City Council - workshop

Good evening, we'll call this meeting to order. Tonight is the Thursday, June 18th work session for the city council meeting that's coming up on Monday the 22nd. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Council President Middlebrooks? Council Pro Tem Driver? Here. Council Member Schultz?

Here.

Council Member Smith?

Present.

Council Member Lovell? Council Member Murphy?

Present.

Council Member McClinton?

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We have a lighter crowd tonight, and I know a lot of weather challenges getting over here today, so I'm grateful to those of you who could be here with us tonight. We're going to walk through the agenda, starting with the consent agenda for Monday. Of course, we'll first do the payment of the bills and the minutes, and then we will move along to Resolution 886526, which is approving an alcohol license for the Galleria Mobile at 1767 Montgomery Highway. Ms. Dickerson, any issues with this item?

There are no issues with this request from the police chief or from the zoning department, and this is also for an existing business under new ownership. Okay.

And so I assume then when ownership changes that the license has to be updated to the new owner? That's correct. Okay. Any other questions from the council?

All right, we'll move right along to number two.

This is item number four on the consent agenda. Resolution number 8866-26. This is authorizing the mayor to execute a successor co-trustee acceptance and hold harmless agreement with Raymond James Trust and Kay Aldridge for the Edgar Gaines Aldridge Charitable Remainder Trust. Ms. Dickerson?

Yes, this is for the 1999 one. Just a couple of months ago, y'all approved the one for 1995 and the other documents, and this will be for the 1999 one. Do we have any questions from the council?

Who will the appointee be?

Raymond James.

Thank you.

Any other questions? All right, we'll move along to item number five, resolution number 8867-26. This is a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a grant agreement with the Alabama USA semi-quincentennial, that's a mouthful, commission for Hoover's fourth on the first Independence Day celebration. Mr. Pepper, how are you?

Yeah, good evening. How are y'all?

Good evening.

I'm glad I don't have to spell semi-quincentennial. It's hard enough to pronounce. So this is just to authorize the mayor or his designee to sign the agreement for the grant. We've already been awarded it, and I think the... Later on the agenda, there's a budget amendment to accept the money. So it's $2,500 that we'll use toward our festival out at the Met, fourth on the first, first on the fourth. No, fourth on the first, there it is.

Fantastic. Any questions? Mr. Pepper, I know we're all excited. I personally have to miss that one. I'm going to be on a planned family vacation that we plan a year in advance, but I'm really disappointed to miss out because it sounds like it's going to be amazing and free admission to the community, cheap food, and lots of great entertainment. So we're excited about that.

Actually, today we've got a guy that's coming.

That's exciting. I know you've planned, you and the staff have planned some amazing surprises for everyone as well. So very good. Thank you, Mr. Pepper.

I've got the next one.

You got the next one. All right. So item number six is resolution number 8868-26. And this is a contract with Lumen Arts Entertainment for the first on the fourth.

Right, so Lumen Arts Entertainment, this is to sign an agreement with them. They will be providing some entertainers, family-friendly, balloon twisting, jugglers, stilt walkers, that sort of fun stuff for our event.

Okay. All right, any questions for Mr. Pepper? Fire performers, it says, yes. All right, moving right along then, if no questions. Number seven is Mr. Moose Cope is coming down to talk about 8869-26, which is an agreement with Microsoft Corporation for volume licensing.

Evening, Council, Mayor. Every three years, we have to renew our Microsoft licensing. This covers our servers, our databases, our operating systems for all of our PCs, our email and exchange and calendar licenses and stuff. So the agreement is a three-year agreement, but it's paid annually. And so I believe this year is 314,000, 318,000 for the year in the agreement. and then we'll do a true-up each year for any increases in the number of licenses that we use above our current standing in that setup.

Any questions? Mr. Schultz.

I have several questions. Sure. Let's start with the we're using on some of them per device and some per user. What is our reason for going with certain licenses are being used per device? How many users are there in the city?

Approximately 150 users.

Okay, but we're not buying a license for every user, or we are?

We are. So it depends on exactly what type of license you want to get into. If you're talking G3 versus G5 licenses for Office or Outlook, whatever you want to call it, we run approximately 800 licenses. G3s and 50 G5s. Basically due to the price differentials inside of the G50s are for department heads and other higher status positions. How are you gonna classify those? There's some additional functionality that they get inside of there that the regular users don't use and just to minimize some of that cost.

Okay. Does this cover only the city or does it cover the library as well?

It covers the library from the aspect of the software that they use from us. Anything else that they would get from the library coalition, Jefferson County Library, that would all be covered through that side of it.

So the office licenses and all that is on this side, is that correct?

Correct. Like I said, if it's our equipment, if it's our hardware, we're paying for the licenses. If it's not ours, then it's coming through their stuff. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you, Councilor Schultz. Any other questions from council?

Thank you, counsel.

All right. Thank you. The next item on the agenda number eight is resolution number 8870-26. This is a resolution authorizing an extension of a letter of intent to sell the property located at 3021 Lourda Road. Mr. City Attorney, I believe you have an update for us on this one.

Yes, ma'am. The purchase price is the same, 1.9. What has changed is the closing date. will be August 7, and they're paying an additional $10,000 in earnest money, and we have so far kept $15,000 in earnest money that's not credited toward the purchase price. So we've had one inquiry that was not adequate, and we think that we're gonna be able to get this closed. I'd ask for a commitment letter They said that they'll get as quickly as they can. That's all I can tell you. So it'll be about a six-week extension of time.

Questions from the council?

Mr. Waldrop, what kind of issues have they been running into to delay the closing?

I think the primary issue, I think, is an SBA loan. that they've applied for, and it takes a little more time to get there. In fact, I'll tell you, when they told me they were getting an SBA loan initially, I said, you're really ambitious on your time frame to get this done. So anyway, that's where we are, and I feel good about the fact that they're going to close because they've got $15,000 invested and they're going to put another 10 in, so they've got real skin in the game, so to speak.

Thank you very much. So item number nine is resolution number 8871-26. This is a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a change order for a bid on top of tree lane sidewalk project. And I believe we have Mr. Marlin from engineering.

Yes, good evening.

Good evening.

So this is a deductive and additional work change order for the top tree lane sidewalk. So due to some underrunning of pay items with the original bid, There's a deduction of $4,571.45. The additional items, which include retaining wall and about 150 feet of under drain, total $25,718.19. So with these changes, there's a net addition of $21,146.74 to the final contract amount. The funds needed for this change order will be transferred from the Chapel Lane Sidewalk Project, which will come under the original bid amount.

Any questions? Has this portion of the sidewalk project been completed, or when do we expect that?

Yes, the top of Trail Lane Sidewalk Project is completed.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, next we have Ms. Carrier and Mr. Brittle, I believe, on resolution number 8872-26. This is a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute and purchase casualty insurance with a traveler's indemnity company for the city.

Yes, good evening. Thank you very much. I think I do have the next four items. And these are all annual renewal items, insurance products that expire at the end of the month. And I am pleased to be joined tonight with James Brittle. He is our insurance consultant and was the broker for the renewal of each of these items. So the first item is the renewal of our travelers policy, and you may recall this is our insurance for automobile liability, our law enforcement liability, our umbrella. We did transition this policy this year from an 11-10 renewal date to a 7-1 renewal date to coincide with the renewals of most of our other policies. This quote does have an increase of approximately 10%. which is $79,712. This is a result of increased automobiles, staff, a larger budget. All of those factors play into the rating of our account each year. It is expected that this increase will be included in our internal service fund, and I'm not requesting additional budget amendment at this time. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

I do have one question you mentioned a larger budget, what budget are you referring to and how would that relate to the amount of premium that we're charged?

So when the underwriter rates our account each year, she compares our financial records, our number of employees, with what our existing, I'm sorry, expiring policy is. And so as far as the budget numbers,

Most of the casualty lines are rated off of, outside of the auto, off your expenditures as an entity. Because that is the closest measure to the risk that the city is generating for the carrier. So as your expenditures go up, it's a very clear parallel to the broadening of services and the broadening of exposure. So your expenditures from a budgetary year were up nine and a half percent, so actually this rate increase, the actual true rate that they use actually went down. The premium is up, but it's because your expenditures as a city are up from what was projected for last year versus what is projected for this year.

Clear as mud.

We can send you, I'll be glad to send you the backup data if you would like to see that, what was submitted.

Yeah, maybe just a high-level summary or something for the council.

Okay, we do have that, so happy to do that.

Okay, thank you. Other questions?

Yeah, I have a couple. Under the market responses in there, there were three companies that declined, did not want to submit bids. But there were more companies out there. You only sent it to four companies total?

No, it was sent to every carrier that would write public entity business. One of the dynamics in the insurance market today that often gets misconstrued by the way people understand insurance is you as an individual could have 12 people write your personalized insurance. Commercial insurance companies are much more narrow in their focus, and each year that goes by, there are fewer and fewer that will consider different types of exposures. So while we've approached even more than we thought would give us a quote, the primary carriers that write public entity insurance in a package program like this all declined to quote for various reasons. It has nothing to do with the city's risk profile. Most of it has to do with the pricing that you already have.

And you said our existing insurance expires in November or the...

No, sir. We transitioned. The current policy actually expires June the 30th, and this one will pick it up from July 1st moving forward for a full year. This was just kind of a transition year for us. It had an odd renewal date of November the 10th, and that's bothered me from the very beginning. I've wanted to change that, so I wanted it back on July 1st, which is our property and some of our other renewals. So James helped me with... getting a policy back in November that we only paid so much up front and so much a month so that we could stop it at the end of June. Unfortunately, they wouldn't write us a policy for just a few months. So that was the way we were able to transition that this year.

Very good. I'll have some questions on the other ones once we get to them.

Okay, absolutely.

So the only question I have is to piggyback on that. So I guess the, The feedback you receive is that assuming they look at the previous rates and probably decided that they wouldn't be in a situation to be marketable to win. Right. So the question I have on that is that, for God, this is not going to really consider it a... a bid, this is more of a request for RFP, more so, and if that, okay, you answered that question, so if that's the case, if it's only one person that requests, they're in the catbird seat to kind of raise the rates, do we keep it, are they the same? When you don't have more than one person, then the competitive nature goes out the window, in a sense, right?

except that we don't share what that incumbent is doing with their renewal. When we go into the marketplace, our competitive process puts last year's pricing in there as their target. So when they look at that number, they do not know what Travelers is gonna come to the table with this year. And then we also leverage travelers down on that as well.

So they can look at the last couple years and know they're going to hit the same target and they're not going to spend the money to market our account. They'll go to someone else, the more lucrative. So I guess, so we did negotiate down from what they submitted.

Absolutely. Okay.

All right. What's the variance of that? What we negotiated, they started and negotiated down to? Well, if you can get that Monday, I'll be happy. Okay. Okay. Okay. So it still works the same way if it's one bid, you can negotiate in RFP.

We're always creating competition on behalf of the city.

Yeah, but if it's two, you can't do that, though. But if it's one, you can negotiate that. Okay, thank you.

Well, and just to clarify, we did not issue an RFP for this.

What did you issue?

Well, we, James is our insurance consultant, and so he is our broker for the account, so he knows the insurance world, he knows the market, he knows who to approach, and he is our professional, so we rely on James to help us with that.

Okay, thank you, yes, thank you. Yes, sir.

Madam President, so I understand we only had one bid on this? We only received one quote. That's correct. Historically in the past with, of course it's usually hard assets, the council would usually reject all bids and authorize the mayor to negotiate not to exceed the bid. Would that be the appropriate action to take in this case?

That's really up to the council. Excuse me, I know that in prior years, as you point out, not just that, but any contracts to spend city money that were bid or there was a request for proposals that council would reject all of the proposals or bids and then empower the mayor to negotiate with the least expensive responsible bidder. So that's. But you don't have to do that that way, but that is an option if you want to do it.

Being an insurance product rather than a hard asset, would there be any success in doing something like this?

Well, I can tell you, I won't speak for James, but he has a relationship with Travelers. He negotiates on our behalf. I mean, he has a book of business with them for other accounts, so I feel like he's in a good place, and I know we talked about it once the quote came in, and he went back to the underwriter, so in essence, he markets our account, us, to the underwriter, so in essence, he does do that behind the scenes before we bring that to you.

Mayor, perhaps you could provide your opinion before Monday night as to whether or not that's a type of action you would prefer the council take or whether or not you just want us to vote the one bid as received.

Last one and don't just send it to me if you can send it to all the council if you can send the start off and what you negotiated down what I requested and then I'm assuming now that it's coming through you but then to the jeans point the mayor will give his opinion when it comes on his agenda if we should move forward with it right so if you can show the beginning and the start and the finish, that'll be great.

Yeah, and can we get the specifics on those options? It sounds like people threw up their arms and just didn't quote. I mean, there's some dynamic behind that that I can go into really briefly if you're interested. I think it's relevant to this discussion. There is a major carrier in the state of Alabama that insures municipalities called the Alabama Municipal Insurance Corporation, AMIC. They are a very qualified and right some of my other clients. They have a hard underwriting no on any large city now in the state of Alabama. So you take the major player out of contention, it has nothing to do with anything but the size of the city. The next candidate, is Liberty Mutual, which has a national program, well-known insurance company on public entities. They will not write public entities in the state of Alabama because of Amec's dominance of the space. Old Republic is another and a third choice, and Old Republic can't write in Alabama because they reinsure Amec, and they provide the backstop for that municipal insurance corporation that writes all of the small cities, water authorities, and things like that. So this is the dynamic that we face and we work through. So your question about whether there was an RFP, our process is very similar to an RFP. We take a package of information based on the city's performance and experience, and we approach each one of these carriers individually without revealing anything other than the expiring premiums because they want to know a target price. And our target is always expiring or lower. And so at that point, that's how we create the competition in this renewal.

Mr. President, I would request we get like an executive summary of what feedback you received. Give me your name, sir.

James Brittle.

James Brittle? Yeah. Feedback you received from the other entities. So we'll have that for the remaining of the council. And then the before and after to give us an idea of what it was. And then they'll come through the mayor's office to see what his recommendation for that will be.

As well as the factors that go into the increase of the casualty insurance by 10%. I mean, we may have had an increase in the expenditures that were looked at, but we don't have a 10% increase in revenue. So that's money that can't go to something else. So we just need to understand the basis for that.

Not a problem.

I do have some additional questions, though. I think one of the things that may not be clear and to kind of add to Councillor Smith's point is we're using USI to seek the pricing on the insurance. So we are using one entity to gather the pricing. Based on what I read on your four sheets on USI, you are not a commission-based entity. You are a fee-based entity. And from that, there is no gain in for you who we go with because you're not getting a commission out of it. But are there other entities like you, like USI, that do similar things that you do?

We absolutely have competitors.

So we have a relationship with USI, which I assume we've had for a period of time. May I ask why we are limiting ourselves to USI?

Because for our account, we have to have a broker of record. And so you can only have one broker of record because the insurance carriers want to deal with one person. They don't want to deal with multiple brokers trying to all get the account. So we have to designate somebody as a city to be at the broker of record in order to buy this insurance.

Excellent. So kind of going back to Councillor Smith's question, and I assume you understand the reason for his question is You went out, you got the pricing, but there was no real other competitive type thing. You said, I need a price on this, and that was it. There was no back and forth between any other companies. Is that a fair statement?

Once they took a look at the submission information, they gave an underwriting decision.

Okay, all right. All right, that's all the questions I have.

All right.

Madam President, may I ask a couple questions? The mayor's been in my ear about looking at this, so there's some information that he needs, and if you'll copy me with it. You've got the four items on here. If you could just break that down in an email and just say this is the personal injury backstop, whatever, and what the limits are and how much the premium is and what company would have been the next lowest premium for the same coverage, if there is one, and what they would have charged. It may be that... if if travelers was the lowest and the council decides to have the mayor negotiate maybe that whoever was second lowest could make a better bid if he negotiates that's the that's where the negotiation comes in and the other um the other question i have is mr brittle so amic is now limiting itself it doesn't write to the large municipality Now, they got downgraded to a B.

That is correct.

Are they still there?

They are still there.

Well, this is just my opinion. I don't think that's a great company. I don't think there's anybody that you want to have that business with. That does not speak well for them. All that being said, for the larger cities, and Hoover's one of the top ten in population, y'all may want to look at getting together and having your own pool. Because Amick was traditionally low, that's why they're a B rated now. Well, that's one of the reasons I would assume. But you got any thoughts on that, Mr. Brittle?

I think looking and approaching this issue of coverage from a pooling standpoint is a reasonable response. I mean, that is not where we started this process. We're obviously working through the coverage renewals as they come up and making sure that, I mean, this is, that casualty program, this right here, has about five lines of coverage in it, so it's not... a single policy, there are multiple coverages. And when you start to split those out.

It's too late. I mean, you can't put something like that together overnight. But if you start looking toward, you know, the next year after the calendar year, that may be something. The mayor I know is active in the group of 10. Might have a conversation. That's all that I have. If you just send us that email so if we can get it tomorrow, Debbie, and if he has any questions, we can get them over the weekend.

We're happy to do that.

So with the coverage expiring on 6-30, we have to vote on this on 6-22 in order to continue coverage. Is that correct?

Can we push travelers?

We could probably push it. Traditionally, it would be a hard date because we are changing the effective date that we have some flexibility that we normally would not have. The other three lines of coverage expire at the end of the month.

And would it be better next year to possibly get this ahead of, you know, in May versus in June the week before?

That is the hardest thing in our business.

Underwriters do not like to give you a quote more than 30 days out. And we struggle with that every year. I'm not a last-minute person. It drives me crazy. James and I worked on this Saturday. I mean, it truly comes down to the wire to try to get everything together.

Could we have it the first meeting in June?

That is our goal. This was because we were moving the date and we were restructuring the program to a different date. Travelers did not just have to make a decision. They had to re-underwrite the whole account, which slowed that down. And ultimately, the goal was to put these two property and the liability lines together so that if we had the opportunity to leverage that combined premium in the marketplace to find the city a better option, we would have the ability to do that at one time. That was the really the driving factor of trying to get these on the same day. We were losing that opportunity.

But we have three other policies coming up, I think, and those could have been presented. Those did not expire on 11-10, is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay. So those could have been presented earlier?

One of them could have. I think the, maybe the cyber, maybe the cyber. But we run into that with different carriers. I mean, truly, it is very difficult to get the quotes more than 30 days out.

Okay.

We struggle with that and have for years.

All right, Ms. Kerry, we've talked the casualty policy. Let's talk about the cyber policy, which is item number 11 on the agenda.

Yes, thank you. So this year, we are recommending a change from travelers to Tokyo Marine. This new quote that we have does have some expanded coverage protections. It does include a 6% increase from our expiring premium of approximately $2,982. Any questions?

Does what the city does in keeping the city's cyber structure safe play into the cost of the policy?

Yes, sir. Moose probably has to complete about a 10-page application. And in cyber insurance, if you're not providing the protections and the risk mitigation factors, you can't get the coverage.

I have to fill those out also for my clients. So we do, that is played into it.

Yes. Yes, sir.

You said there were some additional coverages or expanded coverages. I assume you must have determined that those were beneficial to the city and worth the $2,900 increase in premium.

Absolutely. And do you want to talk a little bit about cyber crime and what that is?

The two major improvements in this policy, one is an increase in the cyber crime limit from 250,000 to 500,000. Cyber crime is where we see the claims for social manipulation, impersonation, things where people are trying to steal money, invoices, things like that. So that's one of the big areas where we are doubling the coverage. for the city in that regard. The second thing is your policy has an overall three million limit, and this Tokyo Marine policy adds an additional three million limit for notification costs, so in the event of a breach that exposed all the employees IDs, and personal information, you have a separate limit for that under the Tokyo Marine Policy that does not diminish the limit for the claims because there'd be two groups. You'd have to make all those notifications and deal with that breach itself, do all that to all the credit monitoring and those kind of things that are mandated. plus if there were subsequent lawsuits filed, you would have a full three million limit for that. That is one of the biggest improvements in this policy that you're getting. So you're basically doubling your limit available for a cyber breach event, depending on where the expenses come from.

Councillor Murphy.

Madam President, just one question for you. Do these insurance companies evaluate our controls in place to determine our premium?

Yes, sir.

Do they have any recommendations of anything else we can do to put us in a better level in order for us to reduce our premium? I don't know how it's graded per se. Are we average? Are we medium when it comes to that? Are we in the top 10%?

So it's not an evaluation like you're speaking of. Okay. They send you an application that you fill out. It's a 12-page application. It'll start with the city's financials, the number of employees we have, those types of things, so they know what they're looking at as far as the data we have. They'll ask about the type of databases and servers we have inside of there. They'll want to know if we have multi-factor authentication because that's pretty much a requirement now for everything. They'll want to know what type of firewalls we're running. They want to know if we do employee training for email phishing alerts and those types of things. But they don't come in and actually connect to your network and do a true assessment of anything like that. So it's literally an application that you fill out and you submit that. So there's not a grading scale in how they do it. Most of it's a yes, no type thing. So they look at it if it's yes or no, then that's a checkpoint that they put on it. Realistically speaking, and I don't mean to be rude when I talk about cyber insurance. A lot of them really don't know what they're covering. And you know what I'm, honestly, from that standpoint, they've changed it over the years. They've actually lost a ton of money over the last several years in that. And so that's why they went from a one-page thing when they were doing it over the last couple years, it's spread out to that 12-page where they're starting to ask questions. Some of them are legitimate. Some of them are not. They're trying to still figure that area out.

So regardless of the fact of what controls we put in place and comparable to other cities and how advanced we are, we really, you know, we're in the same premium as other places that... Well, no, I think it's how you answer the questionnaire, right?

So you're going to answer the questionnaire, and obviously if you have an incident, they're going to come in and try to verify that you had those things in place. If you don't have those things in place, then they're going to...

So technically I can get a consultant to make it look good, you know, AI it and get a better, get a saying right until something happens.

You could, but if you have an event, they're going to verify that you have those.

I'm just trying to, yeah, so, okay. I just want to, I'm talking about the cost of it. So it's really filling out an application. Okay, thank you. Yeah.

Mr. Cope, with the threat assessment committee that you sat on at the beginning of this term, if I'm stating this correctly, do you have any additional opinion on the coverage that we need?

Well, Debbie and I spoke about this. We increased it, I think, last year from $1 million to $3 million. Realistically speaking, we're still not where we need to be as a city our size, and Debbie and I spoke about that as well, too. Obviously, the city has to decide how much they wanna take on financially from that standpoint. Realistically, for a city this size, we should be at about a 15 to $20 million coverage, which is substantially higher than the three million. You know, the goal, and I know we talked about this last year, and Debbie and I spoke about it the other day, the goal this year was hopefully to move to a $5 million to start getting us moving in that direction. That may mean that we take a higher deductible inside of that, and I think right now our deductible is $100,000. If we take a higher policy, maybe we move that deductible to $250,000 or even $500,000. But if you've got a $20 million payout, then $500,000 is really a small deductible. part to bite off in that consideration. So those are just some of the conversations that Debbie and I have had about this.

And I will say I'll be including that in my budget request for next year.

You'll be including a higher amount?

Yes, sir.

Can we have... up to what is recommended there? Instead of a five, can we have a A, B, and C, which includes a 15 or 20, because he's spot on as far as the coverage limits that we should have, okay? But we don't know what they are until, the cost would be until it's...

I think the A, B, and C is a way to look at it. You know, I would be comfortable in that 15 to 20 range of reality to be, you know, feel really great about it, we'd be in that 20 to 25 range as far as the coverage goes. I got another comment, we'll talk about it afterwards this night. But that's where I think we should be at.

And we can support those limit decisions with benchmarking data as well. And give the council some relevant city to city public entity type benchmarking data.

All right. If we're done with questions on that item, we'll move to the next. Of course.

This is a coverage question.

Mr. City Attorney is trying to ask a question over here. I apologize.

That's not a problem. Do we have underinsured motorist coverage? No, sir. I would just encourage you all to look at that, especially your public safety positions. They get in an accident in a police car, it's not their fault. They may or may not have uninsured motorists. Probably they do. But I think, and Mr. Brittle can tell me more, but from my experience, that's relatively inexpensive, isn't it?

It has gotten more expensive and that also creates a situation because the city has a self-insured retention that every time that that claim would be paid that the city would have to pay that retention for that claim and any Officer, particularly law enforcement or fire response that was involved in that accident would also be covered by the city's workers' comp program, which would provide them coverage for their injuries and their lost time as well.

Well, the workers' comp coverage would not cover pain and suffering. It would recover only their wages. But if they had a paralyzed for life, then it's not going to help a whole lot. Anyway, but if it's too expensive and it's not worth it, then it's not worth it.

We did look at that earlier this year and I can send you the recommendation for that. I don't think it's a good buy for us. I think the city has really good benefits for our employees. I'm not saying there could not be a situation where we have an employee that would benefit from that, but I'm happy to provide that information to you if you would like.

Like I said, I'm not promoting him just because I didn't realize it was so much more. I know that for just an individual, it's negligible, but maybe.

It's a different calculus for a commercial account than it is for a personal account.

All right, next we'll move to item number 12, which is related to unmanned aircraft insurance policy.

Yes, this is our annual insurance renewal for our drones with Global Aerospace. This does provide coverage, liability coverage for our 20 drones and one camera. Currently we have 20 drones and one camera and seven of our drones have Hull coverage. This has a nominal increase of $317 for the year.

So the Paladine drone is not listed as one of the covered drones. Is there a reason for that?

Which drone? I may have to get the police department here. The inventory that I gave you came from the police department. So I know they have taken some drones out of service. I'm not sure if that's one of the drones.

It's directly above us. It flies every day. And it's not one of the listed drones, so I'm curious as to why.

Who operates that drone?

The police department does. Yeah.

I'm sorry, that's the list? I mean, that's the inventory list that I have.

I don't know the stipulation, but if it's new, is it still up on a warranty, possibly?

Well, it would be covered under our policy, though, and it may be on there and it's just not listed.

It's not on there because the maximum, that's a $50,000 drone, not a drone listed under the items.

I don't think we've purchased a drone for $50,000.

We did two years ago, yeah. Now, so I'm curious as to.

Mr. Cope may have some comments on that.

I may not be 100% on this, but the Paladin drones are yearly subscription that we deal with. So we've got the one here and we've got the one at the Finley Center. I believe the first one's $49 a year. The other one's $39 a year that we're paying for that. They cover the maintenance and the warranty and any damages and stuff that's done to it. Damages and how damaged? Sorry?

How damaged is if it crashes?

Yeah, if they break a blade or anything like that that gets damaged with it, they cover that. Now, I'm not sure if it covers property damage or anything else like that, but it may be very well that that's covered under that subscription policy with that. It's just speculation on that, but I can check with McGinnis and get a response back for that.

If the drone crashes, it's not property damage to, you know, that's where the hull damage, hull coverage comes in.

Okay, so we're talking about hull coverage of the actual drone? Yes. Yeah, so they've actually had problems where it's not landed properly on the dock and it's broken blades. They shipped a whole new unit out the next day under that subscription process that they do right now.

Right. A blade is like $20.

Well, they've actually replaced major parts of it. So I'm just saying they replaced the whole docking station. They've done a couple different things like that with it.

Okay. So it would be, you're saying that it has its own coverage that is separate from this?

That's part of that fee that we pay annually for it, I believe. And I'll verify that and I'll get an answer to you, but I'll check with Ken on that.

Okay. And let's go with that real quick, because that particular drone performs certain functions that the drones perform certain functions that the ones that are listed do not cover. So this insurance lists up to 25 drones. If the drone is not listed on this particular list, then it would not have the coverage that is, it would not have this drone coverage. Is that correct?

That would be my understanding, yes. It's a scheduled policy.

Okay, and it covers only the, and we'll take something that's real trivial, but one of the items that's in the policy says, is a question that's asked, are you going to publish any of the images in any way that the drone takes, okay? And it's very ambiguous as to that question because it does not state what the word publish means. It just says in any way. Those drones up there, they take a lot of video and they are published to various things. They're private, but they're still published. If I'm hearing you correctly, whatever they publish would not be subject to this policy. Is that correct?

I'm trying to think of a scenario where there would be a coverage concern for what they publish.

If the data is collected by the drones and aren't covered by this policy, this policy wouldn't affect those drones and what the data they capture. Right. That's the question you asked, right?

Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah, it would be separate from it.

It would be separate. Okay, very good.

Just to beat this one to death a little bit, the liability coverage on here does not apply to any drone that's not listed?

That is correct. Okay.

So I just texted Ken while we were talking, and the insurance or the policy for the Paladin drones covers any damage for those drones and stuff. So it's separate from those. That's part of the subscription.

There's probably no liability coverage associated with that.

Well, I'll ask that question.

But phone a friend.

Yeah.

All right. All right. Well, let's move along to item number 13, which is related to insurance coverage for our property insurance with Alliant.

Now I have some good news. This is the renewal for our property insurance for our building contents, automobiles, and... Can I interrupt for a second?

You sure can. According to Ken, the Paladin stuff is five million in liability coverage to the Paladin subscription. So I think we're good on that one.

Thank you. Thank you, Moose. So we do have a quote from Alliant, which is our property carrier we've had for a number of years. And this year the quote came in with an 11% decrease of approximately $24,512. So we are realizing some savings in the property insurance world. So overall, all four of these renewals, the net impact to the city compared to these policies last year is $58,499 with that offset. Any questions about the property coverage?

All right, thank you, Ms. Ferrier and Mr. Birtle.

Madam President, real quick, is that moving property or just dirt and buildings?

No, it's building contents and automobiles and equipment valued over $100,000. We self-insure under that amount.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, so next we have item number 14, resolution number 8876-26. Chief Bentley is coming down to talk with us about revisions to the personnel policy and procedures manual relating to the fire department. Good evening.

Thank you, Madam President, Council, and Mayor. This resolution approves the revision of the City of Hoover personnel policies and procedures manual and public safety pay scale as it results or relates to the fire department. So if you remember several months ago, you allowed us to hire seven personnel at seven new positions. Three of those positions were to up staff, truck four back to four personnel, and four people were going to be used to provide the nine shift Kelly Day cycle and to change our work cycle. And so we're to that point now. And I want to say, Dr. Lopez, thank you. and everybody, Chief Javanette, Megan, everybody has worked really hard on this project, and I think they've vetted the project, and so if you have any questions for them, I'll try to answer the questions, but if you have anything, they're here to give specific information. So there are seven departments around us, seven fire departments that have nine-shift Kelly Day cycles that operate off of a 27-day cycle. And so the point of this project was to hopefully help us with recruitment and retention. The departments around us that have this are Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service, Bessemer Fire Department, Bastavia Fire Department, Homewood, Centerpoint, Helena, and Irondale. We currently operate under a 26-day cycle, and we have a Kelly day every 13 shifts. So the Kelly Day cycle kind of bleeds over into two different cycles. I don't want to get too down in the weeds because it's extremely complicated, but I want to also be transparent to where if you have questions, you can ask questions at any point. Chief, these people might not know what a Kelly Day is. I'm going to get to that, yes, sir. And so the 26-day cycle, we're proposing to move to a 27-day cycle. Currently we work eight shifts in 26 days. That's how firefighters work on our current schedule. Anything over the eight shifts in 26 days, they earn overtime. That threshold, the FLSA threshold is 192 hours. So anything over the 192 hours, they earn overtime. The proposed schedule is to move to a 27-day cycle, and the firefighters would work eight shifts in 27 days, reducing their work week from a 52-hour work week and some change to a 50-hour work week and some change. Now a Kelly Day, not every city provides Kelly Days. Some cities choose to pay out the overtime, but the Kelly Days are days that are assigned to personnel so that we avoid the overtime. It's an unpaid day off, and when you're not working and you're off on your Kelly Day, you're not accruing time, it's just your day off from work to avoid the overtime. If you happen to be held over and work your Kelly Day, then you're paid overtime. We went through a cost analysis, and Dr. Lopez may want to elaborate, I'm not sure, The cost of this project was to hire the four people, and we're grateful for the opportunity to be able to do that. The other costs are very minimal, if any, for us to change the cycle. The reason it's coming to you for a policy change is because our work week is changing from a 52 to a 50, which increases our hourly rate, but our overall salary stays the same. If you look at the public safety pay scale, it has a police officer's pay and a firefighter's pay per hour. There is a discrepancy, not a discrepancy, but there's a difference in the pay between firefighters and police officers because police officers work 40 hours a week, firefighters work 50 or 52. And so that's where the difference comes in. We're not gonna make any more money, the firefighters aren't getting a raise, they're just working fewer hours in a week which constitutes how they accrue annual leave, bonus leave, sick leave, and all the other time that they accrue. So that's kind of the overall view. Hopefully that explains some of it, but I'm here to answer any questions you might have.

Does the overtime rate go up as well?

I'm sorry?

The overtime rate that they would be paid if they do actually work the Kelly day, is that higher as a result of these changes?

No, ma'am. Their hourly rate is based upon wherever they are on the pay scale, and their overtime rate is just one and a half times their normal rate. If... The threshold is at 192, and so we've decided to keep the threshold at 192, so anything over the 192 hours, they will get paid overtime.

Other questions? All right, thank you so much, Chief.

Thank you.

Next we have Dr. Lopez to talk about some budget amendments for the fiscal year ending soon, September 30th of 26.

Good evening. Good evening. All right, so on the exhibit A, we have a few items on this budget amendment. The first item is related to the police explorer program. We're basically returning back to the way we handled this in the past that will allow those funds for that program to carry over in a better way for them to be able to spend that. So we're just moving it from the general fund to a special revenue fund to facilitate that. The second item is a bulletproof vest. grant award, almost $25,000, so it's budgeting the in and out for that. The third item is budgeting some professional engineering services related to the sewer. The fourth item, this is just to budget a small amount of additional funds for professional services on branding and entry signage design. project, so $3,000 for that. The fifth item is the grant that was previously mentioned for the semi-quincentennial community grant award. So there's an in and out to spend those $2,500. The sixth item is revenue and expense in and out for $20,000 related to the Guinness World Records project. The seventh item, you remember the contribution that Mike Shaw provided related to Lock Haven improvements, the 25,000, so it's budgeting the revenue and expenditure for that. The eighth item is reducing the Chapel Lane sidewalk project in order to provide the $21,200 for the top of tree sidewalks change order that was just mentioned. earlier. The ninth item is we already have $250,000 that was budgeted for the jail control center upgrade. After reviewing that and updating those quotes, we're going to need closer to $500,000. So it's budgeting the additional $250,000 that's coming out of federal inmate funds. In addition, also coming out of federal inmate funds is $30,000 for fitness equipment for the police training center. And there was, the impact of the general fund on all of those was about 27,000, so we had some revenue we received for surplus property, and that's where we're budgeting at, so the overall impact on the general fund is zero.

Questions for Dr. Lopez?

I'll just make a statement. Don Lopez, thank you so much. First of all, thank you for returning to the city. You're doing a great job. During this process, I know you're getting your hands wrapped around continuously of all the changes that have been made and changes that come from state and county practices. But I would love to know, if possible, whether at the end of this cycle, what type of capital expenses you're thinking we're going to see from basically all of our departments. It's a lot of needs, but it's a lot of heavy level risk, and we're well past our useful life on those. And to give us an idea of this four-year term, where we need to be from a capital standpoint to reduce those risks so we won't be paying three and four times to replace things in the building if the roof is leaking and replace trucks. So I do want to Know what that looks like as time progress and what we're looking looking through Certainly, we're already starting that effort with our budget process this summer.

So I

Thank you so much, Dr. Lopez. I believe, Mr. Martin, you have the next several items, numbers 16, 17, 18, and 19. We'll start with number 16, which is an ordinance amending the Municipal Code Section 8453 standards and requirements for mobile food unit operation.

Yes, good evening. The first item we have is changing the municipal code related to food trucks. Presented this at the first reading and work session associated with that meeting. At that time, council pointed out that there may be special events where food trucks are located in parking spaces on street or close to sidewalks. So we went back and made an adjustment to this ordinance to account for that. So two minor changes that we made to address that issue. One is that we permit mobile food units locating within the public right-of-way if authorized by the city. So we do have a mechanism in place for any event that is taking place within a right of way. And the second part is addressing specifically the sidewalk issue. We had a five foot buffer away from sidewalks in the original draft. We removed that provision specific to sidewalks. Feel like that there was other language already within the ordinance that covered us. as far as ensuring that no pedestrian way was obstructed. So that seemed a bit redundant, having that in there as well. So those are the two changes that we made to this draft after presenting to council at the last work session.

I appreciate your responsiveness to the questions and concerns that we posed. Any other questions or concerns? All right, we can move along to number 17, which is ordinance number 262704, and this is to amend the zoning ordinance regarding the food trucks.

That's correct. This piece will amend the zoning ordinance allowing food trucks as conditional uses in certain cases and also as... portions or a part of special events that occur within the city. Let's see, there's been no change to this part of the food truck amendments since the last time. It does create a new use classification in our zoning ordinance, food truck courts, which would permit the development of individual sites for the purpose of hosting food trucks and ensuring that there is ample parking, ingress, egress, fire apparatus considerations, and the like, that goes into the development of those food truck courts. That was in response to... some comments that we received from council members wanting to create a way for food trucks to operate across the city, not so much in the haphazard manner that they're operating now, setting up on the side of the road in parking lots, but in a manner that would be consistent with how other commercial lots are developed and considerations for the development of the site, access to utilities, ingress, egress and the like.

And it looks like the food truck courts would be conditional uses under the zoning where those are permitted, which is some of our commercial zoning, industrial, planned commercial, and planned industrial.

That is correct.

And then it would be permitted by right to have temporary food truck placement for planned office and planned industrial areas. Is that right?

That's correct. Okay. as an accessory use meeting the criteria of the zoning ordinance.

All right, any questions? All right, we'll move along to number 18, which is a resolution declaring a weed and other vegetation nuisance at 3491 Flintshire Drive.

Let's see, I can take this in a bundle, 18 and 19. We have the addresses 3491 Flintshire Drive and 2337 Tyler Road. As of right now, both of these properties are still out of compliance from the weed and vegetation ordinance that we have, and our recommendation would be to declare them nuisances.

Any questions for Mr. Martin on these items? All right, thank you, Mr. Martin. Next, we have some public hearings that we will be setting, so we will continue with Mr. Martin for those as well. Number 20 is Resolution 8863-26, which is a conditional use allowing expansion of an existing church building at 6 Greenhill Parkway.

Yes, this first conditional use case, there's an approximately 2,500 square foot addition to the church located at this address. As part of the expansion of the church, it necessitated the need for additional parking to be included on the site that meets city specs as far as lighting and landscaping is concerned. The Planning Commission considered this case at its previous meeting, and it comes to this body with a positive recommendation with three conditions. One, that photometrics are included as part of the lighting plan with the permit set. Two, the site is developed in substantial conformity with the conditional use plan. And thirdly, that the church obtains a revised certificate of occupancy upon completion of the construction.

So we will have an opportunity at the work session before this public hearing to ask any questions that we have at that time. Number 21 is going to be a conditional use approval to operate a paramedical tattoo practice at 1731 Montgomery Highway. Do you want to just give us a brief overview? Sure thing.

This particular operator wants to locate in a booth within an existing beauty salon where there are multiple booths located. The building, the address itself is located in the commercial shopping center. Ollie's is, I guess, the primary tenant. along with Second and Charles and some others, directly across 459 from where we sit tonight. This particular operator wants to practice paramedical tattoos. And in this particular case, in diving in exactly what that entails, it is to, the practice is to replicate natural skin tones and features. And so with that understanding, Planning Commission also heard this case at their prior meeting. It comes to you with a positive recommendation with a couple of conditions. One, that the business is only engaged in paramedical tattooing, replicating natural skin tones and features as provided by the applicant in the application. Two, a certificate of occupancy and business license are obtained by the applicant prior to conducting business. And finally, that the conditional use, if granted, would not be transferable to another business owner in this particular case.

All right. And next, item number 22, resolution number 8861-26, which is declaring a nuisance and unsafe conditions that exist on the property located at 5823 Rhyme Village Drive.

That's correct. We'll have the public hearing at your next meeting on July 13th related to this large multifamily complex and the conditions that we discovered there on, conditions that have remained in a deplorable state for an excessive amount of time. Our notice has gone out for the public hearing Apparently got the owner's attention. We actually had a meeting, staff did today, with the property manager seeking some next steps. One of those next steps will be to be here for the nuisance hearing on July 13th.

All right. Madam President, did we not speak to this at the last meeting? I thought we set the public hearing for Monday night.

My understanding is we did. Oh, as far as setting the public hearing? Yes. The public hearing, we set it for July 13th. And that came on the advice of legal counsel to ensure that we gave notice, proper notice, to the owners, mortgage holders, any other representatives of the owner that we had Documented.

So the last meeting was just for conversational purposes?

At that time, my understanding is we actually set the public hearing. So I'm not sure.

So, Madam Clerk, do we need to set the public hearing again?

No, it's just a public hearing. I mean, you don't have to set it again. But this is just... letting the public know that will be heard on July 13th. Yes. Thank you.

I don't anticipate any additional conversation Monday night on this item unless council has questions.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. And then finally, we have a public hearing that will be set for July 13th to consider an economic development proposal for property identified as Stadium Trace Village Phases 2 and 3. Mr. City Attorney, I believe we expect that we'll have a presentation on this item on Monday.

That's my understanding.

All right. Thank you very much. Anything further from Council? Madam President. Yes.

We'd like to go into executive session for a discussion about an economic development issue, and I'm certifying the city attorney that that is the legitimate reason to go into executive session. No action will be taken. When we leave, we leave.

All right, and we would not anticipate coming back into this meeting.

There's no need to come back to chambers.

Okay. All right, then the meeting will adjourn to executive session.

We need to have a vote, do we not?

Oh, yes, we do. Madam Clerk, I guess we need a motion to go into executive session.

I move to go into executive session.

Do we have a second?

Second. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll?

Council Member Schultz?

Aye.

Council Member Smith?

Aye.

Council Member Murphy? Aye.

Council Pro Tem Driver? Aye. All right. With a vote of four ayes, the motion passes, and we will go into executive session. Have a good evening, everyone.