. We have two stories. You tell us what you want to pay for it." And that's a separate type that you go, but you don't look at that. That's straight. That's straight price based. So, if you have, you know, person A wants to come in and and do a doughnut shop and pay you $1,000 a month, $1,000 a month's what you're looking at. Person B might want a golf cart rental, but they're willing to pay you a thousand in one. Well, they're the bid. They're the winning bid. So, that's your other way of doing that. So, I think it's important. You can't really

group everything together because everything stands alone differently depending on what you're doing, if that makes sense. So, if we did the ladder, could we say open for rent but must start at minimum pricing type thing or

So, what you typically do around there is just you kind of let the word out what your pricing would be, but just because you do something like that doesn't mean you have to accept it. So, I mean, we've we've gotten absolutely ridiculous proposals back on city buildings before and you just reject them. So, if somebody comes in and you know, hey, I want to start selling golf carts and I'm going to pay you $200 a month and nobody else is going nobody else put in a bid. I mean, that would be ridiculous to rent it to me for 200 bucks to flourish my golf cart business. Right. And you just reject the bid. So, so there's not a way just to say, "Okay, we're going to go up for an RFP, see what comes in." Right.

And [snorts] you have if you do it that way, you would have to take the highest bidder. You just put a blanket RFP.

I mean, so it's not really RFP at that. It's that's that's just that's a way of basically surplusing property is what it's under. And yeah, that that's where you just say this is what we have for bid everybody. It's a sealed bid approach. they're due at whatever time and you open the beds and you see what people want to do on the property. Um, it's a little hard to successfully do something like that. Actually, not a little hard, a lot hard because people that want to operate a business have to have a business plan and they have to know what. So, typically when you do something like that, you may open the bids for a month or two. Well, if the public doesn't know that the BU building's available, I mean, it's really hard for somebody to come up, go with a business plan, figure out what they want to do, figure out how much they want to pay you, make sure the bank's going to loan them the money for whatever they're wanting wanting to do all in a short amount of time, if that makes

offer a three-year lease, too.

Yes. That's that's another issue that you have. If you have somebody coming in and they want to invest substantial amount of money in that property, well, right now we're you know, you can't bind another council. Now, you can you can do a lease. Um you you could enter a 10-year lease. It just becomes voidable. It's not automatically void. It just becomes voidable. So, with that, um you have to think about it from a business owner's perspective. They're only going to look at it as a three and a half year. So, say we did it today, a three and a half year lease because that's they don't know what the next council is going to do. The next council can walk in on July one and say, "Hey, you you're out." And so banks, I would, you know, banks are going to look at the longevity of that if they're donating money for say renovations or capital improvements.

I think it's smart for us to determine what what we think the building is best suited for

and I don't think it's for private business. my personal opinion, I think it uh you know, it it's really not conducive for commercial space. It needs to be uh you know used as a an asset for the city, a gateway for uh you know somebody coming in and leaning more towards the tourism uh avenue, you know, to the promotion. And that could be, you know, they could make a lot of money selling a lot of uh you know, Bay St. Louis hats and shot glasses and

having uh you know different uh artists have their have their wares there. So that's that's where I'm going to lean in that we really need we really need to focus on on the bottom floor but then we have the top floor too that we could do something to be completely separate. [cough] [clears throat] I think it would be horrible to have a private

I think the the part problem with I guess the whole building needing to be uh nonprofit and this is something that I know I've I've said quite a few times and u had conversations some with Councilman Salvo and Councilman Lewis with you know one thing I've always heard with going to the private sector not not in the depot building in general but as a city is that we're bad landlords or bad managers of property. But in my opinion, whether we manage or we're overseeing a nonprofit or for a for-profit business, then we're still property managers. We're still landlords. So, at at the bottom, we say we want to keep it and kind of design and outline something that maybe a nonprofit would be better suited for. I think it would be hard to fill that whole building with just nonprofits is going to be the trick because you got 8,000 square feet and I think that would be hard to fill the whole thing. So to Councilman Smith's point, if you want to have one part maybe open and see what nonprofits put in for it and kind of outline what we'd like to see in there.

Well, you also want want uh the first and second floors to complement each other, you know. to uh feed off of each other.

Any Maybe you know there something. Yeah, that's what I'm as far as to fill that [clears throat] bill. I was thinking maybe take the approach because we don't have to accept anything. I mean, if we want to outline and say, hey, the bottom we want to try, you know, someone come in and operate a visitor center and have art on display and we we want to outline what we want. I think that's the discussion we need to have to see what we want in there. And then for the top, I mean, hate to say it, but go out and see who's going to offer us the most. And

you know, one of the things that's being talked about was uh I went over to a few months now over there. They had a building over there. And what they do is is they rent wall space for arts and different things like that. So, there's a group trying to put together a tourism, you know, welcome group um to maybe come in and do the same to where they'll eventually be self-funded and all in this building to where they would be leasing wall space to help pay expenses and and different things like that with that. And it would also be a a welcome slash tourism type center for visitors coming in where it would keep the um the buses and all going the trains, you know, they come and go every day and different things like that. So, so it's something that the place in Luxy was very successful. I think they had 40 something there 40 artists that are on display and they each pay like 50 60 bucks a month. to have wall space.

Yeah. And then I think they get 10% or 15% additional 10% and then I think they have it to where they also have to work a day in that rotation. If not, they have to pay somebody to work for them. But but there it's something that, you know, I think that could work in there whether it's just all downstairs and and hopefully maybe it could be enough, you know, interest in it to where it would be upstairs or something as well. I don't know. But it's an option I think we can look at to to try to have something in there without a lot of impact on the building itself. And something like that can also leverage um uh grants.

Yes. And state funding, county funding, you know. So what I what I liked about that one in Beluxy was for a lot of artists, they either don't have enough art to fill a whole building, but mostly they can't afford an entire space because it's so expensive and you know, but they could do a wall or two for a small fee. So that's what kind of caught my attention on Beluxy when the mayor and I went and looked at it. Who oversees that? Is it a nonprofit? It's a little organization that has a board and independent of the city. That's true.

You know, it's not the money is not thrown flowing through the city separate. But would that prevent us from doing something like because at most of the other train stations, they have golf cart rentals like and let people rent golf carts. It wouldn't intrude on anything on the inside. Could we still do that or allow that? I think that's completely a lot of guys I'm not sure there's that whole parking golf cart parking uh uh lot that I've never seen I know I know

golf cart there you're right and I think some of that is confusing I think we've talked about that before we need to the signage where they put that Amtrak sign it makes it look like it's Amtrak parking and it's not so word of mouth I think we all need to work together to let citizens know that that is public parking. Not I I don't know why the Amtrak the fancy Amtrak sign is right there, but it's very misleading. Yeah. But I mean, you could maybe utilize that for, you know, that's where the golf cart rental. Well, I would think you Yeah. If you're looking at golf cart just for getting on and off the train, you're probably only looking at a couple golf carts.

Yeah. you looking at full-fledged golf courses delivering them at the facility with the golf cart. Yeah. And the statistics tax more people are getting on the train in Bay St. Louis than getting off of the train in Bay St. Louis. So I don't know that you know u A golf cart rental place would be a money maker.

Gotcha. And I think too with the golf cart places that we have in Bay St. Louis delivering I think Yeah. I think it would be more reserve golf. Yeah. [laughter] Something to ponder. Yeah. I think y'all want to do a workshop. Yeah. I think we need ideas. I think we have a workshop. Need to have look at a workshop. Come up with some ideas. Also, you know, I'd like to hear the opinions from Councilman Lewis as well as council woman Holmes. I know she's out on the

And we need to get some um public input. Yeah, absolutely. Let our people, you know, give us some kind of input what they'd like to see. would like to see that. Yeah. Would that be a public hearing instead of a workshop or is they gonna open up a whole another workshop? Workshop. Workshop. Workshop.

I mean, if we can get some profit in there and help pay the bills for the building, be nice, too. In my opinion, you know, I mean, we're never going to recoup all our cost, but if we have somebody pay and close fair market value for some part of the building, the other part for the thing we're talking about business center, I think it' be good. I don't know if anybody take on that whole building, do something with it. Have to imagine use it to potential not it really grows. I could see the starting there I guess be competing with building downtown and stuff right there Gallery Hall or something. Not only that, but the one that's right right down the street is Bay the Arts of Bay. The Hancock County,

right, is right literally down the street. Potter's place, right? I'm good with those suggestions, too. I mean, if we can get some kind of business there, somebody to run it and do something, that'd be great. Since tourism closed down, foot traffic really went way down in that building. Do you think maybe the chamber could help us with that in any way getting tourism? Maybe that'd be great. I think that would be one comment start. One other comment I just refresh on in the budget. You did put about $10,000 in for a main street association to begin that process, you know. So, that is something also just be thinking down the road.

And don't like and that's a two-year process. You have to wait. Was it two years? It's a two-year process to get you've got to, you know, get your board of directors. You got bylaws that it has to, you know, make it work, right? That's their process. Okay. I think uh we got a lot of different thought processes up here. Yeah. Um I think I mean I think we need to schedule a workshop to do it and that way we can bring our ideas and and really try to narrow down what we want to do. U and we can all have discussion see if there's any interest anybody out there that's might be interested in some of the buildings to do that

right kind of get a feel from so we will uh move along do we have to schedule the workshop in the meeting or can I send an email out see what dates work do we'll see what dates work and then we'll come up with a date for a workshop moving on Any other discussion? No. Any other city council business? Okay. Moving on to uh the public forum for non uh agenda items. Mr. Johnny Rafio.

All right. My name is Johnny Rapio. I'm the owner of Big Boy Status Towing. I've been trying for four years to get on record rotation. My attorney has been reached out to uh the city attorney and and the chief and we're trying to figure out why does it take four years for a company that's that's got all insurance, all equipment and facility. Why does it take four years for them to give us an answer? They tell us that they're changing ordinance. Changing ordinance. when they give us the papers to fill out for the application on top of the application says 2018. How can you change ordinance and and give us a paper says 2018? Is that possible?

My my question I have to defer to Mr. Legal or administer I I can't tell you what the application looks like. I know that they did change the procedures. It's not the ordinance. it's the procedures. Um, that doesn't necessarily mean the application has to change because the requirements aren't going to be in the application. Um, I do also know that, yeah, it's been a four-year process, but I do know at times uh, Mr. Rafio did not meet the requirements.

We've always met requirements. She is incorrect. I've been on record rotation for four years for Mississippi Highway Patrol. We're in Pik Union and we're going in Harrison County, too. So, we're on off of that rotation as well at one time. You was off of that rotation as well when you got not four years ago. Four years ago since I've been four years ago since I've been here been been trying to talk to y'all about record rotation. I've been I've been trying to get on here and I've been I meet all requirements, insurance, trucks, equipment, yard. So what is the deal? I I will say from my knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong, as far as a city council standpoint, we don't I mean that decision

goes through the police department. goes to the police department. Um, so you said you've met with Chief Kingston. Josh, my attorney's been handling the rest, been talking to Mr. The only the only thing he's asked me last week what the status was and I asked the police chief and the police chief said he was reviewing several applications. So I I I can't tell you. I don't know if he opened up applications. I I have no clue. Well, they told me they told me when I went on there for they said I'd have a letter in 10 days and we still haven't got it. So what's the deal? I I don't think anybody in this room can answer that question. Okay. Well, when do I need to come back to Mill so we can find out this all together?

You know, I uh I would I'll reach out to Chief Kingston and see uh see what he's where he's at in the process. If you want, I get your phone number. Yes. And then uh I would like somebody to reach out reach out and communicate and then go from there. But unfortunately, none of us up here will be able to make that decision for Chief Kingston. But as far as just finding out maybe to get you answers what the hold up is or whether there's a yay or nay just to give you the answer. Well, that's fine. Perfect. You want my number? Yeah, I I'll give it to you right now. You're going to get a bunch of calls. I don't care. [laughter] I have no car. You know how many people are watching? That's good because that's good. They need They need It's 61 61 337 337

two four two four 44 44 Okay. and I go by JR. Thank you very much. Thanks, sir. Y'all have a good day. You too. Thank you, sir. Okay, we have Miss Anita Warner Warner.

Okay, so this may be better directed to the city attorney at this point. Are we still operating under the old tree ordinance? We are. Wow. Okay. So, what's happening with Shieldsboro? What are they doing about the trees they cut down and the what are they doing with going We we can't answer that, Miss Anita. That's it goes that they have been given citations. It goes to the court system. I'm not the city prosecutor. I'm the city attorney, but the city has a pro the city also has a prosecutor. So, all of that has been the build building department has issued their citations and it's sitting with the the city prosecutor and I'm just not up to to date on where they are in that process or what's going on with it. Okay.

But it's pending. I know it's it's pending in front of city court,

but I'm going to go back to what I said when I was talking about the tree ordinance. Okay. Those people have clearcut. They basically went in there and clearcut. They left maybe three trees, but they cut a lot of protected trees. And I understand we're citing them, but going forward when they start building again, you should require them to put in some trees with every house. If you drive along Old Spanish, you can see they've got this list of houses and there's not a tree out there. Not any trees on the backside. There's trees in Shieldsboro that were there, but it's part of whatever y'all decide to do with Shieldsboro. And I understand that we're litigating all this. They should be required to put in trees. And I'm going to say again, they don't have to be live oak trees. There's lots of other kinds of trees they could put in out there that will grow fast, that will get tall, but don't necessarily grow like a live oak, which is like a mushroom and comes down to the ground. So, please make sure that if we settle something with these people that they put some trees in to replace the ones that they clear cut. Thank you.

Thank you. And also just want to point out u I appreciate the comments on the second half of it. Um but on the first when asking uh Miss Ladner some questions, you know, feel free to reach out outside of council meeting that way. over here. We We're attending council business. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to the attorney's report. Good.

Good. Okay. Any executive session needed? No. [clears throat] I will call for a motion to adjourn the meeting of December 16th, 2025. Have a motion by Councilman Smith. Do a second. Second by Councilwoman Davis. Any discussion? Vote the motion. I I I I motion carries 5. Meeting adjourned.