City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Three minutes. Three minutes.

alright good evening welcome to the town hall meeting uh... for the city of prattville uh... so we're here tonight to receive public input input from residents of the city uh... about the future of education for our city and uh... we have completed the public survey public information survey and those results we have received those results and and are looking through them and i would like to say For some of the people that took the time to do the survey, first and foremost, thank you. There were a few that were not in the city, not many. There were a few that got down to the yes or no question and pretty much didn't answer anything past that. But the overwhelming number of them provided us with a lot of thoughtful information. There were a lot of lengthy answers to the questions that were in the survey. A lot of information for us to go through and digest and decipher, but a lot of good information. And that's what we hoped that we would see in a public survey. So the total, I can't remember the total number. Do you remember? It was, anyway. We received a little over 100 surveys, which in my opinion is a very small portion of a city of around 40,000 people. uh... so there were you know like i said uh... a lot of uh... really good answers a lot of uh... a lot of fault went into some of the answers that we received uh... and that was good and we are or making every effort to make sure that we give uh... the residents that uh... that we sit up here in this place and represent. We want to give them every opportunity we can to provide us with their thoughts and their opinions as far as education moving forward. So that is the reason that we're having this town hall meeting tonight. It is for you, for residents of Prattville to come and to to share with us, to voice with us your concerns about the topic that we're looking at, to share with us information that you feel like would be helpful as far as us making a decision moving forward. I would point out that we are live streaming this event, so there probably are some people who are watching and maybe not here. It is also being live streamed across the street. uh... so it is on the big screen at the at the lyric as well and out front in the lobby if there are some specific questions that maybe you have for us that you go hey i don't really want to get up and and ask that that is fine there will be some some flyers out front there are also some across the street by the light bright watching from across the street that has a QR code for you to be able to scan that QR code and then to put those questions in writing to us. There will probably be several questions that some of you may have tonight that we may not have full answers to right now. I would say that engagement and dialogue and conversations between us is going to help us to learn and to see what our community is looking for as far as the funding for education. And I've been very careful in saying that we're not looking to improve education. Education, as far as I can tell from the report cards and the numbers and the scores that we're seeing come from our current system, education is not the issue. I've heard Lyman say it a couple different times, and we said it at the education roundtable, and he has told me on the phone numerous occasions, education is not a problem. It's funding for education that is the problem. And that is what we're seeking to figure out how we can invest the most that we can invest in education. With that, we will have an opportunity as counselors to give some closing comments. But I would ask that if you want to come up and address us tonight or speak to the council, if you will start on your right, my left. And then there is a sign-in list there on the podium. And it is just for your name and address. we want to verify that the information that we are getting from residents are from residents of the city of problem and we we did that with our survey as well you know we can we can put a survey out and uh... we can have an a number of people from other communities try to pile information into that survey but if you don't live in this community in the city of problem uh... you don't have representation here on this council. So what we're seeking to hear from those who have put us in this position, and that's the people that we want to hear from tonight. So the floor is open if anyone wants to start. The sign-in sheet is on your right, my left. And then we will be glad to hear any comments that you may have.

Good evening. My name's Eric Lobenstein. I'm a resident of the thriving town of Glenbrook inside the city of Prattville inside the county of Otago. I've had a lot of private conversations with many of you and others, and so a lot of my concerns are well known. So I'm really just up here to try and break the ice and get some other folks to get up here and voice their own concerns because I feel like they've got them or they wouldn't be here. Um, but just to, to start that process, I will say that I fully agree with Mr. Whaley's, uh, observation that education is not the issue that we have got a phenomenal team in place that is doing amazing work. There's, there's nobody that I've heard from that has said that our board, our administrators, our superintendent, and the central office support team, the educators, the staff members, that any of them are failing at their jobs. They're doing a phenomenal job. But they don't have any way of generating additional revenues in order to accomplish their vision for what education can look like in our county and specifically within the city limits of Prattville. And so I am still very much of the opinion and the. Argument, I guess that I would love for us to continue to find search for and find a way that we can supplement their budget rather than duplicating all of the efforts that would be necessary in order to establish a brand new system from scratch. Um, And so whatever it takes in order to accomplish that, I don't work, I don't do your job. I don't do their job. I don't know all the details and all the obstacles and all that kind of stuff. But I'm just begging the world to find some way that we can keep this phenomenal team that we've got in place but find a way to establish additional revenue and additional budget and resources for them to continue to do the phenomenal job they've been doing. So my time's almost up. Thank you for yours.

All right, is there anyone else? I'm going to give you plenty of time. It's not a normal council meeting where we're looking out there and trying to determine who's going to get up. I hope that all of you get up and share with us.

I guess I'll follow up Eric's comments and just hoping to break the ice and get some people up here because I know Mr. Newman and I have had numerous conversations on this topic and spent several hours discussing this.

If you don't mind, just give us your name.

Will Reeder. I live at 1214 Upper Kingston Road. District 1. A lot of my comments are going to be clear through my survey response, so I don't want to get into the nitty gritty too far, especially within a three minute time period, because we could talk about this for hours. The biggest thing that I'd like to discuss is how to ensure public transparency. And that's such a buzzword. I hate that word. I love that word, but I hate that word. Making things clear to what these numbers look like, because this is such a complex, it's a math problem. We have a deficit. We have some income, and we've got to figure out how to make this income fix this deficit. And if we pull from this bucket, this effect happens. If we pull from this bucket, this effect happens. We've talked about the Elmore County sales tax. I know that was Mr. Newman's suggestion, is how can we leverage that with the city school system? If we do that, how does that affect Elmore County? How does that affect? And the students that live in the city of Prattville that go to Elmore County Schools, what does that look like? So my specific ask in this situation would be, and obviously there'd be some details of how this would look, what this would look like, but coming up with some sort of dashboard that somewhat visual helps the citizens to visualize what these numbers mean and because again to Mr. Loewenstein's point that we don't do your jobs we don't do the Board of Education's jobs and so we're ordinary people with ordinary jobs that don't know how those all this works together but we've got to come together as community and make this work effectively and so with that being said finding a way to inform the public of what the numbers are what the how those numbers affect each other. And so just for background, I work in communications and web development and software development in my day job. So that's where my mindset comes from. And especially nowadays with some of these AI tools available, it is beyond simple to set up a dashboard that this number is going to affect this. And if you drag this number up here, this number is going to go down. And if you drag this number up here, this is going to go down. And it's such a complex problem that there isn't a good solution. I'm going to be honest. There's not one problem that this is the fix, and there's no downsides across all these other options. But from the public standpoint of trying to understand all these complexities of how these things work together, anything we can do to help inform the public of what that looks like and how sales tax is going to affect the end number, but then you also have to come up with the startup funds, whether that's the, I think some of the older news briefings said like 8.2 million. I think some of the numbers were shared early on in the 2025 time frame. Whether it's that number or whatever, and you subtract the amount that we're currently paying to the board, what those numbers look like. So finding a way to inform the public in a way that's clear and a way that is helpful would be beneficial. That being said, whether it's a city school system or a county school system, something has to change. We have to be effective with the resources we have and make the right decision, whether it's either direction. But we've got to take action because what we're doing now is not working, and it's only going to get worse. Thank you.

Appreciate that. I'd like to say a few things before we get – I know we've got a long way to go here, hopefully. First of all, I'm a little disappointed in the attendance tonight. I'm happy you guys are here. Thank you very much. I just hope a lot of people are streaming this at home. This is such a critical and important decision. It's a generational decision. on which way we're going to go either way. And I know by looking in the crowd, there's a bunch of educators and administration people here in the audience. We want to hear from y'all. No one's encumbered. No one's going to say anything, I don't think, bad or anything. We'd like to hear from all you educators, administrators. I see Lyman Woodfin's here, our superintendent, my dear friend Richard Dennis, Elmore County superintendent. He's in attendance tonight. We'd love to hear from as many as you, but we really want to hear your opinion on what we try to look to do either way or the other. But thank you all that are here. It's very crucial. We call this for a very important reason. So just relax. Come on up. No one's going to bite you. I've got candy. So, you know, anything you say, hey, this is it. Come on up.

I would like to also add to that, Robert, that a lot of you guys, we have spoken, we've got a lot of principals and admin in here, and a lot of us have spoken over the phone, one-on-one, and so much of what you say to us privately, there's so many residents in the city of Prattville that don't have that same level of understanding of what your buildings look like, what you deal with on a daily basis. This, from my perspective, is absolutely not a teacher issue in terms of We aren't where we want to be because of our staff. You know, this has nothing to do with that. This is an issue where we have buildings that, I mean, they're older than I am, and that's getting to where that says a lot. And so if you have something that you can add, not even just for us, but for the the live streaming and the citizens that are out there, we need to hear that stuff. The city of Prattville, the citizens, they need to hear that stuff. You might be on Uncut tomorrow, but, you know, we're on Uncut regularly, so it'll be okay. But, yes, we would love for you to share those kinds of things with us.

All right. Who's next? Hey, that's good. That's good. You can go ahead. You can sit on the front row and wait your turn.

Jackie Nix. I am a District 6 resident, and I did not intend to speak, but this is a generational thing, and personally, I'm an empty nester. I don't have a child in school. I don't have grandchildren in school, and this isn't just for families that have young children. This is a community thing. Getting our education right is going to affect our community from here on. This is the future of our city. I moved here from out of state 25 years ago, and the reason, the sole reason I moved to Prattville was because of the school system. uh... that the quality of the schools this is why i came here made this my home and this is why i am you know uh... member of this community and fighting for because now I am an elder Gen Xer. And back then, there were so many things as far as funding for public colleges and things available through school systems that aren't currently available. And that was available because generations before me sacrificed. And we have to be willing to look far into the future and see what can Prattville become instead of getting bogged down into what we are right now. We have to have vision of the future. Prattville is, you know, we're 40,000. The Prattville of 20 years ago is gone. It's never coming back. And you're either going forward or you're going behind. You can never stay stagnant. And we have a unique opportunity right now to build the Prattville of the future if we have the courage and the vision to do it. So I don't claim to have all the answers. I do appreciate all of you tackling this issue. It is very important. But as a community, we have to do this. You know, staying the same and doing nothing is not an option. So this is not only for our children and grandchildren, but great-grandchildren. This is the community of 30 years from now, and we get to build it. So let's choose wisely.

Thank you.

Shane Caston. I watch over... past year and a half, a lot of y'all ran on education, education, education, education. I appreciate y'all calling this for the education purposes. I have a kid in school. I went to school here. I graduated from Proudwell. In my eyes, we need to do this. But I'm going to ask three questions. Didn't y'all run on education, which y'all said y'all would do? But where did the one penny or one cent sales tax go? And why are we not using that? I thought that's what it was for. I'm going to leave it at that.

All right, so full disclosure.

Mr. Stritchett, you messaged me there. I don't live in the city limits, and that's why I was not going to speak. I talked to Ms. Taunton a minute ago. But you told me I could come up here, so if I'm violating anything, stop me, and I'll respect the rules.

Not at all. I actually was planning to ask you if you had some remarks you wanted to add.

Okay.

I know the clock's going to go fast, so I'm going to try to sum this up as quickly as I can. We'll reset it.

Well, no, it's good. I want to stay within the rules for everybody else. So, you know, we all know how all this came about originally. We were asking for help. To be clear, again, the board and I are not asking for help for day-to-day operations. That's my job. Without rehashing all that, you know why we're here. You know how this came about. I understand the questions that have come out from there. Y'all are literally trying to decide. Do we partner or do we do our own thing? My message, I keep, a lot of people ask me this and again, This is home. I'm going to say what my honest opinion is. All that I ask is what I've asked all along, is what is the number that y'all are going to be able to put toward education? What are you going to do with that number? And if you're going to go a city route, all that I ask is that you look at your administrators and everybody in the stands and teachers, and you look at everybody, and you just make the commitment that if you're going to do it, go all in and do it. What I don't want to see is some kind of... half effort to just fill the void. To be clear, I'm not pushing you to go to the city system. Everybody here knows what I believe. I've had enough conversations with that. But as a resident, as somebody that sees the struggles of what our teachers and everybody does every single day, we're doing all we can. I can't solve the long-term facility problems. I asked for a funding agreement. Y'all know that. Y'all are having discussions about a city system. My ask as a citizen that lives here and that will... always give you my personal opinion i just asked whatever you're going to do if it's nothing but it's work with us if it's a city system don't don't go about about it has been go all in and do something to make a difference for the community because at the end of the day robert i appreciate what you said this is a generational decision it's going to have long-term ramifications on all of us so you know if you go a city system route funded that way I don't know. That's for you all to answer how you're going to do that. I don't know all those numbers. If you're going to work with us, hey, I think you've seen from the Board of Education, from my perspective and from our teachers and educators, we're all in on doing what we can to fix it. You know, like I told our staff the other day at the breakfasts, All we can control is what we can control. We're going to do our best to educate the kids rolling in in a couple weeks. On your end, I just ask that you look at all the decisions thoughtfully, and if you're going to go whatever route you're going to go, get all in, go all in, get behind the kids and the people 100%. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

I presume that it's not just Lyman that can speak. If somebody's here that's outside of the city limits but they are involved in the school system, my presumption is that they could speak as well.

I do believe that any information that our current educators can give us is beneficial to the decision that we are looking at.

Thank you.

All right, is there anyone else? I'm not going to ask it two or three times. I'm going to say it one time, and then I'm going to wait until somebody gets up. Somebody wants to say something. I can see it on a couple people's faces. All right, Ms. Haynes. I'm going to give us all an opportunity to speak at the end.

I'm Ann Batwell. I live at 173 Pletcher Street, and I did not plan to speak tonight. Those of you who know me know that I have been a strong supporter of the school system, and it worked in the past, not recently, because my children are all grown. But for years and years, I volunteered in the schools almost daily. And... took on a lot of projects to improve the schools over the time and challenged the school board to make improvements. And so I've always been a supporter of our county system. We have always said we've had the best teachers, the best staff, the best administration. And When my children were in school, and it sounds like it's still true, they got a quality education. There was no doubt about that. And the amount of money has always been a problem. When I moved here in 1982, the schools were falling apart. And that's how I got involved. I was concerned about the condition of the schools, the safety of them. And a group of parents got together and we started working toward that, but it's still a problem. And in the past, I helped lead two referendums, this was in the late 1980s, for Avalorum increases. Both of them failed. The last Avalorum tax that was approved by people in this county was in the 1920s. the state increased it from seven to ten because they required ten meals. But that was a state action, not from the people, not the choice of the people. And we've had, in the last couple of years, two more to fail. Now, my feeling is, and I don't have a choice or an opinion on which is better. You know, sometimes if you go with the known, you at least know what you're dealing with. If you go with the new, you don't have a clue. But I think there are people that think that if we went with the city system, we would be getting all the money that comes from the city, and that that would take care of it. That is not enough money. we would still have to have a referendum to increase our millage rate to have a city system. Do the citizens of Prattville have the heart to do that? I don't know. So I'm not giving you any definitive answers, because there are none. I don't know how you change people's hearts. When we ran those referendums, my husband was a farmer and he supported it, but it was really hard because we are traditionally a rural community and it's difficult to get farmers to support Avaloram and I'll tell you why. In order for the farmers to work, they have to own land. So you are penalizing them when you're asking them to pay ad valorem taxes on that land. My husband has said, if there are people who buy fancy cars, they might buy diamonds, all this stuff, we don't tax those things farmers have to buy land so you know it makes you can understand why they can't support this but at the same time if the city decides to support the county system can the city provide six million a year for thirty years that's a big ask What is that going to, how is that going to affect our city? And so if there's no, unless you can change people's hearts and whether they voted, it's going to require, whether you stay county or whether you go city, it's going to require additional revenues. It's going to require more ad valorem increases. I think I tried to look it up and the way they have it listed is very difficult to figure out what the school tax is in each county or each school system. But I believe, and some of you may know this, the lowest millage rate of a city school system I think it's like 25 or something like that. It may be more than that. There are systems that have 70 meals that go to schools. And here we are at 10 meals. And you're going to have to add 10 or 15 more just to have a basic school system. And there's no easy answers. And I'm just throwing this out. So anyway, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. My name is Holly. I live at 114 Bryan Street and unlike the people who spoke before me, I'm brand new to the education system. My daughter is in first grade upcoming this year and my youngest is still in daycare. And there's a couple of things tonight that have been said that still debating if I'm going to talk about it or not. Please don't get mad at me. I have a problem with the statement that education is not the problem. I don't think that is correct. And again, I don't mean to irritate any of you educators. I'm very sorry. I don't think our educators are the problem. I don't think that our administration is necessarily the problem. Again, I'm brand new to the system, so I'm not the best geared up to say about the administration. But the teachers that I have The educators that I do have contact with, I don't think they're the problem. I think the delivery system of our education is the problem. You can't say education isn't the problem when Alabama consistently ranks in the bottom 10 out of 51. We had 4,500 plus third graders get held back because they're not at a third grade level. And that may not reflect what we see here in Prattville, but that reflects what Alabama education is. So my question lies in the delivery of it. Why are we still using screens when research consistently says that screens need to be pulled back from the classrooms? Educators have consistently said screens are a problem. So are we making a plan to pull back? Because last year in PKS, they stated one of their positives was that they had a new budget to bring in a bunch of new laptops. They were replacing old, outdated laptops. Well, the research is out there, regardless of Governor Ivey's new study. The research is already out there. Screens are a problem. So what kind of budget are we talking about if we start pulling back screens from our classroom? How much extra funding do we get from that? How much extra funding do we get if we stop iReady, which the only positive research for iReady is paid for by the owner of iReady? Independent research shows that it is not a solid program. We are one of the only states that are still doing I-Ready. And I'm very sorry, again, if there's people out there that love I-Ready. I'm so sorry. I'm just going based off of research. Because again, my child is so young. But when she comes home and says, hey, I spent two hours on a screen today at school, OK, awesome. What was our alternative? What was our other choice? Right? to address something, the poor attendance this evening. I knew about this because I got the survey the day after it closed. When I signed up for school, they said all parent information is gonna come through ParentSquare. I never once saw anything about this on Parent Square. And again, I'm brand new to parenting, so I am missing deadlines. I am missing registration marks, because I don't know to search for them. I don't know to go out there. So how are we addressing our parents? There's 40,000 people in Prattville, as you're saying, yet the only place you can find information about this forum is on Facebook? If you don't consistently go to your Facebook, your algorithm isn't going to bring you up on my page. So what are we doing to address the other 33,000 and a half people that aren't here this evening? So that is my two cents.

Thank you. I can address the screen situation. Yes, sir. I know somebody perhaps who's done some research on that, and I believe recently Representative Ross out of Guntersville has had a bill passed in the House that the governor signed off to limit screen time for our children. So that's done by some people I know and Representative Ross. So I think we're going in the right direction. And we're up to about 30 seconds now in reading now. Thank you, sir. So, yeah, we're getting there.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else? Somebody else has something to say. All right. Well, again, I do appreciate you being here and showing your interest. And for those of you that got up and spoke, we're going to have an opportunity for counselors to provide some closing comments. However, at the end of that closing comment section, I'm gonna give you one more opportunity to come up because it is important. And several of you have mentioned it tonight. Regardless of what the decision is, it's a very important decision that is going to have long-lasting effects So, all right. I think we'll go backwards tonight, Councillor Langley. Do you have any?

I was looking up something in regards to the numbers. Do you remember offhand, Paula? Or it may be you, Amy. I think we got 190 submissions. 189 surveys. 189, okay. What was the breakdown? Yes, we are supportive of a city school. We're undecided. No, do you know offhand? I know I have it in my emails. That's what I was looking for. 157 yes okay 30 some odd no and seven undecided okay I really was hoping that we would have more discussion and and more input tonight uh... this is a a huge uh... decision uh... daniel sitting back there and daniel has been working tirelessly and we appreciate that and crunching numbers and uh... meetings with uh... other entities that play into this and uh... daniel appreciate you talking to me on the phone today in answering some questions uh... from everything that I see, We are extremely fortunate here in Prattville to have the teachers and the admin and the, I mean the Taga County, the superintendent that we have. We are not fortunate when it comes to our buildings, the support that we have from constituents, from citizens. I don't think that people really know what our schools look like. I don't think people really have an understanding of the blood, sweat, and tears that our principals, our administration, our PTA boards put into our schools in making them presentable. But y'all, it's a band-aid. It's a band-aid. We are not the place that we used to be when in terms of attracting students and attracting teachers like we were 30 years ago. And it's not our teacher's fault. It's us as citizens who vote down. I understand Ms. Anne what you are referring to because that's been the age old issue and I get that. Um, but at some point y'all, we can have, we can have the nicest lyric. We can have the greatest spillway and the, the sidewalks and all the wonderful things, and we can be a safe, wonderful community. But when we don't have a school system that. People want to choose us over other communities like they wanted to 20 years ago. We're seeing the decline. Those of you who are in the system are seeing the decline because I have talked with so many of you. But as citizens, we're pretty much oblivious. We really are. And we may not see the decline at this point, but it's just a matter of time. until we're all seeing it like our administrators see it. And I, for one, am for doing whatever is required, cutting back, creating new revenue streams, new lodging tax, new sales tax across the board to even us out, I am for whatever it takes in order to bring our schools to a place, whether it's a city school or investing in the county schools, whatever it takes to bring us back up to where we need to be. Because teachers alone can't do it. We've got to step up and do it. I don't know the answer. I'm depending a lot on Daniel over here to magically do the numbers and let's figure this out. But in terms of a vote for education, I ran on education. I've said this before. I'm enjoying it. But if I don't get reelected in three years because I voted to support education, so be it. I've lived my whole life not being a city councilor. I could live the rest of it without being a city councilor.

We're going this way. We're not used to that. It's throwing me off. Yeah, you know, I'm married to a former school teacher, and my daughter was a school teacher, and it's an epidemic nationwide. People aren't getting into the profession anymore. It's low pay. It's no support from parents, unfortunately. In some of the curriculum, I know the hands are tied for you, your administrators and your principals, you know, hearing my wife come home back in her day saying I cannot justify putting a worksheet in front of a kindergartner how crazy that was instead of group learning and social skills how they learn through social activity and if I she and her come home one more time I said talk about those damn dibbles and I was like, I don't even know what that is, but I know that we don't like them in our house. So, you know, it's frustrating, you know, for our teachers and something, it's an admirable profession. Anybody that thinks it's a nine-month profession and you get all summer to lay about a pool, you're wrong. It's morning, night, after school. It's homework. It's parent conferences. It's getting your rooms ready. It never really ends for teachers, and they're not valued like they should be. So maybe we can find a way to help that a little ways. I don't know. I don't have the financial answer. I'm not Daniel Battey or the financial guru. But I look at some of y'all in the room who I know worked with my wife, and I hate that my daughter Madison's not a teacher anymore, but it wasn't justifiable. And she was at Pike Road, and they have money to burn. So, you know, it's just, it's frustrating. It's a difficult profession. So you should all be admired and we thank you for what you do. You know, I'm an Air Force brat and we see military people all the time and I always tell them in our police department and our firemen, thank you for your service. You teachers, thank you for your service because you're the foundation of where we all begin as far as reading and writing and all that good stuff. And So as we sit here tonight and we listen to the comments, I talked to some of my constituents earlier. This is going to be laid in our lap, the seven of us. It's a generational decision. Whichever way we decide, we don't know. There are certain things we can discuss and certain things we can't as a group. So a little pressure up here? Yeah, probably so. But we know what we're getting into. But let's all try to stay positive. And no matter what happens, I think we lose sight sometimes about these children and what's best for them. It's not what's best for, you know, what program, what football team, or who's friends with who. It's about these children and their learning so they can move on to the next chapter in their life. I was walking in with Mr. Lambert, who's sitting next to his daughter, who's a principal in our system. I believe, Wayne, you told me to... When you're a kid, the primary school was being built? I'm trying to use that. I'm just trying. Proudwell Elementary School was being built. I thought you and Daniel Pratt put that bell out there. I'm sorry. He knows I'm messing. He's a friend of mine. But no, that goes to show you, I'm not aging anybody. When Wade and I were in high school, our gym was four basketball goals in the parking lot. We played a lot of our high school basketball games down here at the kindergarten. We actually went to ninth grade at the kindergarten. I mean, so, you know, these things are old. They leak. Rusty pipes and everything else. Electricity, electrical systems are shoddy. And, you know, Mr. Woodfin and these principals have patched together the best they can. God almighty, we could be so much more, y'all. This county, this whole city, I mean, we could be the leader in this state. And it's right before us, so... It's a big decision, and I know I'll stop talking now. I know these other guys have got something they want to say, but thank you for attending today and all y'all at home watching. We're still open to suggestions and all your positive ideas, and I think that's the big concern, positive ideas. We know what's wrong. Why don't you tell us what we can do to fix it? Appreciate it.

Go ahead.

All right. Well said, Robert. And Thea, Councilman Langley. I also want to take this opportunity to thank you, Lyman, and Mr. Dennis, for being here tonight. Blake, our athletic director, Bratwell High School is here. Thank you for being here. Board of Ed, Brad Robbins. And I believe Dr. Ferris is here. Is he here? Is he here? I thought he was here. Okay, I see. All right, thank you for everything you do at our high school. Like Robert and Wade, as well as Councilor Chambers, Prattville High School graduate, class of 85, not only did we only have four basketball goals, but we didn't have a scoreboard on our baseball field.

Chalk.

Yeah, we had the chalk. We had, eventually, my senior year, we were playing our home games at Moe's Cook Field. i don't think it's number kingston so uh... but through the years and from what our uh... port is done school system we have uh... fantastic silly out there i know we've got a lot of things uh... brought up in on as we said earlier about uncut and uh... but uh... i wanted again thank everybody at home across the street Thank you very much for being here. Not only do you love our community, but you love, we need to get education. I agree wholeheartedly. But I know there's a lot of folks that do not, that aren't fans of wanting to move in the direction of a city school system. And I wanted to just kind of, for the ones that are home that are on the fence, what are some of the goods? uh... if we went one direction or another as you said uh... whatever we whatever we decide to do we can't just okay so we're going to take this route and sit on our hands and next thing you know few months down the road we continue going down that downward spiral ultimately the decision comes down to whether the long-term educational and economic benefits justified financial commitment potential benefits of creating a practical city school system local control Decisions on curriculum priorities, capital projects, and long-term planning would be made by a school board focused solely on Prattville. The city's educational priorities would not have to compete with those of the rest of the Tahoe County. Potential economic development. Strong city school systems can make a community more attractive to families and employers. And I know I've said some of these things from before when we had our round table session, but Doc at Kayak Cat kind of cut me off and I make up for that lost time. But strong city school systems can make the community more attractive to families and employers. Higher performing schools often support stronger home values and can influence business relocation decisions. Greater accountability, residents know exactly who is responsible for school decisions. The city and school board can coordinate planning for growth, infrastructure, and future school construction, which is what we really need. Ability to tailor education, programs could be designed around Prattles workforce needs, such as a career technical education, STEM, or partnerships with local industries. Challenges for the school, for the ones that are sitting on their hands and not want to do anything. They're thinking roughly 180 million over 30 years. It's tough. That service could reduce the city's flexibility to address roads, parks, public safety, utilities, and other priorities. Need for additional revenue. Startup cost beyond constructing a high school a new district may require administrative offices technology systems Transportation personnel and support services that are currently shared through the county system If we go through a city school system, you know, a lot of folks are gonna be saying, you know Well, gosh, we put this new school that's gonna put us back We can go to a city school system without having to lay the first brick down we just got to get in the right direction and And then this, uh, benefits remaining. If we remain as a target County school system, lower financial risk for the city, the city avoids assuming major long-term education debt, more municipal fund remains available for police, fire roads, recreation, and economic development expenses are spread across the broader, uh, broader County tax base, uh, administrative and operational cost benefit from economies of scale. Um, I won't go into everything, but, um, less local control, probably competes with other areas of the county for capital projects and resources. The city cannot independently set educational priorities. And then there's a city leaders have less authority over school construction, attendance zones, and district wide priorities. Um, like Robert. And Wade, thank you for your service in our country. My dad served in the Air Force. He came down here. We were stationed out at Gunner. And Thea had a point, too. Well, no, what I'm leaving it. Well, yeah, you have points. But when we're stationed, when our families come military, Prattville, yes, attractive. Great education system. We've still got wonderful educators that we have now. But the families that were stationed here and they would move on and transfer elsewhere, when they retired, the majority came back here. When my dad retired, he said, we're not going back to Pennsylvania. We're going to stay here. I think part of it was he hated the snow, but this was home. And when my father passed... He wanted to be buried here. This was his home for 50-some odd years. And when I'm gone, this is where I want to stay. I want to be buried here. I love this community. I love you guys for being here. Ms. Nix, I always appreciate you coming up here, whether it's council meetings or this. Mr. Lambert, always a pleasure. And thank you, everybody. Tom, in the back. I'll stop because I'll keep going. This is something that's really big. It's on a lot of people's minds. But I appreciate you again for coming here to speak because a lot of things that we're going to see online are the ones that we're afraid to let their voice be heard. So thank you very much.

Yes, sir. Like everybody else has mentioned, I really appreciate those of you who are here tonight, who have spoken and had some thoughtful comments, I think, and even bringing up some good questions. I think good questions lead to better decisions. So even if you weren't here physically, you took advantage of the code and we hopefully will see those questions. And I think we need to address those as well. Also, just thanks to everybody who took the time and the effort to do the survey. and obviously the folks that put that together as well. I think that's very important to get that feedback and that insight, and like Councilor Langley mentioned, we do get a lot of phone calls and emails and texts about people that do come forward and share their thoughts who may not have actually wanted to come forward tonight. or maybe did not do the survey for some reason. But I know this is a hot topic. And I did read through the survey. And one thing that really kind of stood out to me was while people may have different ideas about the best path forward, there was a lot of common ground that I thought was really cool. Everybody wants great schools. Everyone wants to see our students succeed. Everyone wants us to make the right decision. And that was a big, big thing for me is to get it right. You know, we're, we're at a crossroads right now. And, you know, I obviously acknowledge that the fact that our schools are not in the condition that we want them to be in, um, and that we still have to make a decision one way or the other. And. You know, one thing also I picked up on is people want to understand the financial impact, the long-term commitments, and what each path would mean for our community, like Will just brought up earlier when he came to the front. They want transparency. They want honest answers and a complete plan before any decision is made. I think that's what... That's exactly what you guys should expect from us. And as a council, we also have to think about the future of Prattville. Education isn't just about our schools. It's about our community. Like it's been said over here before, strong schools affect families. attract families, support local businesses, and play an important role in economic development. The decision we make will help shape the problem for our children and grandchildren to inherit. So this is a generational thing like we always are talking about. So as we move forward, I hope we continue listening, continue asking questions, and continue sharing information with the public. Our citizens deserve to understand every path we're considering and what each one means for our students, our taxpayers, and our city's future. So I'll leave you with this. No matter what direction we choose, our goal should be simple. When the process is over, our students should be in a stronger position to succeed than they are today. If we stay focused on that, keep the politics out of this process, and make decisions based on facts, I believe we'll make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you. I left out a couple things, Michael.

There's no vote tonight, by the way. You're not going to walk out here going, okay.