Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

We're in a relaxing call this work session to order. This is our uh February 27th meeting in preparation for our first meeting in March for our regular meeting in March which will be held as it usually is at 5:30 on uh Tuesday, March 3rd. So we do not have a presentation formal prior to us going into the agenda items. Although we are fortunate enough to have uh Leah Kemp who will make a little bit of a presentation for one of the agenda items. And so we will go ahead and get into this. Call call meeting to order. And do we noted that um see there something? Nope. All good. So we have three sets of minutes. Mr. Huskerson. Are we good with those? Yes, ma'am. All good. Um you're good. Is that good for consent?

All right. For the three of those. And then under mayor's comments, I've had a nice long discussion with u Mr. W Mr. Williams this morning about uh no moch. So, I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there. So, and if I screw it up, you just tell me. Uh, for purposes of um pollination and that sort of thing, we're going to adhere to the no March and let the this little stuff that's blooming, not stuff that's been there forever, but little stuff that's blooming, go ahead and come on up so that the bees and all the little creatures can enjoy it. Is that good? It is

reasonably reasonably well done. We'll put it out on social media, but in case y'all start hearing from your from your various constituents, it's a deliberate attempt to go ahead and let all the pollinators do their work. So, well, first year that I think we've ever done this. And what that'll do, too, is like our city crews, we're still planting trees right now, as well as other flower beds and everything. So, allow us to kind of finish that work up before we get to that grass.

We'll give our our best shot at it, and I'll try to be a little more articulate on Tuesday when we talk about it. Um, all right. So, mayor's comments, I don't we don't have any introductions this this next time around. So, unless there's something else that happens between now and then, we will let it go. Although, I can say we do have tournaments this weekend at Cornstone Park. I think we have a two-day tournament at Cornstone Park. So, that will be activity for the weekend. Um, and presentation, we have a I I don't know that I think I shared this with you guys, but we got two awards from um for our pavement preservation project. And so Urggon is going to come on Tuesday night and make a little presentation on that. So I think that's very exciting. Mr. um Bernett went to accept those awards and he'll be back. He's not here today. He's off, but uh he'll be back on Tuesday and we'll get those awards. So that's pretty cool. Uh no public hearings and all right, so mayor's business. This is the the cradle issue that I believe we all have seen social media talk about it and we had who requested it. I sent out an email to the board to inquire if this is something we wanted to take up and I did get an affirmative response back. So I have drafted an ordinance. It's a combination of tupelo and Columbus which they had already plowed that ground. So I I played with it a little bit. Mr. Husk Huspinson has looked at it. This is just something for an opportunity for us to call for the public hearings. We take it up. We choose to do it or not do it. But there is some interest in the community at us looking at it for action. So that's the reason it's on the agenda. But this is the first step which is our usual calling for two public hearings. So we can either um we can leave it off the consent agenda and and I can address it or we can put on the consent agenda and we'll address it at the public hearing time.

Leave it off. Okay. All right. We'll do that. um doing it under the airport. Um we've got a donation of a belt loader, which is really pretty cool because that allows um some of these teams that are coming in to be able to unload and offload their their baggage in a much more um safe and convenient way. It also allows the uh dog the humane society to do the the uh dog transport up north where they're where they've got those arrangements. So, it's really cool. This was a this was a donation. So, this is just an acceptance of the donation. So consent for that one, sir. Okay. Um and then Clearwater Consultants. This is uh the build grant for the hangar project. And this is just an authorization to pay, right?

It's just the work authorization. So car Oh, it's the work authorization. I'm sorry. Okay. So it is the work authorization. All right. And the airport board has looked at this and they're good with this for that one. All right. Under community development and planning. Uh Mr. Pan is not here, but this easy one, this first one is easy because that's Jason and and Mr. Ballard. And this allows us to make appointments to the Atlantans advisory board and we don't have any other uh areas or any others of interest. So this is consideration making those appointment. So consent for that one. Um then we've got a certificate of appropriateness.

Yes. This is a 511 Greensboro Street. This is going to go behind the house. It's a 22 foot x 22 ft uh open air carport structure. went before the historic preservation commission uh earlier than the week and it received unanimous uh recommended unanimously for approval. Okay. All right. That's it for that one. All right. Um and then execution of a humanities council regranting. I still want to know what regant. So essentially the the humanities council received a large grant in which they given the authority to regrant it out to smaller agencies for their piecing it out. Yes. Yes. Excellent. I just wanted to understand that because rebranding is not something you normally see when it comes to I'm learning too.

Okay. All right. Consent for that one. All right. Then under engineering, we've got um this is where Miss Kil is going to make a little presentation for us. Um so Lena, I'm going to let you if you go down there and buy the victor. I think we've got something queued up for you. Thank you. That is we have a clicker. We got a clicker right here for you.

Okay. Good morning everybody. I am Leah um Kemp. Um I'm the director of the small town center at Mississippi State and we are in the College of Architecture, Art and Design, and we provide community design services for towns all over the state. And so I think I've met most of y'all, but um I'm going to talk to you a little bit quickly about the Neighborways proposal. A few months ago, the engineering department asked me to submit a proposal for supplemental services to enhance um their design of neighborways. And for those of you that are unfamiliar with them, um they are actually bike lanes in neighborhoods or low traffic streets. And so this is just a few pictures of what they could potentially look like. Um these are in kind of northern neighborhoods, but um they have traffic islands sometimes with landscaping and signage. There's also demarcation on the road to kind of um create traffic calming and slower streets. And the idea behind these is that they would connect everyday destinations in the town. And so if you think about McKe Park and Long Meadow and the Lindlane mo multimodal path, these kind of neighborways would be created let's say in Long Meadow and would start to connect these destinations. And the thought is really that we would create more bike lanes in the community to connect our already existing bike infrastructure, but also create easier ways to maybe get to campus or other destinations in town. So, it's just kind of an expansion of the cycling network that you've already created. Um here's another indication where you know you can create landscaping elements or add some um marations on the road to indicate that these roads are more for pedestrians and cyclists.

And as part of our scope of work, we would do some signage and wayfinding design. This is a package we did for Laurel's downtown recently. And so you can see that there are a variety of signs and scales, but there's a cohesive look to them. And what we would do is just create the branding and signage to um supplement what is already here in our community. We've got some great signage um and we would just kind of supplement that and create a separate branding system for the neighborways. And then the other element of the scope of work is just intersection art. Um street art. You know, we've done several street art projects in our community already. Um, but these would really be to slow traffic, um, introduce traffic calming to those streets, provide some art, and reinforce the identity that we would be creating with the branding and um, wayfinding signage.

While we've got you, Leah, um, is there any are there any plans to refresh because those are bad. I mean, I just love those. Uh, any plan to refresh the paint periodically? We did uh last summer, not this past summer, but the summer before, we did um two of the main three intersections. Okay. Um that's a discussion we can have. Okay. We need some volunteers. Yeah. I hear you. They're not meant to last forever, but I know we want them to. Yeah. Okay. Well, I understand. But they they were really cool. The outline's already there, so very simple as opposed to doing something new. Simple to those up.

And that was the concept behind some of that, too. So, um, and this is the total of our, um, scope of work. If y'all have any questions, I'm happy to answer that. Um,

I'm going to ask Mr. Williams because I think, uh, this would be that'd be more him than than you at this point. Have we have we identified particular neighborways that where we wanted to start with where the McKe? So, now we have our our big sidewalk that comes through the multi-use path and it just kind of dead dead ends into the Long Meadow neighborhood. So coming up through there to Jack's, you know, when we when you come to those other ends, then so like the intersection art, if y'all think about um the church, the intersection is at the church right there is huge. So if we did the edges with the paint, so then that way folks could see it's like, hey, we're having folks walk. So really the idea is so whenever you have your 10-year-old that lives in Long Meadow that they've got a dedicated spot to ride their bike to the park and try to have that type thing. So traffic calming and then overall um so another one would be like Patriot Parks and the Green Oaks neighborhood. So trying to catch these areas and make it part of our make it where you can walk to your park safely.

Okay. All all the sister's going to be regretting that she live long. So we're we're using this like she said on low low traffic streets to try to have that one in over the overall big plan. And that's why we wanted to have branding and have it where it'll be cohesive. And so then that way at the end we'll have a map. So if somebody comes to visit town, they stay in an Airbnb, hey, they want to cycle to one of these places or get to campus or anything else. You kind of have that overarching plan. Cool. Okay. Any any questions of either one? I'll just say I do know the people in Long Meadow would be greatly appreciative of anything that slows traffic down. Yeah. Probably true in most neighborhoods. All right. Anybody else? Thank you, Leah. Appreciate you being here. Yeah, no problem.

Absolutely. All right. Can we do a consent for that one? All right. Um, then we'll stick past the claims do stop and we've got the we have to because we now have two papers that are papers of of local publication which is uh start dispatch now and for starting news we are required by statute to put it out for bid and so that's what we're going to have to do or is what we're going to do. So um consent for that one. Okay. And then uh consideration of entering into agreement with Tyler to do content management module. I'll let you or speak to that.

Um this will allow us to digitalize and store all our invoices and any other documents that are coming to the finance offices digitally which will get us away from the paper have better redundancy and just have better be able to give department heads access to see what was paid and they pull up the invoice and have their history. Okay. So better access as well. Okay. And and how much is it? Um it's it's about 3,000 annually. It's like a 6,000 one times what we're going to pay for it out of our salary gap from having Sure. No, I just I just knew it wasn't a huge amount. Like we're you know $100,000.

Okay. For that. Okay. And then uh renewing a mechanical services agreement. This is for our HAC for police and city hall. So consent for that one. uh fire department. We have a grant homeland security grant for um is it for I believe it was for radio. Yeah, radio sir. Anything you wish to add? There you are. Anything you wish to add? Yes, ma'am. This is a continuation of the grant that we got last year for we applied for 30 37 radios. We only got 14 and we want to continue to get base stations and mobile units for our trucks. All right. So continuation of this consent for this

and they're doing that in the house. So that they are the fire department itself is applying for that grant. So they're not having to use an outside source. Great. Well, and we just need to make sure. Okay. Okay. And then HR uh we have these are the ones that are here. There you are. Um these are all replacement positions. Correct.

Okay. So we have uh police officer pre academy and then reserve police officer for that one. Um and then hiring uh Nia Ma is that right? Okay. Hudson is the building inspector. This is this is this is kind of exciting. We've got a building inspector coming. Uh Mr. McMullen, you were pleased with the interviews. Okay, great. Consent for that one. Okay. And then authorization uh for water to promote water tech utilities department. That's a retroactive where you picked up. This is our actually our high school person. Yes. But I wanted to let you highlight that. So

So he's he's graduating. Uh he's already working 30 hours a week criteria for partners. So we want to make sure that he was in before the deadline. Right. And I'm very excited about that program. I think he's great. That's a young man I was talking to you about. Yes. So he's currently an intern. Yeah.

He's currently in the work study program. I love that and and hopefully we can do more of that. So consent for that one. Okay. And then two disciplinary actions. Um this is related to items of the utilities department. Consent for those. Um and then ground service technician and sanitation consent for that. All right. I see this is a year in renewal of the threat walker software which sounds very um threat. Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Um anything about that? Just just a renewal of one of our existing security tools. These are annual. Yes ma'am.

Okay. So we expect that every year and that's in the budget right? Yes ma'am. That's right. For that one and then bids for rebooting sports and Travis al center both of which are in need. So can we send that one? We don't know this. Hopefully it will be reasonable. We have an expectation

about 125,000 is what we're expecting um on that one. It's kind of hard to put a real hard price on it because it's a lot of little hodge podge things. Um this is the um so awnings over the doors that go into the gym. Right now we're getting some water intrusion that kind of comes down the wall and rolls in. Um and reglazing some windows, those type things. So, it's kind of a it's a it's kind of hard to put a price to it, but we think it's about that. Okay. Um, and we have been having trouble with the with the various roofs that we patched all off and on over years.

And this one, this doesn't take care of the Travis outlaw center actual roof. This is kind of the siding on it. And then it's the the actual all the annex roof. So, it will be the whole roof, but it's same type of work. So, we're trying to bundle it together so we can hopefully get a better price from a contractor that already already will be there. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. That's it for that one. Okay. And then we have police. This is the the purchase of a unmarked car paid for forfeited funds. Got to love it. Anything about that you wish to share, chief? Sorry. Consent. And then um wireless communications fund purchase radios. Again, those radios, the life of those radios, what's the life of those radios?

I'm not sure. You know, most most electronic devices are about 5 years or so, but but you can expect to get a little more out of them. We tend to get a little more out of our equipment, but five years is a general life cycle for electronic equipment. Yes, ma'am. That's it for that one. And then under code enforcement, this we're rolling into mowing season other than no more March. And this one, this particular piece of property has been long neglected and so it needs to be managed. So, can we do consent for that one? Okay. Um and then utilities. Mr. Kemp, anything you wish to share about any of these? This is our this is our big number for the for the headworks. Let me clarify.

This is the construction engineering and inspection services for that. We'll have a resident inspector that's making sure that the contractors following all the requirements of the contract meets the specifications and it's less than 5% of the total contract amount, which is a good amount, but it is quite a bit work. Yeah. And are we still on track from a time perspective. Yes, ma'am. We're still on track from a time perspective for both the first project. Planning on being with that second or quarter of this year, this calendar year and this second large project in the mid to late part of 2027. Okay, great. Great. That's it for that one. Yes, sir.

All right. And then quote from Chambers for the insertion valve and do a little bit on that one just we we encountered a situation uh right after the new year where we had some cold weather that cold weather that came through. We had some valves that we identified when we're trying to isolate break that were identified to be broken and that are needed repair. So these two are actually two different locations where we're going to be doing insert valves that will allow us to to isolate the Then we can pay up those ones that are repair those. They're expensive but um needed.

All right. And then little quote from Altech and that's for the repair backyard machine unit. Oh for electric. What is a backyard machine unit out of curiosity? I'm sorry. What is that? Out of curiosity. It's a very uh it's a small smaller machine, but it's on tracks, so you can navigate these areas that are very backyards and yeah, it's not very wide. Um and it's able to carry a full size pole and do a set of pole in places. Carry pole, set a pole.

Yes. All right, that's it for that one. And then last but not least, This is an emergency purchase um for a well repair. This is Curry Street Well. Curry Street Well has been down since June 2025. We did some initial preventive maintenance inspections and we've been having problems with it. Um this is to actually get it back up fully running and actually also lower the water elevation. That was one of the the findings from our inspection to uh improve the capacity of it. Curry is our oldest well performing well. Also hope that this will actually increase the production extend. We're digging deeper. The depth is already there. You're just

all right. Okay. That's it for that one. All right. And we have a personnel matter that's listed. It may or may not come. So, um that kind of concludes this for the for the day. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. And not to take not to take note, I want to pay attention to Black History Month that Vaughn is about to go share with his grandchildren as a son, which I think is way cool. I mean, I love that. I think that's very cool.