City Council - Regular Meeting

How's it going? To I got the wrong one. Okay. It's 555. We have a public hearing tonight.

So we have five items of tonight's public hearing, and I'll read those. If you would like to speak on one of those, please step to the podium and state your name and address, and we'll have three minutes to speak. There's a light system there that will help you keep up with your time. Item number one is request by Gary Whitaker for rezoning approval for about point eight two acres at 718 West Main Street from R D 9 to C X U in Ward 5. Planning Commission recommend approval of by vote of eight zero through December 15 meeting.

This reference is order number 267342. Anyone like to speak on that? Okay. Seeing none. The next ones two, three, and four all involve the the the same property. So I'll read each one of those. Request by Wills Canyon Road Commission for plan services for approval for about 3.88 acres of the Martha Levy Road right of way near Ward 4. Planning Commission recommend approval by vote of eight zero through December 15 meeting. Reference resolution number two six two eight one two. Request by Wolfskin Road Commission for annexation approval for about 3.88 acres of the Martha Levo Road right of way to be added to Ward 4.

Planning Commission recommend approval by a vote of eight zero at their December 15 meeting. Reference rose resolution number twenty six twenty eight thirteen. Request by Wolfgang Royal Commission for zoning approval for about 3.88 acres of the Martha Leville Road Road right of way into R S 9 in Ward 4. Planning Commission recommend approval by vote of eight zero at their December 15 meeting. This reference order is number 267343. When do you like to speak on that? Okay. Seeing all, move on to number five. Request by staff for zoning code amendment approval to fix errors. Planning commission recommended approval by vote of eight zero at the December 15 meeting, represents order summer twenty six seventy three forty four.

Anyone like to speak on that? Seeing none, I'll declare the public hearing closed, and we will begin the city council meeting in just a few minutes.

Well, it looks a lot better.

Yeah. It does.

It feels like You got, like, peas or carrots or frozen

something to No. It Okay. It's 06:00 time for night's city council meeting. Before I call the meeting session, though, I do want to mention resolution twenty six twenty eight one six. Just make sure everyone knows that this resolution does not need to be revised. The documentation was not put in with the agenda packet. So the documents that are in front of you reflect the discussions in the works in the work session last night. So it's not to be revised. What what is what you're voting on is what was discussed.

Attachments in the

There were no attachments in the original packet that were sent out. Right. So the ones that are in front of you reflect the latest discussions from last night. So and, again, when when we get to that, if you have any questions, you know, we'll talk about that then. So with that announcement, I will call the meeting to order. Ask Lee Clark for your invitation.

Dear Lord, just thank you for this day. Just thank you for the rain that we received today. Dear Lord, just be with the families and the people that have suffered through the storms through the recent week. And, dear Lord, just be with the families that have lost some loved ones over the last few days. And, dear Lord, just be with this council as they do the business of the city tonight. Just give them your wisdom. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Amen. Please face the flag.

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.

Were you loud enough? You hang up? Roll call, please. Here.

Jerry Ashley? Here. Neil Bourdon? Here. Chris Crowell? Here. Dick Brown? Here. Bill Moorhead? Here. Bill, you have a quorum.

Thank you. And we also have the minutes from January 20 meeting. Motion to approve. Second. A motion by councilor Crowell, second by councilor Moorhead. Any discussion on the minutes? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Now it's time for communications from citizens. So if anyone would like to speak to us tonight, now is the time. And as I said earlier, please step to the podium, state your name and address. You have three minutes to speak, and there's a light system there to help you keep up with your time. So if anybody would like to speak, now is the time.

Derek Dodson, 106 Chapman Drive. Last September on channel five news, mayor Bell stated that prior generations had made this city a high grade livable city and that it was his and the city council's responsibility to do the same. Mayor Bell's kudos Kudos on this half page in December's Lebanon Democrat. It is a well done review of projects in 2025, but akin to when you were in high school when you were never late and you made all a's and your classmates voted you to be the next Willie Galt at UT, yet your parents instead instead your parents dwelled on that you were late on weeknight or weekend nights past your curfew, and now I wanna turn to a contributing factor. Chris Crowell, counselor Crowell, on the February '11 planning commission agenda special call meeting is an item for the request of annexation rezoning of five acres at which includes a house, five acres at 1544 Rutledge Lane, which is the exact precise point where North Hartman Drive will connect with Rutledge Lane.

So major city of Lebanon livability issue playing out right there. So rather than the process going through, I think the city needs to get with the owner who justifiably in this particular un unique case wants to have their land rezone before it's sold to increase the value. But in this case, city needs to either find a straw buyer or buy the property, the sales, and resell it once it's all figured out or figure out with a landowner or something with regard to what's gonna be the buffer space, what's gonna be the right of way, the property's irregular. And as I've harped on at this microphone in the past, it is a mindless, ridiculous, stupid disaster having allowed Doctor Horton homes to do the planning of North Hartman Drive through the Doctor Horton neighborhood where houses, are approximately as close as for me to councilor Carmack from the road whereby semi trucks running 45 to 55 in the future will go right by those houses, right by the kids playing in the yard. It is outrageous.

You had Hartman Crossings, which is close to where this five acre property is. They got it right. And then I've harped on Walker Estate, which is coming next, that the buffer should be put in there even if the city has to buy three of the lots to do so. So this is a being my bonded issue this year, one of one of them. And I'd like to not come back and discuss it again and they get taken care of. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Good evening, everyone. My name is Dion Jones. And for those of you who may not know me or haven't had a chance to spend very much time getting to know you all, I'm president of the NAACP branch here in Wilson County. And I wanted to just take a moment and say thank you to mayor Bell and his staff for their support for our efforts during the Martin Luther King weekend. And I I just wanted to go on record as saying that how much we appreciate the support that we get from you and from your office, Kristen and, excuse me, and Tanya are always looking out for us.

We appreciate all the support that we get from you all. And I also wanted to say thank you to Lebanon Police Department, chief justice and your team, officer Blackburn and lieutenant Scott and who am I missing? Oh, officer Gardner. Thank you. And the the rest of their team, they they're they're always there supporting and and and making sure that we stay safe during our events and anything that we do out in the community.

So, I just wanted to take a moment and just say thank you for all that you all do for us. And, as we move forward and as we grow and as we continue to do things for our community, I wanna invite the rest of city council to come and join us in in in the things that we're doing, and, you know, we'll make sure that you all get the information. But my wife and I have been here in Wilson County for a little over five years now, and this is a great place to live. This is a great community, and we appreciate all that you all do and everything that you all are doing to support the community. So thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Thanks. What else I'd speak?

Nobody speaks like that. Could he go longer?

Let's see. Now we'll move on to to my comments. I have a couple of things. One, with the the weather we just had, I just wanna thank all the city crews who are out there are working through that, and a lot of that's represented by department heads here at night. LPD having their having their mercy command center open out there keeping out on everything.

But not just that, they continue to patrol. And, also, when time came, they broke out the chainsaws and started cutting trees there in the road. So that's part of public safety too, making sure those roads are clear. Like in the fire department, always out there through all that. And if if somebody needed them and so they're out there working hard.

Utility crews out there in case something happened with gas or water or any kind of issue like that. And then our public works department as well for making sure that the streets were were were clean. I've heard a lot of people talk about our roads and how good a condition they were, especially compared to to a lot of our neighbors. So a lot of hard work is put in and and has continued to be put in. You know, now it's time to go out there and clean up brush and trees and limbs that were that that failed during that time.

So I wanna thank everyone for all the work they did during that. And also be thankful that, you know, there are some other areas that got hit harder than we did. And, you know, so we we came through it came through it as as good as possible. And I also wanna thank Mill Tennessee Electric as well, you know, for for for keeping the lights on. You know?

That didn't happen everywhere. And here here it did. And and I know that, you know, people call us a lot about Bill Tennessee Electric's habit of of trimming trees or cutting trees, and and we do talk to them about that. But during this past week, we we we saw the effect of that. You know, that the light stayed on, so I wanna thank the work they did because they were out there too.

So thank you to everyone who who worked through that. And the second thing I have is is last week, we had our our annual open house down at Mitch House, and we had a big crowd. So I just wanna thank everyone who came to that and came and talked to us. And we had people of all ages from little kids to to seniors and and everyone in between and people from all walks of life. And so so I appreciate everybody coming to that and talking to us and talking to department heads and asking questions and and really find out what's going on.

And, you know, one of the things that I've I've realized is that, you know, there's about half people come to talk to us and half of us come to see the house. And so it's it's it's sort of good to be there and be able to tell people about the history of that house. So that's that's really fun as well. So thank you for everybody who came to that. So that's all I have. Councilor Carmack.

Thank you, mayor. I wanna thank the street department and everybody else involved in keeping the snow off the roads. I actually saw on channel five news where Nikki d Nikki d, I think it is, had said that our roads was cleaner than anybody's in Middle Tennessee and that they should take note of that. So, Lee, thank you and and others involved in that. And, Kristen, if you could speak on the Rutledge Lane annexation request. I know that there's an elderly family that's lost or elderly lady that's lost her husband, and she's wanting to move, I believe, potentially, and she's approached you. And

That's correct. They did reach out to us, and we gave her, you know, our standard process, future land use, you know, the the typical things that we share on things like this. They are trying to to sell it. We did tell her that's, part of our major third of our plan with the Hartman extension. That would you know, if it were to develop, that would be a requirement of whatever went there, is to plan accordingly for that in the time being. But that's, I don't think we have any other information other than that.

And with the discussions that you and I had, would you consider this to be a benefit to the city?

The Hartman Drive extension certainly is, especially with, TDOT wrapping up, hopefully, by the end of this year, their Hartsville Pike, project. We're just widening it to five lanes, and, that's a $32,000,000 project. That's a big, big project for us. It'll change the way traffic moves around, Lebanon, especially the North Side. So having that connectivity between 231 and, Hartsville Pike is is a big deal for us.

Okay. Also wanted to say to keep the Geely family in your thoughts and prayers due to a massive loss that they had had last night, and that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Ash.

I just wanted to sort of reiterate what you said about all the good work for the roads. I had a number of people in my ward reach out to me directly just for the pure praise of our roads. I mean, I I just had people that went on and on about how pleased they were about how our roads were cleared, and everybody was just so helpful to the police department, to lease department. So, I think that that speaks loudly when people are gonna pick up the phone to actually say thank you. And I've got, like, three of those phone calls. So thanks.

Alright. Alright. Thank you. Councilor Burdon?

Yeah. I just wanna say thank you too. And not only were there were the roads clear, we had some sidewalks cleared as well. We we really do appreciate that, especially in our downtown square area. But I I think that we were lucky. Think that to keep our power on, Middle Tennessee Electric did do a fantastic job with that, and I just wanna praise our city. We come together when it when it matters for sure. And we appreciate all the hard work, and we appreciate those in in your nonprofits that support our community. We can't do it without y'all either. So thank you.

Councilor Crow?

Mayor, I guess the the the thing that I would add to the accolades for for Lee, don't want him to want him to be able to walk out the back door here and his head not be too big, but also the the the offering and the the effort that will go into the brush clearing. There's lots of of downed limbs and trees and and all kinds of things in across town and appreciate the fact that that, you know, your folks are gonna be going around to try to help with that situation because there are there are a lot of people that, you know, they're able to accumulate the brush, but they can't haul it off or whatever. So I appreciate that and and mayor as well for offering that during the month of November and hope everybody knows about that. And if they don't, they'll call the city for for more details.

It's it's February.

I was gonna say, he's gonna have to hold a a lot of time. November.

You said November. November. November.

Do it now. I wanted to to touch on one other thing tonight. I was at a a lunch meeting a few weeks ago with some faith based business people here in our community. And we had a a program that featured a young man who's a junior at Lebanon High School, and his name is is Jayden Bailey. And I did not know Jaden before he spoke to us, but he's an incredible young man.

Jaden has been diagnosed with cancer, and he's really putting up a tough fight against that, and I wanna spend a little bit more time in a couple of weeks talking about him. But I I would just like to ask that our community lift he and his family in prayer in these days so that they will feel the love and support for our community. And also the the Levin High School boys basketball team, I I know he's a critical teammate to them and means a lot. So I I would just ask ask that our community do that. Thank you, mayor.

Councilor Bryan?

Yeah. Thank you. And I want to also thank the street department for a great job they've been doing and the police. We actually we had an officer out the first day. It was really bad out in our neighborhood come cruising by.

We were out there cutting up limbs and out of his driveway. And he was surveying the whole neighborhood, making sure there were no lines down. And, actually, the limbs didn't take out the power lines, thank goodness, run into the house, but they did take out a couple of AT and T lines. They had just run fiber, you know, in our neighborhood finally after sixty years. And two of those lines were, you know, knocked down, and they were able to cut them loose.

That way, it would traffic would flow, you know, a lot safer through there. But and I told my neighbors too that it's gonna take time for the street department to get around to everybody, you know, just to be patient because they were asking me, when are they going up? You know, there's we're not the only neighborhood, even though I live there, you know, you think they would come to mine first. But that they're just gonna have to be patient. You know? They're gonna get to you eventually. You know? And they were they were glad, you know, that the street was cleared and and the fact that I hauled a lot of that out myself. But that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Morehead?

It's tough going last with this crowd. No. I I do. I I truly do wanna thank everybody. I mean, the fire department, they were in our neighborhood multiple times. I know we had calls, and there's a section of my neighborhood called The Villas. It's a treacherous road getting down and up. I know that they had to navigate that with that ice. That was terrible. I know the police were out. Lee, your group did a fantastic job. And a kudos to the police. Gentleman who lives about four doors down from me is a retired Nashville policeman. Been on the force thirty one years as retired. He he had a big tree, fell down, went across the street.

He said that was the first time in his entire life he's ever seen a policeman get out of his car with a chainsaw, start cutting the tree, and hauling it into the yard. He said he was he was dumbfounded. He he said thirty one years with Nashville police and said nobody in the world would have ever done that downtown. It it just doesn't happen. That that's not their job, so they wouldn't do it. So he was very gracious, to the Lebanon Police Department. As I said, the roads did a great job. I also wanna thank all the council here. We had a work session yesterday. Obviously, probably nobody else in this room was there but us, but it was really great because all of us were all six of us were there.

We all didn't agree on how we started out, but I think by the time it was done, we all came to a resolution that we all thought was fair. And every person who was speaking, I really think was speaking with what they felt was the best for the employees of the city. And, yeah, I just was really grateful that we all all worked together like that and and came to something. I was very proud of everybody. And, Lee, all the people that did call me about the roads, I told them I did the best I could, and and I'll try to keep on you all better in next year.

But and for this little here that case you people have happened to notice, I try to test the city on occasion. So this really is all theatrical makeup. We did a we did a a fake call at 01:30 in the morning, Friday night to get fire department, police department, and Wima at the house and just so we could check response times, and they did a real good job. So Oh, Wima.

Thanks for checking that. I see you.

Just taking one for the team. Right. That's all I have.

Thank you. I think. Alright. We do have one item in old business. Order is number 267349. Second read, authorized budget amendments for the water sewer fund and gas fund for a vehicle swap by Locke Esonte, water and sewer manager, and Chad Mueller, gas department manager.

Second.

Motion by councilor Crowell, second by councilor Carmack. Discussion? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Now new business. Order number 267342. First, need to amend the official zone Atlas of the city of Leavenworth, Tennessee by changing 718 West Main Street from R D 9 Duplex residential to CXU commercial mixed use in Ward 5 request by Gary Whitaker.

Good, ma'am.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Okay. Alright. Have a motion by councilor Carmack, second councilor Berndine. Discussion? Okay.

Thank you.

Say aye? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Resolution for twenty six twenty eight twelve. First reading, adopting a plan services for annexation of PO, the public right of way known as Martha Lever Road to bed to Ward 4 request by Wolfskin Road Commission. Approved. Second. Second. Motion Motion Motion Second.

Approved. Approved.

It's a piece of road right away between 109 and the Waverly Subdivision further down, Martha Leville where we have the road right right away in the city limits, there, and this is just a gap that's county right away, and this is just cleaning up our maps. We already maintain this section. It's about to be improved with the Waverly Subdivision, so this is just it cleans up our maps.

Okay. Thank you.

Gotcha. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Resistance for twenty six twenty eight thirteen first reading annexing property of PO, the public right of way known as Martha Leville Road to be added to Ward 4 request by Willis Canyon Road Commission.

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion by councilor Crowell, second by councilor Carmack. Discussion. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Twenty six seventy three forty three, first reading to amend the official zoning atlas of the city of 11, Tennessee by requesting zoning approval of PO, the public right of way known as Martha Leber Road to r s nine single family residential to be added to in Ward 4 request by Wills Canyon Road Commission. Second. Councilor Crowell, second councilor Moorhead. Discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Horse number 267344. First written in title 14 to fix errors with the comprehensive zoning code update request by staff.

Motion to approve. Second.

Council Berdyne. Second councilor Carmack. Discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. 267350, first reading to authorize a budget amendment for the wastewater treatment plant for emergency capital maintenance repairs by Regina Santana, utilities director. Motion to approve. Motion by councilor Moorhead. Second by councilor Ashley. Discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Twenty six seventy three fifty one. First reading, authorize a budget amendment for the sewer department for developer contribution related to the Bartons Creek sewer project by Regina Santana Utilities Direct. Motion approved.

Second.

Also, councilor Crowell, second by councilor Brian. Discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. 03/26/7352, first reading to authorize a budget amendment for the sewer department for the Bartons Creek interceptor sewer project contract b and to approve the final change order by Regina Santana, utilities director.

Motion to approve.

Second. Motion by councilor Carmack, second by councilor Ashley. Discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Resolution for twenty six twenty eight sixteen to accept and approve a contract for employee health, dental, vision, PPO, HDHP, HSA insurance for 04/01/2026 through 03/31/2027. Ablanca Lascagaga, benefits administrator, and a civil HR director. Motion approved. Second. Motion from councilor Moorhead, second from councilor Crowell. Discussion? All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? I'm opposed. Okay. No. Okay. Thank you. Resolution number 262817 to approve an agreement with an international database corporation, DBA Bidnet, for bid and vendor management software by Lindsay Wolfenbarger, finance director.

Motion to approve. Second.

Mac, second one, councilor Crow. Discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Okay. That is in a nice agenda. We are adjourned. Thank you.