City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Good morning.

It's good to see everyone this morning.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're now in the hands of our capable city clerk, Ms. Lisa Carroll. This is the pre-meeting of the Mobile City Council Tuesday, June the 23rd. We have approval of minutes from June 16th.

Any issues, anyone?

Okay. Appeals we have requests for wave the noise ordinance on July the 4th on Elmira Street from 3 p.m. until 10 p.m. and June 27th in Langham Park from 2.30 to 7.30 p.m. Any issue, Councilwoman Gregory?

Mr. President.

Mr. Penn.

Dr. Ingram sent me a message asking us to hold this over for a week in her district.

Okay. Okay.

Public hearings today as the public hearing to consider the proposed denial of a conditional use permit for property located at 904 Kentucky Street.

Mr. President, yes, just for everybody's knowledge, this is this is like an Airbnb that that Um, obviously, with the, there's a different process now, or, you know, basically at the planning commission level, it has to check every box to be recommended by planning commission. What this is, is this is kind of another way since it was was not recommended planning commission level. This is just another way, I guess of. guess appealing um and trying to trying to figure out a way um through the udc process i just want to kind of give everybody a little bit of color regarding this and just for knowledge yeah i do uh not support the denial um these people are they uh matter of fact they know too don't you they used to live in your district it was um

I can't think of the last name, but they're two couples. They moved from your district to mine's. But anyway. Joe and Hendricks? Yeah, the Hendricks. Okay. Yeah, the Hendricks. They're very good people and pretty much do support going forward and withholding the denial of this particular.

You want to withhold the denial?

Yeah, yeah. Support the denial. Okay.

Yeah, and then, Mr. President, kind of going through the checklist, per se, of the UDC regarding our Airbnbs. I think one of the really the primary box that it didn't check was dealing with where your trash receptacle had to go. I think it has to meet a certain criteria as far as I think 125 feet or something like that. And just where they're locating their trash receptacle, it just didn't meet that criteria. So definitely an interesting way of walking through the Airbnb.

And I believe that the administration is working on that also.

Mr. President.

Mr. Reynolds.

I don't know that we have the ability to pass this. I'm afraid we have to modify UDC if we wanted to pass this, because this is basically, or they'd have to get some variance of some regard, because UDC says in order to get this passed, what is this a uh conditional use in order to get this conditional use you must meet these criteria in udc one of which is proximity of a dumpster and many other things that match the exact language of a bed and breakfast so if we were to pass this we'd be in direct conflict with udc as written so only way i know that you could pass it would be in order would be to get some variance or modify the udc which is obviously a substantial process that's my understanding of how it works jonathan do you have an opinion on this yeah so the way that the ordinance reads it does have requirements that uses the word shall and so if you pull up actually the application on the city's website it has a notation that says

If you can't do this and one of the things is the receptacle, then the council and planning cannot approve it. So that's the way that the ordinance is written right now is that all of these requirements, these listed requirements are must-haves. And so my understanding looking at the property is the issue here is because of the size of the lot, it's an impossibility for them to meet that requirement. But if you go strictly by the language in the ordinance, I don't think there's a way to do it.

So you're saying there's not a need for us to have, they don't meet the requirements in the first place. Is that what you're saying?

Well, procedurally, I think it had to come to you just because that's the way that the ordinance.

So it still comes to us.

It does.

So I'm confused as to what the problem is. Then if we are going to just uphold the planning commission, is that what it should be?

The planning commission makes a recommendation to the council. And then you guys can consider it separately, consider the recommendation of the Planning Commission. But here, because the parcel cannot possibly meet the requirements, I don't see that you have a choice. Because the ordinance speaks specifically to several factors or several conditions that have to be met. And this parcel cannot meet those.

Well, we still have to have the plumber here. And they'll just talk about it for the next week or so. OK. Madam Clerk?

Presentation of petitions and other communications to the council. Cartina Craig requests financial support from the council to start a youth basketball team for the city. Veterans Commission providing updates on the progress of the Purple Heart Salute. Reggie Hill, budget practices, recommendations, municipal enforcement oversight responsibilities. Clarify concerns about 08623, chapter 46 of the municipal code. necessity for various investigations. CIP resolutions held over 0960, 661, and 662 are transferring funds from Capital Project CIP District 4 for the Halls Mill Creek Public Access Consent resolution is held over. 427, 429, 430, 433, and 549 are declaring the structures at 613 Roof Street, 1163 Texas Street, 1167 Texas Street, 2513 Kerrigan Drive, and 1332 Congress Street public nuisances and ordering them demolished.

Yeah, Mr President, I've got some updates if the Council would like to hear them for these holdovers. The first four were held over 60 days, so we do have a timeline on those, so we do need to take some action. Council today. Otherwise I'll be forced to start over like Miss Ingram brought up last week. The first one. 613 Roof Street. At this point, I do recommend we go forward with the declaration because this is a burn structure. The owner has not made any repairs and there is no permit for repairs been applied for. The second one, 613 Texas Street. Again, the owner has not. This was held over for the owner to get a permit to make repairs and he has not done so. So I do recommend that we move forward and declare this a public nuisance. at 11 67 Texas Street. Um I do recommend that we table this one because the owner has engaged in a sales contract. I've got a copy of it and that process is going forward with a um a title company for the transfer of the ownership for a new owner. This owner has a track record for making repairs so that we might be able to save this historic structure. So I do recommend that we table this one at 11 67 Texas Street 25 13 Kerrigan Street. This is a fire damaged burn structure where the roof is collapsed and we have damage on the exterior wall. There's no active building permit and there's been no on site repairs visible based on inspection made yesterday. The last one that we have 13 32 Congress Street. This was held over for 30 days This particular house, if you remember, had roof damage, exterior wall damage, and the owner wanted some additional time to sell the property, but we have no record of a sales contract and no follow-up from the owner. So I do recommend that we go forward and declare this a public nuisance as well. Okay.

03512 accept resignations from former board members and appoint clint mitchell thomas carmier and michael albanese to the improvement district of the city of mobile mcgowan park project resolutions held over zero eight six six five approved purchase order to brand industrial services for disembarkation ramp with canopy for the 08668, approved purchase order GXC for walk-through weapons detection systems. 08673, approved purchase order Mighty Light for tables, dance floor, dining chairs, bar stools, storage carts. 08674, approved purchase order Cypress Ford for super crew pickup truck. 09679, transfer funds from capital project capital improvement reserve to general fund

account bill mobile mr president ms runnels why wouldn't this just be paid out of the capital account instead of transferring it to the general fund why wouldn't we just pay for this professional and technical service that's being provided as was described last week why wouldn't that just be paid out of the capital account

This may have, and Donna's not here, but I had instructed her that any of the recurring costs that we incur should be moved over to the operational funds.

On what basis, though? I mean, I don't understand. Either it's operational or it's capital. It's been capital for a number of years, so why wouldn't we pay for it out of capital? There are probably many other instances where we're providing or paying for professional and technical services out of a capital account it's really just a housekeeping a recurring expense really ought to be put into our general fund budget i understand that's an opinion but i'm saying on what basis i don't i don't understand we don't have recurring capital so for example out of our capital account we pay for uh incentive for uh airbus That's a recurring based on a contract. It recurs over the course of the term of the contract. It comes out of capital.

And there's the key there. That's a termed contract. It would be paid out over, say, five years or something like that. That's so much per year. But any recurring expense that we incur every year, my instructions were to let's budget that out of general fund and keep the capital for the one-time expenditures or those that have finite dates.

Well, this, this is not an open-ended contract. This thing is, I mean, this one a year, it's an annual contract, right?

It's an annual recurring contract for the five-year plan.

Right. But don't we have some of those in the capital account as well?

It is. We did budget it out of capital. My point being that a recurring expense ought to be budgeted in the general fund. That's all. So it's really just a housekeeping issue.

This says the capital project capital improvement reserve. Are you telling me in the capital improvement reserve fund y'all budgeted or we budgeted in the previous year this professional and technical account?

No.

Because that don't make sense. If it's a reserve account, why would we have budgeted in our previous budget professional and technical services for Build Mobile?

It was not budgeted. That was one of the problems. So the capital request came in, but we're not budgeted. And so I met with Bill Mobile and we had to find a way to do it. But my instructions with finance was to take the recurring expense of this and build it into the professional technical operations budget for Bill Mobile. And Marion's here. Do you know much about this one?

I mean, based on what I'm hearing, this is precisely the thing we should be avoiding, that If there is this expense that comes up for Build Mobile that needs to be taken out of the general fund, they need to find the money in their general fund budget. Otherwise, we're going down this slippery slope of saying, well, we'll just go to the capital account, transfer it over for these operational expenses so that they don't have to tighten their belt and get this done out of their budget. so there's an agreement here we should not be moving money from capital to general fund this was a budgeting issue and that it should have been budgeted in the general fund to begin with that's how all these work right we should we should have budgeted something additionally in the general fund that's correct we didn't so we're going to rob the capital account to take care of the thing that we should have done during budget time i just think that this is a very slippery slope i agree and um

i don't support it i just i just i just don't support it i mean if if it's that important we'll find a way in our current general fund budget and you will going forward it'll be budgeted in the general fund budget you shouldn't see these transfers you have me at a bit of a disadvantage in that the the people that put the previous budget together are not here right and so When I saw it, I wanted all the recurring and this wasn't the only one I wanted all recurring expenses that we're going to incur moved over to general fund, keep the capital projects for capital.

Yeah, I guess my question would be is, uh, is, is, is this the only way that this can be done is to set the house cleaning aside? I mean, Is there enough in the Build Mobile budget to handle this currently?

There's not enough in the Build Mobile budget. There's other ways of doing it. Money's pretty fungible. It's just that this was the allocation that when we went through to allocate some of the money that wasn't allocated in general fund to pay for some of these expenses that were not budgeted. And so you shouldn't, once this gets cleaned up, you shouldn't see a recurring expense coming out of capital again.

Yeah, I get it. Right. You're stealing from the capital. You're taking care of it. You shouldn't see it. But I'm just saying if the general fund total budget, if that stays exactly the same and you can move money within the general account by way of a resolution, I'm satisfied. hopping over the fence and saying, we're going to take from capital to put into general fund. I'm not, I mean, that should be avoided at all costs. So the question would be, is there some budgeted amount that can be moved within the general fund to accommodate this general fund expenditure?

Yes. Again, money's fungible. If we wanted to move within the general fund, we're far enough into the budget now that we can look for.

That's right. So that would be my suggestion would be, If y'all want to find another account to transfer from to, I'm okay with that.

So when I say that the money's fungible, you have to realize the capital account has 21 million that was transferred into it from the general fund. So we're really not really accomplishing anything. Just what I'm saying. It's the same money.

It's fungible. That 21 million that was transferred into the capital account, was transferred for a specific capital purpose, correct?

No, a lot of it was unallocated to specific projects. yeah i mean you know there was five million that went straight to drainage that above and beyond what we normally do that sandy wanted done and so you know there there's different some of it went to debt service but but there was some that was unallocated as we went back and tried to clean up the capital funds to make sure the departments had what they needed this was just a reserve fund that we found the money that we could do and that was back six months ago

I think there's a better way to do it, to hold all of our feet to the fire and say, this is the general fund money. This is the capital money. We're going to avoid it at all costs, as we have for, Jim, you've been here how many years? 12 years since the mayor was here? 10? I don't know how long it took Paul Wesch and everybody to figure this out, that we can't move this money. because of the problems it causes where it just becomes an ordinary, regular thing that happens. I think if there's money in the general fund, now that we're closer towards the end of the year, we know what departments are going to use all their budget, which ones are not. Let's find some spot that we know they're not going to use all their budget and move this money. I mean, it's $80,000. Certainly, we can find $80,000 in some departments.

Again, money's fungible. And so can we do what you're asking? Yes. This just happened to be unallocated money that we were just going to build into the general fund budget. It just wasn't done in the last budget cycle. But we have put processes in place to make sure that all of this is cleaned up before you get the budget this year.

Thank you, Mr. President. Chief, I had a couple questions. When we look at this, and you state that it should be in the general fund account with Bill Mobile, in the past four years, was it in that account? Or is this from this last year budget year? That's when it changed.

I know that it was not allocated in the current general fund budget for this expense in bill mobile. It was not allocated. And so the people that I would need to ask are not here.

Okay. So, but prior to the years was this, was it,

Yes, it was always budgeted prior prior in the general fund in the general fund.

Okay. And then was this when we look in to transfer the capital project, capital improvement reserve to general fund? Was it budgeted in that for that purpose? Or is this something new that the department realized we need?

The department realized that it was not budgeted in their operation fund. And so they came in with a request and this wasn't the only item that wasn't budgeted. We ended up having to go in and try to figure out what other capital projects we had to fund. But this was one that was not funded in their operational fund. We found the money in the capital fund that was transferred over to the capital fund and we're just moving it back. We can do it within the general fund. But at the time we were addressing it, it was too early in the budget cycle to really know where to pull the money from. OK. But this is not allocated to a project. That's why it's being allocated to this one. Gotcha. All right. Thank you.

Mr. President, I got one other point I'd like to make. To prop up this budget that we're working on right now, we had to make a transfer or had to take unassigned fund balance from the previous year's budget to prop up this general fund budget. So those sort of cuts that were made LIKELY FOR CONTRACTS LIKE THIS OUT OF THE GENERAL FUND WERE PROBABLY INTENTIONAL BECAUSE WE TOOK UNASSIGNED FUND BALANCE CASH TO PUT PROP OF THE BUDGET I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT THE TOTAL WAS BUT IT WAS A LOT OF MONEY DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT WAS WHAT WAS TRANSFERRED INTO THE GENERAL FUND BUDGET 29 MILLION 29 MILLION DOLLARS WE HAD TO TAKE OUT OF THE UNASSIGNED FUND BALANCE TO PUT IN THERE YOU KNOW SO YOU KNOW I Just saying it's a slippery slope. So I'm not going to support it today. But I'd happily support a transfer from one general fund account to another general fund account if that's required.

It's your prerogative. We do need to move forward with getting this contract approved.

Anyone else? All right. Thank you, Chief. Mr. Clerk?

21681, authorized contractor for McCrory and Williams for 2024 TAP downtown mobile sidewalk improvements. 37682, considered application of Woods Anytime Mobility for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to operate a shuttle service. Ordinances being introduced, 64027 is the conditional use permit on Kentucky Street. Consent resolutions being introduced. 09685, transfer funds from District 2 Discretionary Fund to Parks and Recreation Department James Seals Community Center to assist with back-to-school giveaway. 37686, recommend approval to the ABC Board for issuance of a lounge retail liquor license and specialty retailer of consumable hemp products licensed to Vapors Smoke Shop on Osceola Road. 58, 687, assess costs for removal of weeds, repeat Weedling Group 101. 60, 688, and 689 are determined appropriations to Ozanam Charity Foundation, Williamson High School, Murphy High School, Mobile County Training School, WH Leinkauf Elementary School, George Hall Elementary, Florence Hall Elementary, Dunbar Magnet, Council Traditional, Callaway Smith Middle School Barton Academy for Advanced World Studies, serve a public purpose and approve payment. CIP resolutions being introduced 09690 transfer funds and Capital Project Cruise Terminal disembark ramp to Capital Project Cruise Terminal equipment and miscellaneous for replacement of elevator $39,283.88. Mr. President, Mr. Ron, this was just the left the leftover funds.

OK.

Resolutions being introduced 01691, authorized agreement with Gaines Utility Construction Company for securing the structures Seabreeze Road North, $313,346. 01692, authorized agreement with Inspire U for marketing and event planning. twenty four thousand five hundred dollars zero eight six ninety three six ninety four and six ninety five are proven purchasers the best price services godwin land solutions hughes 360 services for storm drainage vegetation and debris removal zero eight six ninety six approve purchase order the canes tree and landscape for emergency tree removal on spring hill avenue twenty nine thousand 08697, approved purchase order to the Connor Group for six months rental of telescopic bucket trucks, 63,000. 08698 and 699, approved purchase order to Vulcan Construction Materials for 600 tons of limestone. $41,400. $25,700 except temporary construction easements for drainage repairs for Laverne Drive East.

Before we go forward, Mr. President, on the two above that, 698 and 699. They're separate. Pardon me?

They are separate.

Yeah, I see that they're separate, but it's the same company, almost the exact amount of money for the same place, but they separated it out.

They're separate items, separate bid numbers or whatever.

Different types of material. Yes.

Is it different types of material? Yeah. It doesn't say that on here. It just says limestone for stormwater department.

Yeah.

I asked, it looks like we're trying to get under that $50,000. That's what it looks like.

Did you need any more additional questions? If someone is able to answer vice president question.

let me get you an answer i'll call over to public services i'll have it to the vice president by council meeting okay 31701 authorize the mayor to apply accept and receive a grant for the federal emergency management agency's fiscal year 2024 2025 building resilient resilient infrastructure and communities grant program 350 000 105 000 match

6702 adopt the 2026 mobile county multi-jurisdiction hazard mitigation plan announcements uh council mr president i got a question about all this uh we created this new uh stormwater department and we've done a lot of vegetation removal throughout ditches is there anyone that could just tell us like how did we fare during this latest event just generally and were there Less calls, more calls, less flooding, more flooding. It was pretty significant rain event.

Good morning. So I will tell you one of the big benefits of what helped us this time around is we're doing pre-work to the storm. So when we knew we was getting this amount of rain, we came out and start with the vector truck and start going to our most, uh, flood areas and start fixing and getting those areas addressed so they didn't flood as bad. The water flow has helped a lot. So instead of us doing one big ditch, as you've seen every week, we're doing multiple ditches, which made a big difference of the water flow. So it's made a big difference. What we're working on now is to give you guys a report I went and did a ride along and I don't think you understand it till you see it. The before and after of some of these pictures that you wouldn't even known that there were ditches over there because they were so overgrown. So we're trying to prepare a report to share with you all so that you could see all the work that we've done this year.

But overall, you would say that our establishing this department and really putting in the work made a substantial difference. At this point, would you recommend that we continue moving forward with that department and these contracts going forward, say, in the next year?

Definitely. We were picking certain neighborhoods to fix and then it's going, so we have the whole city to do. This is only a bite out of the chunk, not a major part of what we need to do.

Thank you. You're welcome. I do want to make one comment about drainage. From a capital project standpoint, I put in about, I don't know, $1.8 million into a neighborhood's ditches. And during this deluge at high tide, the water stayed in the ditches. Like it was phenomenal. I mean, it was a huge relief to me, you know, that it stayed in the ditches and did how it was supposed to do. The engineers got it right, you know, and it's not something you think about until the rain's on top of you. But, It's so expensive to do this drainage work. So I'm hoping we'll, I know we got a brick application here for, you know, replacement of sheet piles along Mount Lamar Creek and Moore Creek, but I'd love to see us try to pursue some brick money or additional FEMA money to put into some of these sort of neighborhood type projects that we now see they work. They're just crazy expensive. And I don't think our CIP alone is going to be able to catch up for you know, 20 years of siltation or whatever, how long it is really need to go after big chunks somewhere else. So just want to make everybody aware of that.

Yes. Um, I, I don't want to say thank you to on, um, on behalf of my, my district, uh, in the height of the rain and everything drive around. Cause I knew there was a couple of stormwater things that we, we, we approved to kind of take care of. Bob White Trail is one of them. Right after the height of the rain, I rode through that area, and instead of doing the ponding and the backing up like it normally does, the water was flowing. So, I mean, it makes a huge difference. And I know it hasn't been desilted yet or anything, But just that clearing and making everything more readable, I guess, when it comes to what we have to do, it was a huge improvement. So thank you for that. And thanks to Matt. And I know several issues. We had a day off, I guess, on Friday. And there were several issues out in my district that the crews were able to handle. So thank you for the quick response on that. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah, me too. I just want to add my thanks to John Forrester and his team for answering a call that I got from a couple of neighbors, one who was looking at flooding coming into her house and the other was showing us the debris that was washing from his property from the ditch onto the street. So thank you for getting on out there very quickly and getting it. resolved, they were very grateful. But the vegetation and debris removal that we've been doing, I've had the before and after photos, I've been out looking at the ditches and it makes a huge difference. I mean, I think we should put more money into it because this is something that is really showing results very quickly and just making such a difference. And I really appreciate all of that. And speaking of storm mayor, are you going to announce the trash? Because I had gotten some calls about trash. People were wondering, can they go ahead and put their storm debris out now without worrying that they would get a ticket for putting it out early? And I know usually, you know, when we have storms, we do that. Just wanted to mention that at our pre-conference meeting in case anybody was watching and wondering. So, and then for those who had trash pickup on Friday, who didn't realize trash was coming Saturday, they get the same relaxation, right? Okay. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else? Uh, vice president.

Let's look at the various items that we can waive the rules on today. Of course, on consent, then we go down to CIP 09690, then go to the next page, which is 01692, 93, 94, 95, 98, 99, and I think that's it. for today. Yeah. Okay.

Anything else in a one, anything from the administration? All right. We see you downstairs at 10 30.