Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Well, I would Good evening. This March 3rd through 2026 board of Alma meeting is hereby called to order. Thankful to have our our guest and friend Pastor George Black from uh Rejoice Church to lead us in an invocation. And I'll follow by lead the pledge of allegiance. Please stand.

Amen. Well, heavenly father, we just come in the mighty name of Jesus, thanking you for this amazing group of men and women that have gathered to lead this great city. We're just so grateful for the nation in which we live. We thank you for our president and uh all the leaders of our nation and we pray great wisdom over them as they have so many pressing decisions to make. and then certainly our great state of Mississippi. We just lift Mississippi before you and our governor. And Lord, today I lift up Mayor Adams. I thank you so much for his willingness to include this time of prayer uh to represent the importance of our Christian values and our heritage as a city. And Lord, we we ask your blessing upon uh Mayor Adams. We pray your blessing and your strength and your health over his life. We pray your strength, health, and encouragement over every one of these dedicated aldermen. We thank you, Father, that uh when you're with them, they make better decisions. And when we pray for them, they make better decisions. And so, we're here today to thank you for the opportunity to represent our faith and our commitment uh to God and his plan. and we thank you for our city in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. All right. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Be seated. Thank you, pastor. Thank you, sir. Miss Stewart, would you conduct roll call, please? Aldridge, here. Collins here. Dickerson here. Hart here. Gamage here. Hamilton here. Wallace here.

100% present. Quorum established board. I know Mr. Nichols gave you a couple items uh for review. One is pretty much a standard proclamation. The other is website overview. If you take notice that uh for the month of February the 1st through the 28th for the entire month, we had 18,127 new users to the website. uh bittersweet I guess because that was probably driven due to the inclement weather in the ice emergency but 18,000 new users uh 55,834 views uh 30,976 different sessions where somebody may have gone from one page to another and the average session duration of somebody looking at a page looking for information on the website uh 2 minutes and 23 seconds they engage with the the website. So again, a good way to get this information in the right hands. It looks like the vast majority mobile device first and then desktop second and tablet third to show you the type users that we have and the use rate going on for for February. And then you can see one through nine the top pages that that our residents and our visitors went to in dealing with the city. So pretty pretty good information I think just a high level overview. You have the minutes from our regular February the 17th meeting uh before you. Any questions, comments, or motions on the meeting minutes of February the 17th?

Motion to approve. Miss Hamilton, motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Second, Mr. Collins. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. board. You have the consent agenda items 1 through 41. 1 through 41 before you. Any question, comments, or motions on on these? Mr. Dickerson, motion. Is there a second? Mr. Wallace. Any discussion? All in favor? I.

All oppose. Motion carries. leads us to the planning commission new business. This is consideration of an application for a final plat subdivision of Sullivan Minor subdivision submitted by Jordan Bledsoe, Bledsoe Engineering and Surveying on behalf of Bonnie Sullivan, property owner. The request is to create three detached single family residential lots totaling 4.95 plus or minus acres. The subject property is on AR Agriculture Residential District and is located on the south side of Pleasant Hill Road, approximately 470 ft west of the intersection of Balter Loop and Pleasant Hill Road, known as 4529 Pleasant Hill Road. Staff report, please.

Thank you, Mayor Adam. Before you is your request to consider a minor subdivision plat for the division of this over 4.95 acre piece of property. Currently has a single family house at this particular location just south of Church Road um west of Sandage in this particular area. This is Pleasant Hill Road. So this property summer creek sub play subdivision is further to the west. It has as I did mention it has a single family house on it. And what the applicant is proposing to do is to split that existing parcel into three lots. The property is in the AR agricultural residential district which requires that lot to be minimum 1 acre in size. So lot one will be 1.5 acres. That will be the lot that will have the current house on it. Lot two will be 1.7 acres. A significant portion of the lake will be on lot two. However, it will have a beautiful area just in this general vicinity. Um, which the beautiful area is still large enough to be outside of the setbacks setbacks. and lot three will also be 1.7 acres. Lot two, lot one will maintain access from Pleasant Hill Road while lot two and lot three will have access from Summer Creek Road. If you see both lots touch basically the ride of way which is 50 ft wide on Summers Creek Road. Uh this is a curac. The applicant proposes to have just one driveway coming off from that cur will be a perpetual permanent access easement which would

then split into two you know part of the driveway will go to service the house that will be at this location and then the other driveway will service a house on lot three. So this will be three detached single family residential lots as proposed. This is the plot. As I did indicate the hatch area here that indicates the transportation easement, the virtual transportation easement that will service access lot two and lot three that is a pond that is a beautiful area. These dash lines indicate the setbacks. So these are the setbacks and this will be the beautiful area. This will be the beautiful area on lot two because lot one already has a house on it and it meets all current setback requirements for the AR zoning district. With respect to utilities um this particular piece of property lot two and lot three will not be served by public sewer. uh summer creek subdivision or summer place subdivision has private sewer lines available in in that area. City policy generally is that if there is public sewer then the applicant or the property owner is required to tie to public sewer lines. If they are not public sewer then the lots need to be minimum one acre t served with subsurface sewage disposal. If they are less than one acre, then you generally need service from private seaw wall lines such as lagoons. Water is available along Pleasant Hill Road and Summers Creek Road. The applicant will have to extend the water lines to those two lots. The planning commission reviewed this application at its meeting on February 10, 2026 and recommended approval unanimously subject to these conditions one to four. Condition number four emphasizing that a common paved driveway shall be installed

within the perpetual common access easement to service lots two and lot three. Condition number four individual septic tanks may be used in subdivisions where central sewage is not available only if written approval is obtained from the Duro County Department. There is a note on the plat uh that identifies the existing sewage area in Summers Creek subdivision place subdivision as a certified area. That note needs further review by the city attorney. That's why we are adding this particular sentence. Plat note number eight subject to review by the city attorney. And once he completes that review, the note will be amended to ensure it meets all it's legally sound before the plot can be recorded. That concludes staff's presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Song. Board, any questions regarding this staff report? Yeah, mayor. I have a couple just basically for clarification, too. So, we do have street or utility easement from the dead end on Pleasant uh what's the name of that road? Pleasant Hill. Not not Pleasant Hill, but yes, Summers Creek Drive, I'm sorry. So, we do have easement to extend the street into that property from there or are we creating that easement? The through the plat the the water line sewer lines are shown on this map extend right up to the end of the road.

Okay. And the plat creates utility easements in the frontage 10t utility easements in the frontage of each of those lots for the further extension of the utility lines into the lots. Okay. And and the rightway does extend um to the property line to the property line. Okay. Yes. And you know, not that I have a major problem with it. I'm just asking there there's really not a a need for connecting Summers Creek Road through that property to another street. However, I'm not saying that that's necessarily bad to extend it because all we're doing is just a driveway. Correct.

Yes, sir. All you're having would just be a driveway shown here by these dash lines in Greek in green. If summers creek were to be connected, it would have to cut through these other single family residential lots that are already built and without any right of way. So that would require a lot of purchase of additional right of way that really would not serve any would not really have any public utility because all these lots already have access on Pleasant Hill Road. Their service on Pleasant Hill Road. So attempting to extend Summers Creek further eastward really would not be of any significant benefit to the public.

Mayor, I would like to um make note that uh the Bakers are here. They live right next to the drive that's going to be created. And they did have a couple of questions I'll ask for them. One of them was, "Do we know anything about uh the house house sizes or anything like that yet?" I would think not, but staff, have you heard any seen an application as far as size of the homes or anything? I don't think we're at that stage yet, but

No, sir, but the applicant is here and he can clarify that. If you will, when you come forward, if you'll give your name, home address, so the clerk could capture that and then once you're through speaking, there's some comment cards on the table behind you, sir. Go ahead.

Uh, good evening. Jordan Bledsoe, 5717 Jason Cove, Olive Branch, Mississippi, Bledsoe Engineering and Surveying, representing Miss Sullivan. Um, to to date there are no u square footages uh on listed on the plat. Um um I believe the zoning requires no more than 30 feet tall. 35 ft tall and a two and a half story is the maximum height. Um but beyond that I don't believe there has been discussion. They didn't talk about the square footage type. No no ma'am. Okay. The other questions have been answered.

Okay. Sir, anything else to add on behalf of this application? I mean, I would note I did look at the covenants for Summer's Place. Uh, the houses that are on the lake front are a 2,000 square foot minimum. Um, so the applicant could match that. Uh, what is match the existing home size requirements? Is that what you're saying? Okay. Yes. So, there there's a couple of different stages in Summer's Place. 2000 being the largest and the lakefront or the the waterfront. Yes, sir. That's uh I believe it's pageuh 263571 is the recording deed page number.

You're sure of that, aren't you? Page 263 571. Don't tax my memory. I'd never get there. I can see the 571, but I'm struggling seeing I think it's 263. But that's a good good memory. I'm sure on the 571 571. Yes, sir. I think Mr. D went to the same school as you did, our attorney. Well, good. Good. Any other questions from the about this development or proposed development uh from the applicant? Any other questions? I just got one, sir. Okay, Mr. W. Proposed lot too. Is there a structure that's pre-existing on like a barn or something about middle midways of the property line?

Yes, sir. There is. There is a barn there. U I don't believe that it is currently being used, but uh it would need to be demoed. Yes, sir. Be demoed. Yes. Once once the property line if it were to pass would be directly in the center of it looks like. Yes sir. There there's some other um there's some other items uh that are there's another one just inside I believe so. Yes sir.

Yes sir. Mayor, I want I wanted to come back one more time for Mr. Swims. I guess a better way to phrase my question is it good practice to extend Summers Creek Road into lots two and three. Whereas in the past, if I'm not mistaken, typically when someone comes to subdivide like this, we run the easement through the existing property. In this case, would be off of Pleasant Hill down the side of lot one into lot two and three. Would that not make better sense or common practice? Oh, you're talking about extension of the road, correct?

Well, either one. So, Summers Creek has dedicated right away all the way up to the property line, which means that when this was one entire piece of property, they could have chosen uh to connect to Summers Creek. And I think the city would typically would have uh been supportive of that. Now that it's subdivided, um I think that um it would be reasonable in a subdivision to allow Summers Creek or whoever takes on that subdivision to connect to the closest road. So um I don't I don't know that there'd be any issues that I see for them actually trying to connect to that in lie of Pleasant Hill Road. Is that is that answering your question?

It does. Yeah. I just I think we did that too off of church and where they put the built three houses. One family did out of church and mail area. Uhhuh. Where they change that. I think we did that from the side as well instead of having to come all the way around. Right. Right. And I'm sure that the um whoever's buying the property would would their preference would be to connect to the closest road.

Okay. Thank you. from staff on this application comments, discussions. I'll make a motion to approve it as presented. However, I would like to add a footnote if I could that to be consistent with the surrounding subdivision of homes that the minimum square footage of the houses be at least 2,000 ft uh in a heated area under roof. That just made sense to me to protect the integrity of the surrounding neighborhood.

I will second that. to approve consistent houses. Correct.

Motion is there. All in favor? Opposed February 23rd. This year special funds our CDs notice financial institutions of 13 responded financial institutions came back.

I make a motion we approve the highest and best bid. Any more discussion? All in favor? opposed. Motion carries recommendation number two is to table sanitary sewer rehabilitation project. got some more information to bring in before that asking for a motion second

two weeks put it back on the next board meeting for two weeks there new business consideration of approval of agreement with the county and improvement state roads all the way to cross road. Thank you. And this is where our state line road is truly a state line and the north side is county government and the south side is in the city branch city cities don't have authority to transfer money or to pay another government across out of state. So local private bills county to be able to receive the money from us for our portion and pay Shelby County. This was a 5050 split with branch paying 900,000

947 947 county paying the same amount remaining to get this state road resurfaced years a lot of moving parts to make it happen. all that's been paid their half and us pay our half. So this is a way that we pay to county pays nothing but takes our money and pays Shelby County.

That's accurate, mayor, and high level of cooperation from Shelby County and from Dotto County on this. It's really this is a two-party agreement that the board has on its agenda, but the totality of the project is a three-party agreement because Shelby County will be the lead agency that actually awarded the contract and will be doing the paving. Uh so the city's function will just be funding one half of the project. So it's a great opportunity for the city uh to take advantage of good bids that Shelby County obtained and they'll be the lead agency doing the payment

and everybody as you know two different governments working together which we do but they might have not been ready one year we were ready we might not been ready a year they were ready so finally everything's lined up to make it happen. Is there a motion? Motion to fund 50% of it. Yes. Motion, Mr. Gavage. Is there a second? Second, Mr. Wallace. All in favor?

Motion carries a motion to leave session. Motion to leave session. Second session matter department police department attorney s

so move second all in favor we are in executive