City Council - Regular Meeting

my reputation.

Yeah. The one time I tell people not to I'll never forget 47 last year because I told her it.

All right. Good evening to tonight's city council meeting for the city of Covington, March 31st, 2026. The meeting is called to order. I need a roll call. Councilman Callahan here. Councilman Bushnell here. Councilman Roberts here. Councilman Enman here. Councilman Burrell here. Councilman Bodzford here. Councilman Barrett

here. If you can rise for a brief moment of silence which will be followed by the pledge of allegiance. And would Dr. Sunonny McDaniel lead us in the pledge of allegiance. 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.

I see. All right. We will begin this evening with a presentation by Mayor Mark Johnson.

Thank you, Councilman President Barrett. Uh, tonight I'd like to do a proclamation honoring u one of the wonderful public servants and citizens of our community. Whereas Mr. Robert J. Celeststeine was a resident of Covington for many years and has proven his dedication to the history of the city and its future. And Mr. Celeststeine has been a dedicated member of the Covington Planning and Zoning Commission since 2007. and whereas during his years on the planning and zoning commission has shown the dedication to his community has proven invaluable to the city. Never asking for compensation, he always acted in a manner only to be true to his community and the city. And now therefore, I, Mark Johnson, mayor, on behalf of all elected officials of the city of Covington, take great pleasure in acknowledging Mr. Robert J. Celeststeine for the positive impact to the future of our city and his dedication to the importance of the historical preservation of the city of Covington and do hereby proclaim and ask the community and its residents to extend their appreciation for his many contributions. In testimony whereof, I have here to set my hand and cause to be affixed the great seal of the city of Covington on this 31st day of March in the year of our Lord 2026. Mayor Mark.

Congratulations, Mr. Celeststeine. We have our first appear, Miss Sunny McDaniels. Councilman Bush. Now, thank you, Councilman Verrett. Uh, April is Autism Acceptance Month with April 2nd being World Autism Awareness Day. So, tonight we're gonna have Dr. Sunonny McDaniel to speak on the recommendations of community resources for inclusion and accessibility.

Hello. Thank you for having me. My name is Sunny McDaniel. I'm a doctorally prepared nurse practitioner, certified autism specialist, and a board member of the St. Tammy Health Foundation. I have three beautiful boys, 12year-old twins, and a 5-year-old. And I knew very early my fight my sorry my 12-year-old one of my 12-year-old twins was autistic. In order to really advocate for him, I knew that I couldn't just do it from a personal level. I needed to combine the professional and the personal role together. So, I enrolled into a graduate program at the University of North Dakota and got a degree just in autism spectrum disorder. I like to tell you about my twins, but before I tell you about twin A, I'd like to tell you about twin B. Twin B, he's something. Let me tell you, okay, he's got definitely the fear of missing out. Okay? He wants to go to everything. Wants to be in the middle of it. He's here for it. He's a good kid. He's mischievous. He's fun. He laughs a lot. He's very social. He makes a lot of friends. Plays music, guitar, piano. He loves anything LSU, tailgating, you name it. Twin A is just like him, but he's not autistic. And I want to pause here and ask yourself, is when I'm describing twin B in the beginning, does the image that you have of him as a child, has it changed because I told you now he's autistic? And if it does, my job here today is to break down that box. Also like to tell you about the first person ever diagnosed with autism. He was born in 1933 and he was a southern boy. He lived about less than three hours from here in Forest, Mississippi. And at the time when you were had characteristics of Mr. Donald triplet, you were institutionalized. And so his family did what medical recommendations were and institutionalized him at age three. And they were able to go visit him once a month, maybe twice a month if they were lucky. And when they did, they realized that some of the light behind his eyes was going out and dimming. So against medical device, they brought him home. They rallied around him. The mother actually advocated for him to go to

school and he attended first grade. And as the years go by and he's in school, what we saw or what they saw was that they were learning just as much from him as he was from them. He was starting to adapt and he was learning. And fast forward, he graduated from house high school. He graduated from college with a bachelor's in mathematics in French from Milsaps. He was an avid golfer. He drove a Cadillac. He tore the or went around the world. His mom actually before our passing called his little brother at the time and was like worried about it and he was like he's doing fine. He's playing golf in Iceland right now. He's actually been everywhere. This little boy is autistic. The grown man is autistic but he still did the same things as he was everyone else. The thing that was different is that they took him out of the institution. They removed the box and the barrier. Now there was two journalists that decided you know what I would love to find who patient number one is one of the journalists had an autistic son and that was the motivating factor and they found Dr. Triplet I mean Mr. Triplet. So they go to Forest Mississippi again and what they found was quite amazing and what they found was that every time they try to get to him the community was blocking them. What is your intentions? Are your intentions pure? And the journalist had never ever encountered that before. And they were like, I've never actually said that I will physically hurt you if you hurt him if your intentions aren't pure. And they were here for it. And we learned a lot, not just from Don, Mr. Donald Triplet, but also the city of um Forest, Mississippi. So that brings me to the topic of inclusion. Inclusion by definition has different degrees. It can be an invitation to a birthday party. love for you to attend my birthday party. But when it comes to health care, education, community, when we talk about

inclusion, it's actually very insulting. For example, I wouldn't have all of us as guests of the party go, you know what? Let's get together and we'll get an invitation and we'll send the birthday boy an invitation to his own party. He's already part of the party. But unfortunately, we have so many barriers that limits them from that. We know in healthcare that there is three barriers that's communication, sensory challenges and the system itself. Okay. Now, in order to break down those barriers, we need to advocate for them in the health care world and we look at those barriers when compared to the general population. What happens is isolation, depression, anxiety have a higher suicide rate. Families have higher divorce rates. And it's because of this box that they're put in when simple accommodations and supports can eliminate all that. Now, I'm here as a mom to tell you, and this is from everyone here. I am will fight everything, every ounce of my body, that my son does not fall prey to that statistic. I never get choked up and I am today. And that's why I'm here today because I don't want the light to be dimmed in his eyes. So a lot of times people think that I'm advocate advocating for the 12-year-old boy he is right now. I'm actually advocating for the 50-y old man and the 70 year old man he will be. And so I have to start now and that is to get the city of Cington to meet the bar of what Forest Mississippi has already done in the 1940s. We haven't got there yet. So I've given you all each a folder and in that folder you'll see a letter from um myself and one of my um partners in crime with the autism initiative of St. Gam is vet fur and we wrote that letter and then you'll also see in the side is a table of resources. Now that resource list is not exhaustive, but it does hit some of the highlights of what the

system barriers we have and what we can do regarding safety, communication, and um the sensory challenges we can have. Also in that you will see a um example of what a communication board looks like at a park at a park in Montgomery did. Um and in that table you also see like on the right side column you'll see quick facts about what that is like autistic individuals for um will come in contact with police officers seven times more than population and the hospital they're restrained more odds against them than they are the general patient that comes in. Um you will see also on the on the right side you will see examples of other communities that are doing these things and then Underneath that you'll see recommendations of training of how we can meet that mark and each one you will see like different areas whether that's the safety compartment the um communication and then the uh sensory things. The biggest thing about it is to recognize that it's not a sprint, it's a marathon and small gestures go a long way. So you get that ball rolling and you'll be surprised at how many families will start coming out and we can do more and more. The other thing is is a lot of times when we hear stories about autism or whatnot, we think about it removed where it doesn't hit close. I've included a letter or an email that I received from a mother that lives in Mandeville actually of what her experience was with her two and a half yearear-old um child at Kids Connection playground and how the police were called on her because her child was having a meltdown and the security guard didn't understand what the behavior was. There's another scenario of that that happened not too long ago about at a restaurant um and where a family was asked by two gentlemen that were eating dinner there um asked a family to go outside and eat because one of their ch

children was being too loud as he was watching his iPad. Now that night was also bingo night. So the restaurant was already loud and one of those gentlemen was actually a public official of that town. So the thing is it's not so far removed. It's actually in our backyard. And the thing about it is is I know that myself and I know my team can help this city remove some of those barriers so we can have those families come and join us. And you'd be surprised of what and how much they can contribute to our society. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss McDaniels. Under our consent calendar this evening, we have our regular meeting minutes of March 3rd, 2026 and introduction of item number 2026-03-02, which is an ordinance amending chapter 2, article 6, professional service contracts of the city of Covington code of ordinances to revise the dollar threshold for procurement of professional service contracts. We also have introduction of item number 2026-03-03, an ordinance of the city of Covington authorizing the city through the mayor to acquire certain parcels, rights of way and/or servitudes for the Columbia Street roundabout project. And finally, we have introduction of item number 2026-3-4, which is an ordinance of the city of Covington to amend the 2026 operating and capital budget. Do we have a motion to accept the consent calendar?

So moved. I need a second. Second. Roll call, please. Councilman Bushnell, yes. Councilman Roberts, yes. Councilman Inman, yes. Councilman Barrell, yes. Councilman Bodford, yes. Council member Barrett, yes. Councilman Callahan, yes. Under our regular agenda, unfinished business, items to be voted on this evening, public hearing and action on item number 2026-03-01. This is an ordinance of the city of Covington to amend the 2026 operating and capital budget. Councilman Roberts.

Yes. Thank you, Council President. Um, so yes, that this is an amendment just like any other amendment that we have with the budget except this is wonderful news because it's seven streets that are getting upgraded, paved, uh, repaving for these streets to uh, that's much needed. So kudos to the council for seeing the need. Uh, kudos to administration for having the funds through the GMA. uh you see the reduction in GMA is going to be 3.5 million but uh all necessary funds being spent on something that needs to get done. So anything further?

Yeah, I'd like to give a a little bit of background on this particular project. At the beginning of the year, I reached out to the five district councilmen and I asked them to give to me the three roads in their district that they felt was most in need of repair based on not only the bad condition, but the amount of traffic on those roads. They did that and then I turned that over to our engineering department, Cali Baker and Colin Mansfield, our engineering intern, and asked them to assign values. Public works went in and did the smoke testing under the streets to determine what sewer repairs would be needed to make for the subterranean infrastructure. And then uh they they applied the values to them. When we looked at them, what we see here was that a number of the streets were perfect candidates for the growth management area tax that we share with the parish, something that we have a little bit of money in. And so we take took those streets out of the general fund. And that's what we're doing tonight is we're amending the budget, $3.5 million to uh to uh repair these particular streets. This is phase one of our discretionary spending. uh introduced tonight is phase two and then phase three is when we looked at the cost of repairing streets in river forest. We realized that that was a whole another animal and so I have now assigned the task to engineering to do a comprehensive plan for river forest that takes into account the criteria is those streets that are undrivable and and we have sections of river forest that you just cannot drive over. So rather than peacemealing this and doing one a little bit at a time, we're going to put together a plan for the entirety of River Forest, a comprehensive plan, and that's what we refer to as phase three.

Excellent. Thank you, mayor. I just want to say it's a significant investment utilizing GMA funds thanks to the administration, thanks to the council, and I naturally am for it. Absolutely.

Is there any public comment? Is there any further council comment? Yeah, I just like to thank the administration for their proactiveness on this endeavor. Um, kind of just came out of left field, if you will. Hey, you know, we've got this GMA money. Why don't you all do go do an assessment of your streets and, you know, we'll rank them and come up with the best ones. And I thought it was a great idea. Process worked great and very happy with the outcome. And and I also want to compliment the administration because uh this information actually came about as a result of some scheduled meetings that the mayor and the administration put forth with members of council. And this is where uh how can I say this? It kind of manifested itself. And then from there the mayor was like, look, let's uh let's see if we can use GMA for for some of these uh street repairs and street replacement projects. So, I guess where I'm going with this is there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes that is unaccounted for in in terms of the public eye, but that work is paying dividends and it is appreciated.

Absolutely. Thank you. All right, we need a motion to close the public hearing. Motion to close. I need a second. Second. I'll need a motion to adopt. Motion to adopt. I need a second. Second. Roll call, please. Councilman Roberts. Yes. Councilman Enman. Yes. Councilman Burrell. Yes. Councilman Bodzford. Yes. Councilman Barrett. Yes. Councilman Callahan. Yes. Councilman Bushnell. Yes. Under new business items to be voted on. Resolution number 2026-09. A resolution of the Covington City Council certifying and designating the president of the council as acting mayor during the mayor's absence April 27th, 2026 through May 14, 2026. Councilman Roberts.

Yes. Uh this is strictly protocol. anytime a mayor exceeds 14 days, we have to assign uh someone to be mayor, which is usually council president. So, I would address that uh council president um would be our mayor for those days. I I don't remember what days it was. Oh, April 24th through May 14th. 18 days total. All right. Any public comment? Hearing none. Is there any council comment? Hearing none. I'll need a motion to accept. Motion to accept. I need a second. Second. Roll call, please. Councilman Inman, yes. Councilman Burrell, yes. Councilman Bosford, yes. Councilman Barrett, yes. Councilman Callahan, yes. Councilman Bushnell, yes. Councilman Roberts,

yes. We will move on to comments and reports from our council district and our councilman at large beginning with district A, Councilman Callahan. Thank you. I just have one. We have a Easter egg hunt. United Society of Covenant is sponsoring it. It's going to be at 819 West 31st Avenue between Pork and Teller. It start at 12:00. We will have fun and entertainment plus the East A and Chaperons will be available out there. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. District B, Councilman Bushnell.

Thank you, Councilman Verrett. Uh, public works has started the drainage improvement project in the ozone area, so be aware of that. Uh great turnout uh last Thursday at Reverend Peter Atkins Park for the Rock and the Rails kickoff. Uh please come out and join us for each Thursday of the month at the trail head. Uh just a friendly reminder, little public safety announcement. Kids are out of school. Public school is out of school this week, private next week for spring break. Please be aware and be mindful while driving through our neighborhoods as we will have some more of our youth street traffic with our youth. And hope everybody has a happy Easter. Good stuff. District C. Council,

reiterate what Councilman Bushnell said. Uh, kids are out this week, so just be careful. Um, lots of kids in the street. Have fun, but uh, just do the speed limit. Stop at the stop signs, the easy things. Um, I want to give kudos to the Coington Heritage Foundation. I'm sure council president will talk about it, but uh, form the table was amazing. Sarata and the team does an amazing job. It's an amazing event. Uh, it truly is the integrity of Coington built into one. So, um, yeah, amazing time and, uh, and thank y'all for putting that on. And then for district, anything, everything is quiet. The only thing I will say is, uh, with this GMA money moving and streets getting done, I'm I'm Thank you, the mayor, for saying that, uh, River Forest is a different monster. And I'm District C, so I will say that it is going to take a lot more and a lot more time to get River Forest up to snuff at what it can be and what it should be. So, uh, patience is key to this, but it's also right around the corner getting it done.

Thank you, sir. All right, District D, Councilman.

Well, someone that lived in River Forest for almost two decades, I can understand where Councilman Roberts is coming from. So, uh, really quickly, u spot mirror 21st in North Taylor. Uh, it's been effective, but it is being replaced with a larger one. Uh, that was ordered and delivered, so hopefully that installation will be occurring soon. Uh the library, there is English country dancing for those who are inclined. Uh April 11th, 10 a.m. to noon. And then there's a library card design contest America 250th anniversary that is due by uh April 27th. So reach out to our local uh branch and uh get information from them. Uh in terms of athletics, I want to congratulate congratulate Coach Becky Lambert at Hannon High School. 400 wins as the softball coach there. I want to congratulate coach Kenny Sears, longtime uh St. Paul football coach on his great career. And I want to congratulate a friend of mine who was a longtime CHS basketball coach who just recently retired, Randall Gin. Uh all three of these people uh are instrumental in our community as you well know. I do believe that there's a a very positive role that is played with our student athletes uh in terms of developing uh you know future leaders in our community. And then last but not least, well second to last, Jan Butler, Board of Adjustments, excellent stewardship and she has agreed to continue to do so and I'm very happy with that decision. So thank you very much for that. And last but not least, happy Easter to all. Thank you.

All right, District E. All right, thank you. Um, as alluded to, April's a busy month. I'll just highlight a few more events that haven't been mentioned yet. We've got Spring for Art that's coming up on Saturday, April 11th. The St. Paul's Crawfish Cookoff is actually their 15th year um benefiting Hope House in St. Paul's. It's going to be on Saturday, April 18th. Tickets are available on their website. Antiques and Uniques at the Trail Head, that's Friday and Saturday, April 18th and 19th. Uh, the April sunset at the landing concert will be on Friday, April 17th. I didn't get that in order. Um, block party Friday 4:24, SSA blue dress run Saturday, April 25th. I'm sure I missed some, but a lot going on. And happy Easter to everybody.

Spring has sprung. Yeah. All right, Councilman at large. Yeah, I just want to kind of do a thing for the uh food bank. They didn't really have time to put together their stats, but they asked that uh their most needed items, and thank you uh Councilman Nman for reaching out to put that word out. Uh they need cereal, peanut butter, dry beans, canned fruit, uh and canned corn or peas. Um I want to remind everybody to shop local also to of our farmers market on Wednesdays at the trail head and then on Saturdays right behind us right here. Um, other than that, I just want to wish everybody a very happy Easter.

All right. U, as Councilman Roberts alluded to, the Covenant Heritage Foundation just had its farm to table. Uh, the tickets sold out in two and a half days. And at the event, many people said, "Well, why don't we just make it bigger?" They said that at the beginning, and at the end, they said, "Don't you dare change this. Don't you dare change this." Because it was a magnificent evening. and u another example of what makes Covington Covington. I would ask that you go to the covington heritagefoundation.com site if you're not a member and join. We have a few more events throughout the year and they're all pretty good. Uh with that I would also point out that I've seen public works just about it seems when I travel around the city it used to be well they were in district A then they were in district C. They seemingly are in every district simultaneously. And uh that's pretty good stuff. So um just want to give a shout out to them and with all these events, Coington Fire and Police, they do a tremendous job of making sure we don't have any incidents and um I'm very proud of them. So with that, I will turn it over to the mayor.

Thank you. Um, a couple of months ago, well, when when I came into office, um, the city of Cington was leasing a couple of parcels of property downtown for parking, um, at the corner of Plaza in Florida, which is over near Aita Roasting and on Rutland, just a few hundred feet or 50 feet from uh, Lee Lane. Most people didn't know that these were privately owned and that we just uh, leased them. A couple of months ago, those lots came up on the market. Um, which was very concerning for all of us because if had a private investor purchased them and built on them, not only would we have seen a decrease in the amount of parking downtown, but we would have seen an increase in demand. So, it was going to be a lose-lose for us. So, we entered into an agreement with uh the owner. You guys uh funded the uh the purchase uh sale and uh I closed on those lots today. So, we now own the Plaza Drive parking lot and the Rutland Street parking lot. So, that's a great update and kudos to the city. Um, we've got um we we know that uh we had Felicia under construction, Hampshire under construction, Gibson under construction for the last several months, Gibson Street and that right there at New Hampshire. It just looked like a bomb went off. And after all those projects were finished and they were nice and neat and clean, the vacant lot that uh the Southern Hotel had with the proposed project all of a sudden didn't look so so attractive. So I reached out to uh Lisa Ward and uh was able to arrange a lease for the city for us to lease that lot from the Southern Hotel, which gives us the authority to go in, which we did, level it out with red clay, cover that with limestone. And so we picked up another 35 or 40 parking spaces there. I should point out that that is a project uh in the works because when that limestone hits the red clay and you drive on it, it's going to press down. That's what it's supposed to do. And then after it forms a hard base, then we'll come back in with another uh

layer of limestone to cover over the where the red clay starts to come out. So, that's all just a natural part of the process. Um police department annex open house, we've kind of kicked that around a couple of times. Uh we're going to go ahead and do that on April 23rd. That's a Thursday at 4:30. Uh it'll be uh uh you can walk right down to the trail head and catch Rock and the Rails that evening. So that's kind of the idea there. So uh we'll be across the street at 4:30. A little tour of of our new police department annex. And finally, Sarata just never seems to stop and nor does she seem never ceases to amaze us. Sarata has put together a map of downtown with a listing of what I used to refer to in a radius of five blocks of the trail head was 24 restaurants. Well, she added the coffee shops and and the bars and the little drink places. So, she brought it up to 40. So, within a radius of five blocks of the downtown, we have 40 eeries, 40 restaurants and bars, which is really great. And so, she's listed all of those out. This should hit the streets on Saturday. uh carried. And then she's also having it made into a 4x4 sign that will be permanently affixed at the trail head. So guests coming into town at the trail head just walking along can stop, look at the restaurants, get an idea of what they serve and what their price range is. Um this is going to this this project is going to continue throughout the summer uh because we want to include uh the Tyler Street corridor, Collins Boulevard, and Clayurn Hill. And so one by one we'll be trying to add each one of those uh because Cington truly is a culinary scene. Aaron, you want to follow?

Happy Easter. Happy Easter. Uh good stuff. Um thank you everybody. Let's go have a good holiday. As a reminder, due to the holidays, our next council meeting will be May 5th.