City Council - Regular Meeting

Do we have to do prayer and pledge again?

I was just going to roll right into it. We already did. We already did pledge and prayer. Good? Okay. Go ahead and get started. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and call the July 7th, 2026 City Council meeting to order. We'll start with a roll call. We have one, two, three, five, six, and seven present. We had an invocation and pledge at our workshops that we will skip over that part of our meeting. I'll ask for an approval of the agenda. I did also want to point out, I added earlier today, we did add underneath the mayor's agenda was item. i'm sorry under consent agenda item a 6a uh did want to just point out that that was added um and we will move on to i'll call for a motion to approve the well i don't need any other any agenda amendment sorry guys only thing i want to do is add workshop for monday night it's coming monday night monday night yeah budget workshop and then we'll get the calendar out with that as well we sent out uh

July 13th utilities in Harvard.

Yeah, so we'll go over that I'll be out of town on 13th 14th, but Okay So under announcements, we'll add in, we'll have a July 13th budget workshop at 5.30. Next announcements.

You're gonna make me cry.

We have the Elite Fishing Series at the Bay St. Louis Harbor, July 10th and 11th. Weigh-in will be at 5 o'clock p.m. daily, and it is free to the public. July 21st, 2026 will be our next city council meeting. I do not believe we have any guests present. We'll move on to our public forum regarding agenda items. Do we have anyone signed up? Mr. Cliff. Mr. Cliff Ravalese.

Ready for you. All right, this is in regards to the agenda item at 231 Sycamore Street. That house has come before historic twice in the past, I think, five years. Twice we have been told it was going to get rebuilt. I can't speak for the entire community historic commission but i will say that that house if you all declare it a nuisance uh i would support that and that's from as chairman of the historic preservation committee because it's not going to get rebuilt and it is becoming a new mr cliff yes ma'am will you make sure to come back when we have the actual hearing absolutely Other than that, don't straighten out 3rd Street. Make it nice and lumpy. They still running 50 miles an hour there, so we don't need to make it any smoother. 3rd Street looks good in here.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, nobody else has signed up for public comment regarding agenda items. We'll move on to our minutes approval. I'll call for a motion to approve the minutes of June 16th, 2026. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? second by DeSalvo any discussion vote the motion aye motion carries 7-0 moving on to the consent agenda that anyone would anyone like to pull anything off I did I did personally want to pull off item 6a just for some brief clarification and because it was added on today so i'm looking so i know the printout we have here that's 6a but i was looking online it looks like that's under specific item six days under the mayor's agenda yeah that's what i thought it was under the mayor's agenda when i first called it out uh i mentioned i added that one here i didn't know if it was it's on our mayor's agenda

It's showing up here on the consent agenda, but I always thought it was under the mayor's.

Yeah, but online right now on the Munich Code, it's showing under mayor's agenda. Oh. Yeah, it was 10C.

I saw it on 10C earlier.

Well, what you're saying, it's already pulled off.

It appears so, yeah. Okay. Based on, yeah, this is Munich Code online. So is that, do we want to go by that? Yeah, we'll pull.

Yeah, go by the one that's on Munich Code.

Munich Code, pull 6A.

I'm thinking these were just printed maybe before.

That's probably it, yeah. Everything works.

Yeah, we'll pull 6A off the one in front of us, and that's going to be 10C under Mayor's agenda.

Okay.

So, okay. Okay, so with that being said, is there anything else anyone would like to pull off the consent agenda? If not, I will call for a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Motion.

Sorry, I'm sorry. As presented with 6A removed. I have a motion by Councilman Smith.

Second. Second.

Second by Councilman DeSalvo. Any discussion? Vote the motion.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to number seven, project updates.

Good evening, we don't have any particular action items tonight, but if you have any questions on any projects, we'll be certain to address them.

I had a question to start with. A lot of the, I guess, sewage work being done in Ward 1, when they cut those roads and they come back and patch them, who's that going through? Is that going through you or is that going to be – I know I reached out to Ronnie at one point and Tommy told me they had a road being patched, but some of those patch jobs –

They're not the best. They're not great. Yeah, they're not great. If it's something that, so the contractor on that is BLD, and some of that might be temporary, but we haven't closed anything out with them yet. So we'll do a final inspection to go through everything, all the repairs that they did. If there's anything like that that they need to address, it'll be put on a punch list, and that way we can get it before we close it out. Perfect. If you have a particular address, let me know which one, and we'll look at it. But we'll look at all the work that they did throughout the city and address anything like that.

Could you review the one on St. Charles Street? It is really bad, right over the railroad tracks, coming north.

North or north, okay. We can take a look at that.

Thank you. In a section of Main Street, what have we found in that video?

Yeah, Main and Neke's?

Main and Neke's, yeah.

Okay.

Well, we know that the manhole settled about four inches. We know that there's some type of water infiltration into a service lateral that ties into the manhole. We have some video from BLD that indicates, we think it's a water main break, but we can't confirm that just yet. It's about 12 feet deep, so it's not one of those things you can just pothole and dig down and see what's going on. So we have a camera crew that we have scheduled hopefully for tomorrow to come look at some of the other lines coming into that manhole to determine if those lines are broken. We're trying to come up with a repair with the contractor to stabilize the manhole. We don't want to have to go in and replace that manhole at that intersection because it's such a deep cut. There's a lot of utilities in that area. So if we can stabilize it, fix the lines that are broken internally, then that would be the best option. Once we can analyze the video from the main lines that are tied into the manhole, then we'll be able to figure out hopefully what's going on with that and come up with a resolution.

Great.

There's a 36-inch storm drain that cuts through there. There's three sewer lines that run through. There's about three water lines. The city did take some samples today on the water, and there's some indication that it could be groundwater, and there's some indication that it could be potable drinking water. And it is water that's being discharged into a sewer manhole. So there's not an environmental issue. I don't want anybody to think there's a concern there. But we've got a lot of water coming in. At first we wanted to just line that break, but with all that water coming in through the service lateral, we can't line it until we address the water. So hopefully we'll know something more this week once we can video those other lines. And those repairs will fall under the ARPA project, the ARPA Sewer Rehab Project. So I don't anticipate that cost in the city, anything to make that repair, but we just need to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.

Could you shoot us an email maybe when you find out?

Yeah, I'll definitely update the administration on that.

Okay, thank you. Anything else?

Any other questions? 603 Turn and Lanes. 603 Turn and Lanes, where we're at with that.

We are still waiting on a letter from MDOT to say we can advertise that. We reached out to them, I think, last week or the week before for an update. It's being reviewed by the MDOT folks in Jackson, so we'll check in with them again this week, and if not, we'll try to get somebody to give us an answer.

Jason, can we reach back out to MDOT? You know, they came to you. I noticed Dunbar, put the turning lights on Dunbar crossing to see where we are. I know they're doing work further down the highway and some of the lanes and everything and everything, but we really need the same light put on the beach and 90 and also drink water. Drink water. And 90. If there's any way we can, you know, appreciate what they did, but, I mean, this is pretty simple.

Yeah. Yeah, they did.

Not anything major. This is just... And the arrow to the light.

We did. We asked them to look at those two intersections as well. So I'll follow back up with them this week and see if they were able to get out there. And they did fix some. I think that what they were working on was a some paving work by Tractor Supply. It was a bad bump through there. So they fixed that one and they fixed one near Domino's.

The two that killed me every time I was towing my trailer. Yeah. Well, that was right by our office.

I always thought somebody was coming through our front door every time I passed, so it's helped out a lot.

603 and I-10. Can we request them do something with that red light? Because you get three green and red lights when you come in southbound. And I watch a wreck a week just about, and I got a report from the police chief. I look over it some more. But you got three green lights. So when you turn on, you got a green light. But there's an arrow next to it, but it's not lit up. So people coming that 30 miles an hour was taking that turn, and the people going north has a green light.

We discussed that with them. That's all on that list for them.

Yeah, trying to get those exit ramps extended too.

Yeah.

If they would just make a yellow blinking light so you can caution turn, but you've got a full green round light there, you think you've got the right of the way, and so those people on the other side of the highway have the right of the way.

so miss linda and i have been getting a lot of calls about longfellow and highway 90 that turn right behind a mexican restaurant back there is there anything we can do about that closing off that all for something i'm not okay

I think we mentioned something like speed strips or something. Rumble strips or something coming off of there.

Maybe I'll put that there. I'm not the time.

What about?

Our offices have been there. I know we get e-mails and all this stuff. Our office spends some pretty good time over there. And I don't get a lot of guests.

Weren't we checking in to possibly making a turning lane off of 90 also possibly?

We don't have any turning lanes on 90 to start with. That's the whole problem. All of our intersections, except our major intersections, but all our streets don't have, none of them have an actual turning lane on them. When you go up and down across the bridge, everything coming back on 90, they have small turning lanes, but at least it's something they can get over. So they're trying to turn off at 50 miles an hour, 45 miles an hour, whatever they're going, without getting rear ended. And the whole thing is if we can get turning lanes in there, which is we've been working on six over three for six years, seven years, whatever, you know, so that's something we need to talk to them about.

It's really a striping. I mean, they could come in and re stripe that it becomes tight, but it works.

Yeah. And that's all it is. You come in and get it straight to have actual turning lanes that all of our right-hand turns off the highway.

The big problem with that one is the angle it comes at. It's the perfect angle just to turn in at 50 miles an hour and not slow down. Longfellow? Yes. Either way. South of 90. Either way. Either way, they got that angle. You just whip in there and go. But 90 to return, you have to slow down the turn. That's just a 45, and you just whip right through there. Yeah, turning lanes would be great in there.

Jason, what about making some ADA cutouts on Beach Boulevard past north of blind tiger going down because you can park all the way to almond and beyond, yeah, maybe even beyond and there's, there's no way you have to go come all the way to the models and before you can get back, get on the sidewalk.

So there's one project that's in our report that is the ADA beach access at Allman. So that project is to connect to the ramp that's there, go out past the fire pit, have an ADA accessible platform out near the shoreline. That includes a couple of ADA parking spaces parallel to the sidewalk at Allman Avenue. The striping plan that we've worked with the administration on for a couple years now includes some ADA parking in that area between Blonde Tiger and Almond Avenue. So we've got a plan for it. We just need to start securing funding for the modifications.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

There's even a couple spots we looked at on Auburn, the corner of Auburn and the beach. That could become spots as well where you can cross over in there.

That's what I'm talking about. Right.

And those ADA spaces, the sidewalk would have to be modified so it's level with the road.

Right.

So then you'd have access to a ramp to come up on the sidewalk and navigate that way.

And I know it was just mentioned the downtown striping. I know we put the signs up for the unloading zones and the times with it and the striping plan. Are those parking spaces going to be color coded differently or not? Because if not, I think maybe you need to look at adding more signs because. I'm sure you've heard people say they don't, I mean, they have two signs and then a bunch of spots in between. Depending where you park and where you go, you might not see it.

So I don't know if we could color code. That was the idea, is to color code it or hatch it differently so it doesn't look like a typical parking space. But it allows parking, but then also allows the loading and unloading during a certain time. So it's either hatched a certain diagonal pattern or we could color code it something different just so it stands out a little more was what the intent was.

And I think, Jordan, that we were kind of testing to see that this works before we spend the money to make it permanent.

That's all I have. Anyone else? Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to eight ordinances. There are none. We'll move on to nine. City Clerk's Report 9A, a motion to approve the docket of claims 26-032, dated July 7, 2026, in the amount of $963,355.49. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Vote the motion.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Councilwoman Holmes has left the room. Agenda item 9B, a motion to approve the docket of claims 26-034 special dated July 7th, 2026 in the amount of $77. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman DeSalvo. Any discussion? Vote the motion.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. 6-0. 6-0. I'm sorry.

Moving on to 9C, Councilwoman Holmes has returned 549. A motion to approve docket of claims 26-035 special dated July 7th, 2026 in the amount of $1,596,937.93. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman DeSalvo. Any discussion? Vote to motion. Motion.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to the Mayor's agenda. Item 10-A. I'm going to use this.

This is just set public hearing.

No, I think you're on the.

In that first?

No, it's the public. Yeah, public hearing first. Okay. Yeah, that's why I wanted to use the one online to make sure I'm following it. Oh, no. Item 10A, a motion to approve the resolution to set a public hearing to determine if a parcel of land is a menace to public health and safety and the welfare of the community for 231 Sycamore Street, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, 39520, tax parcel 149M-2-30-004. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second?

Moining in seconds.

Any discussion?

and caitlyn can we include in that motion that the hearing is for august 4th 2026 at 5 30 pm any discussion about the motion aye aye aye aye aye aye motion carries seven zero

Is this one going to be August 4th as well? Not 10B? It should be, yes. Item 10B, I'll call for a motion to approve the resolution to set a public hearing on August 4th to determine if the parcel of land is a menace to public health and safety and the welfare of the community for 22112 Bienville Avenue, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi 39520 Tax Parcel 136N-2-42-004. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Councilman DeSalvo. Any discussion?

I have one thing. Can we, and also we'll redo the last one. Can we set that for the 18th? Because I'm worried with the way this month falls. It doesn't really give us a full month. Yeah, I would ask if we could amend the other one to do August 18th. Yes, because that...

We'll do this on August 18th also?

Correct, to make sure we have proper notices. I'd rather have an extra week than not enough time.

I'll make a motion to amend this motion to August 18th for item 10B. I have a motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman DeSalvo.

Any discussion? Vote the motion.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. motion carries 7-0 going back up to item 10a I will call for a motion to amend our previous motion and set the public hearing for August 18th that right yeah I have a motion motion motion by councilman Smith second second by councilwoman Davis any discussion vote to motion

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, moving on to agenda item 10C. This is the motion to approve the resolution declaring the intention of the mayor and city council and the city council of the city of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi to approve a taxable grant anticipation note non-revolving line of credit series 2026 of the city and the maximum principal amount of $3,285,000. The note provide financing to defray a portion of the cost of the streets projects and other costs within the city described in the federal emergency management agency project worksheet number zero zero one eight zero parentheses to date it February 18th, 2025 and a commitment from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the payment of expenses incidental to the issuance of the note authorizing the negotiated sale of said note prescribing the form and details of said note providing certain covenants of said county in connection with said note and directing the preparation, execution and delivery thereof and for other related matters. That might have been a long one. All right. I have a motion. Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman DeSalvo. Any discussion?

Yeah. Mike, can you just take us through that again? So the original obligated amount was $1.8 million, $1,864,000, and the new total is $3.4 million.

That's what the original was for. I think the bid came in. This is Ida Rose. Strictly Ida.

Yeah, so remember we went and.

Strictly. Right now we have almost 1.6 million tied up in it. So we still have at least a million to go, 1.2 million in the bid price. And so this will help cover. because we're not sure when we're going to get reimbursed. MEMA will not reimburse us until the job is completely closed out. And as we know, after Zeta with Debris, it took us two years to get it. Hopefully we're not in that same thing. But instead of tying up the money, you know, 2.6, whatever it is, we will have this to do it. Interest is supposed to be paid back by FEMA as well, included in this.

Do we have anything from MEMA – indicating that or obligate, I mean, that we won't get anything. I know we've talked about the interest before, that it should be, right? Has that been historical? Has that been something that they have covered? Because what would be the interest on this?

We don't know yet. That's what this is. So DCMC has indicated in the past that it would be. We just haven't gotten to that point in any projects to test it yet to see what FEMA and MEMA would ultimately do. you don't know what the interest rate is. This process is actually your intent where you'll go out and get bids. So we won't be able to know what that rate is until those bids come back, which will take a couple of weeks.

And we'll only get interest on the amount used.

Yeah, the amount you draw down.

So if we only end up drawing down the second portion of this, Then we'll pay the taxes on the 1.2, whatever that number is. Now, this does not include the roads that we're doing in-house. That's not included in this. That $500,000, whatever, $530,000, that's something that we're paying as we go when they get to that.

I believe the first time when we first talked about this too we were unsure FEMA was going to increase their funding for the project and it looks like they did that now yes they did so that's where we did the engagement resolution for this back in like beginning of the year March maybe something yes and I think it was before that because the letter of increase I think it was in February

So maybe January? Yeah. So the reason that this hasn't gone forth is just because at the time it, the project hadn't bid yet. And so you don't want to close on this line of credit too early because they're only legally valid for a year. So if you have them open for too long, then you'll have to go back and renew it. So that's why it hadn't moved forward yet.

And so how much, Mike, are we still basically that we have to fill the gap on 1.6?

We've used almost 1.6, 1.5 something, and I think the bid was 2.6 or something.

Yeah, and I don't know where you're pulling that back, so you would also be able to reimburse that. So say if it got tied up into something for reimbursement, you could go draw down and reimburse yourself.

Because that's all reimbursed.

So your money is not, because we're paying that from something right now that's not.

We owe 5%. We'll owe 5% of the cost. That's our share. Five for us, five for the state, and FEMA's 90%. 90%. And then this is the same thing we've done for the harbor repair as well. That was the Zeta project.

Yeah, this one's Zeta. Yeah.

Well, I'm glad to see FEMA adjust it. I know that was a big question mark the first time we talked about it.

You know, we waited to take and get it from what we had.

DBST. Yeah.

And then they finally allowed us to do the improved with the paving.

That's a huge. Mayor, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a two-fold request. First, it was the all-theme because it came in like $2 million over what we originally projected.

so it was asking that and then when the bids came in so it was asking for an improved project to allow for the asphalt rather than the always get the dvst to have a better project so it took a while to get that it was a 1.6 million dollar estimate and it came in 3.6 or something like that then you know we said look we can do it and save a million dollars by paving the roads and you'd have an improved project finally it took forever to get that done I thank the Congressman Zell in them's office. They helped us get through that now and get it pushed through to do the improved project.

And your amount in the, like you'll see the 3.2, the amount that's in that, it's not the amount you'll draw down, it's the amount it runs with the FEMA grant. So that is what's on your FEMA grant. So instructions, what did you say, 2.7? But your wording of the language has to match your grant documentation from FEMA.

Do we anticipate, and it would take about a month or two to get those back from the different lenders with the interest rates and all that. So we anticipate we really won't be drawing down any of that probably in this fiscal year, right? This fiscal year 27. Probably, yes.

You know, we hope to close. We think they'll be finished by the end of this month. And then it closes out and everything. And if FEMA got right on it, or MEMA, got on it and returned our money, we wouldn't even need this. But again, there's no guarantee. And we always blamed FEMA for Zeta not getting our funds returned. It took a couple years, if you remember, and it really threw us behind on the police department. And come to find out, it was MEMA the whole time holding our money, sitting there taking forever to get us the money instead of FEMA.

Because it took what close, like you said, close to two years with data is two years and we finally got that was the debris.

That was the debris cleaner. And I think it was 2.67 million, something like that. But it also put us a year or two behind on that police department, which ended up costing a million dollars.

And for everybody else, what he's talking about is using the cash instead of using some sort of note tying up your cash and not having access to your cash to do other projects. Right.

Any other discussion? And Mike, can we get a list of what our current debt is, our debt accounts, our account? Because I'm just looking at cash flow. So we got after this docket for general fund operating, we got about 5.7. Mm-hmm. Let's see. It looks like our road and bridge didn't get replenished. We'll be back up to about $539,000. And we're looking at doing, when we talk about doing around $530,000 a year with the road repairs, we're talking about strictly a part of that's coming from road and bridge, I'm assuming. What, a full year? Are we looking at breaking that up? Some from road and bridge, some from general?

Yes. I think we have.

250 might have 200 for modernization yeah i'll be interesting with those interests i just want to be cognizant of you know obviously i don't want to strap our cash flow right but then you know we recently had a number of vehicle purchases in the street sweeper that we financed so i just want to get the situation we're continuing to finance if we're able to have some wiggle room we're able to cash flow some of it um the intent of this is to ensure that we don't run into a cash flow issue though um And then when MEMA, how often do we have to, I know when we were going through that with Zeta, they were doing weekly calls, right, with the city, and there was somebody, I think it was Dana that was handling that with MEMA, that'll continue for this, or what kind of correspondence can we ensure that we have to where it doesn't drag on for two years that we're having to?

We will be on, just like before, we'll start the calling and ask them for the reimbursement once it's completed and closed out. We will be pushing it.

What time frame do we think that the FEMA obligated amount that we can get that back? That's much shorter turnaround.

Are we talking about the full amount?

The obligated amount was what, 1.8?

No, the obligated amount is 3.2.

The obligated amount is 3.2.

But the bid is on, 1.8 was the original.

Okay.

And then with the improved, the cost came in with the DBSD after we bid it out was 3.6. So then we got the extra money for that, and we went to them to do the improved project, which is the paving project that we're doing instead of the DBS.

And what's going to be NEMA's, what is going to be their portion of it?

5%. State's 5%, we 5%, and FEMA's 90%.

And those are old, that's old rates.

Yeah.

Meaning if we had a new natural disaster, we would not get that good of a...

It used to be 75, 25. Yeah.

Any other discussion? We vote the motion.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you. We'll move on to agenda item 10D, and I'll call for a motion to approve and authorize the signature of the memorandum of agreement between the City of Bay St. Louis and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for the certified local government grant program for the rehabilitation of the Kate Labrano House. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilman Smith. Do I have a second?

Moining seconds.

Any discussion?

And I don't know if y'all thought, I don't know if Chris Ross called, I don't know if he spoke to you guys, but it's really just, at this point, it's kind of just the city acting as a conduit or a passer, we're not liable, or we don't owe anything, and it's not paid, so that's good to hear. So it's really just, we get the funds, and then really some, if it's approved. I don't know if y'all had that discussion with them or not.

Okay. Any other discussion? Question? All right, vote the motion.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. All right, moving on to council business. Nothing on the agenda, but we'll start with Councilwoman Moynihan. Do you have anything?

I just have a personal note. Di Philhart, who came down here from Pennsylvania right after Katrina, was very instrumental in helping to rebuild Bay St. Louis. And she started the Starfish Cafe. And she's leaving town, going back up east. And the Main Street United Methodist Church is having a reception for her going away on Sunday between 2 and 4. and the city will be presenting a proclamation to her. Thank you, Di, for all of your good work while you were here for 21 years.

With Ms. Goldie's passing, there have been some talks with myself and Parks and Rec about doing something in her honor, so there are some talks about maybe doing a pickleball-type tournament throughout the city in her name, but I'll just get back with y'all when we have more information on how we'll facilitate it with it, because we only have two official courts, but it looked like we had some temporary lining at the Boys and Girls Club to maybe do an indoor portion and then also at the Purple Park by the Old City Hall that is chalked out by those tennis courts. So once we get that facilitated, we'll let everybody know about it.

And her services are next week, right? The 18th. At St. Rose. Yes.

Oh, yeah, just to follow up, Mike, and I know we've been in correspondence, but I've seen some of the public works over there and some of the main water flows and main ditches after some of those large rain events we had. So we're able to get, I know it looks like they're working on, by Christ Episcopal, that ditch, we're going to be able to get in there and get some clearing in, St. Charles, and then the one on Karen Lane, too. It looks like there's some work being done there currently, correct? Okay. Have we identified any areas that could have had, because third did, I mean, in two rain events, third historically even through tropical storms and hurricanes hasn't flooded and it has. There's been a backup. I don't know if we talked about some of that may be affected from Shearsboro or more upstream. There's a couple of new houses on the beach there. If that's causing any kind of backup there. Have you all been able to identify maybe what that issue could be?

We looked at the end of bay oak i think cliff sent the information and been down there looking at that from yeah the house on the corner you have next door and yeah there's two new bills there and so you know they put up a a wall retaining wall in the back but they also putting one up it looks like the water has always been covered down in there we closed it completely in and that was just inside of his yard maybe a 100 feet, 80 feet, not real far, but we closed that in. But it still looked like it may have had a swell on top of it that would flow out into the beach road right there in that corner. Well, that's all built up now with sand. It's backflowing now. So not sure. Cliff sent us a good video. We went looking and everything. So that's one of the things we're looking at. Can we go in there and maybe... cut that sand down out around it and get it to continue to flow that way.

Because just the way it's built up and they've got a retaining wall both in the front and the back.

The day I went, it was one of the last rains. It was at the cliff that brought it up. You can see where the debris line up to the house wasn't to the slab, but it was pretty close. And I don't ever remember seeing water that deep. It would have been that deep in that yard. So I've never seen that before. So it's got to be something that's coming from... through his yard the way it used to flow probably now she's just backing all that up it's yeah pushing it on back not allowing it to go out unless i don't i don't know if they went in and videoed the line to make sure that nothing broke i know that's that's the reason we ended up closing them because at the time there was a cave in there and everything yeah i remember that yeah you know we took care of that That's the only thing they've really seen, the big drains coming off through Christ Episcopal, and then the one that's coming down closer to Romanita. Yeah, closer to Romanita. Yeah. That big drain.

Well, I know that. It's pretty open. And we just have to get the – I know Ronnie was working on that right of entry. We have that. Okay.

All that's good. I know the little swales. behind Ron Bonita and the piece that was approved for the- The Schmidt, yeah, yeah. He's going to try to get in there and get that scraped out.

And we've historically maintained that, though. I think y'all have done that. Pretty much, yeah.

We've been in there a few times.

Okay.

It was always good about that. But you really haven't seen any roadblocks on the other areas. And that's what, again, the only thing we see now that could be backing up parts of it.

you know coming into third street okay and then just the last piece can we just remind so lombardo's crew to hit some of the there's some ditches by seventh and eighth and victoria that aren't maintained by homeowners and it looks like they're growing they're getting they're getting to be pretty long send them back to get some okay yeah a couple in there okay okay all right he's been good about going back he's

He's having trouble, you know, he's got a whole new group. Probably every other time they cut.

Okay, thank you.

Same with Kyle. I remember sending an email about Ward 3. I think it was Keller, Booker, Labatt, and Watts. There's no actual formal ditches there or culverts there in that little block. St. Francis does, but anything in between doesn't have anything because they're just real narrow streets. so as far as like drainage even with this past storm i had water up to my doorstep which never happens so is there any way to like i guess put in some type of like fridge drains so we won't be actually encroaching on people's properties or to mitigate that because clearly if something else happens we won't be prepared for it because there's nowhere for the water to go i think ronnie got that email Yeah, I attached them to it, yes.

And I know he's looking, he mentioned it, but I don't know where he's at on that. You know, it's like a lot of areas we have, if you go further down Sycamore and some of those streets, there's no inlets, street inlets anywhere down there. It just flows natural, which is slower, you know, getting out there. There's no inlets in a lot of those streets.

Well, and I think a lot of you all are attached to an email from a homeowner on Bay Oaks, and we've discussed it, and Mike and I and Ronnie as well, and the concern there is there was at one point in time, there's no ditches in the front. At one point in time, a lot of the main drainage was behind the houses, so we have no answer. I'm sorry, but we have no, but the issue is there was a swell, and over time, It was built upon, and there's fences, there's sheds, and so the homeowners want us to go in there, and it's a lot trickier than that. I mean, that's private property. Yeah.

Those that area down in 300 block, a lot of those yards have pumps pumping it out. Same thing on a few other streets now.

And my sister lives on the other side of the street on Henley. And good luck getting back there, cleaning those out, those little fences, sheds.

I don't know when all this closed in or whatever. Not just over the years. I've never remembered a ditch being back there.

I mean, it holds water, snakes. I mean, it is an issue for them, for the homeowners, but I don't know. But it's on their property.

They don't have an easement. Yeah, I don't know what a solution is.

because I looked at it too after we got the leather and geo portal shows all the property lines meet each other there's no clear cut 10 for the easement through there yeah and then you're looking at the added you know as you said you got fences you've got you know and sheds everything right to go in and you have to do them all I mean because it's good we have the same situation on uh St. John and Main Street and 300 block with you know close to the Tumey Street 309 I think it is somewhere around that same situation there is at least there there is some ditches cut from state street to main street but with fences put up and all you only put the fences all the way down it is that water slowly going out than what it should be but there is swell on the side of most of those houses in that area that's allowing water to go from back to front in there and i don't know if that's something instead of going parallel to the road behind in between the houses You may have to go north, south, or whatever to the road with swale to get it out. Yeah.

You look at all the new subdivisions being built, Harrison County and stuff, they all have swales between the property lines. It works when it rains.

You know, we talked about this. In 13 years, we probably talked about this for 11 or 12 years, especially in the waterfront area. I've never understood why we have ditches on the waterfront area. You should have a swale from the road to the water. Every property line should be put into just a swale, something they can run a lawnmower in. And that's all just a natural drain from the front or the road to there. You can go out there then and close all the ditches and you wouldn't have ditches out there.

Just don't put any ditches behind the houses.

That's another thing. Anything?

I'm good. Did you have anything else? No, no, I'm good. Thank you. I'm good.

One thing I hear is Mr. Seal mentioned something about Ms. Goldie. Did he mention that to anybody else? Yeah. Possibly a plaque or something. I don't know if you want to discuss that tonight either.

Yeah, at the plaque for Ms. Goldie. Or like at the pickleball court. Yeah, yeah. That's what he's referring to.

We might just get a little sign made up or something. Get Ronnie to work on a sign there.

Okay, all right. For the pickleball court.

Pickleball court. Name them after her.

You know, that's a little game or two out there.

A little, you know, balloon.

I think it would be nice because she was definitely persistent on that, getting those pickleball courts out there for years. She was up here telling us about the new wave of pickleball before we even really understood what it was.

Yeah.

So she was definitely knowing the new trend. She brought me a pickleball book.

Okay. I was like, people don't know. She was on you. Everything you know about pickleball. That'd be nice. I also want to put on, I talked to Jordan earlier about putting on our next agenda about Keller Street, dedicating that to Jeffrey. So we're going to probably do that and reach out to the family as well.

Keller Street. The street he lived on. Nice. All right.

It would just be in memory like we did Chief Williams. The street won't be renamed, but it'd be in his honor.

Look at it right there. Anything else? All right. Moving on to public forum regarding non-agenda items. Do we have anyone signed up? No one signed up? I see a hand waving. Hey, come on. No, this is your chance.

And I've never really stood in front and talked to a city council. But I have a little bit of a problem. I live at 101 Barcelona.

Ms. Jan, I just want to let you know you do have three minutes. I'm going to start at the top.

Oh, okay. Well, I'm going to talk fast. What I've received here is two denials to remove a tree like that from my front yard at The tree needs to be gone because it's been inspected twice. It's breaking up my driveway. The roots are, I did a little picture for y'all. I didn't have a slideshow. But the roots are under my house. And I keep getting denied. Here it is, I got this letter from the city saying that I was responsible for the plumbing from the house to the street, which I've replaced once off it because of the tree roots that have broken into the plumbing. My husband and I are on fixed income. He's 79, still working. I'm 71 and I'm still working. We can't afford to replace our foundation and the roots are, these are the roots coming out from the tree. They're going all the way to the street. Mr. Ricky Ladner came out, he saw that, he took pictures and he said, oh I don't see any reason that you would be denied. And they denied. If I'm responsible for this plumbing, why am I not responsible enough to have this tree removed? I mean, you're saying this is my property and any plumbing, I have to repair it. the other hand you're telling me i can't remove this tree which is causing the damage to the plane and the roots are up on the house lipo understand it's beautiful it's actually the only selling point i have to the house but i'll have no selling point if my foundation is broke and i've looked at it cost four thousand dollars to remove the tree plus whatever it costs to replace the tree, so I'm donating to the city, I believe. The tree cost, the interest per, which is okay, I can't afford a new foundation. So what do I have to do to get this tree removed? I don't mind paying for it. I don't wanna pay for a new foundation I can't afford. I'm just making ends meet now.

Well, there is a way for you to get in front of the council. Can I say that?

There's a way to, if the tree has been denied by the tree protection advisor under 1011.30, it can be a decision being appealed to the city council.

So it says here.

What's your address again, ma'am? 101, I think.

101 Barcelona.

So the paper, just for everybody's reference, this is the information that went out about the service line. This was about the web. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's from the house to the road.

But it also says I'm responsible for the plumbing. I get it. I get what you're saying. So I've already replaced the plumbing once, which wasn't any small matter. Of course, it might be a small matter for some people, but not to think, sir. But it also says here, If the condition of the tree or trees proposed to be removed with respect to disease, insect attack, danger of falling, proximity to existing or proposed structures, and interference with utility services, which is done.

Ms. Jane, what we'll do is, there is a process. Oh, right here, sorry. Ms. Jane, correct? Jan. Jan, I'm sorry, Jan. There is a process to get this when you get denied a permit, so you will have to appeal it. They'll have public hearing, and then you'll come before the county.

What was the rationale for denial in the first place on the permit? Do we get that?

It's twice. I want to have that here.

Because if it's proven that it's causing detriment to her probation...

Denial for removal... Approval for pruning I do not need to prune it because I don't have a problem with the top Pruning would actually help the city because then they wouldn't have to come and flip it over the wires that it keeps growing over so That would be me doing the city of favor I would like them to do me a favor and I did see the part about the appeal but I kind of got off the I went a little wacko when I received this letter two weeks after I got the two denials. So I was like, getting ready to appeal it. I said, wait, they're telling me I can't move the tree, but I am responsible for the sewer pipes that are beneath the tree. So I bought this property. I pay taxes on it every year. I already spoke to Ricky Ladner saying I will replace the trees. I will donate them to the city. And I still got the denial.

We'll have the administration look into it.

We'll look into it tomorrow.

I really appreciate it.

And then if that doesn't work out, I would recommend...

I'll be back here next month.

Perfect.

You'll get tired of me.

If that doesn't work out, I would suggest that you go see Ms. Caitlin sitting over there in City Hall to file an appeal with the City Council.

That way you can file an appeal and you'll have a hearing and then we'll be able to vote on it. Right. Because if they don't give you the permit to cut it and you come up here next. I'm sorry. If they don't give you the permit to cut it. I can't tell where it's coming from. Yeah, and you come up here next week and tell us they didn't give you a permit. Unfortunately, we can't. You got to go through the process, make the appeal.

Well, and I was going to go through it. It's just that I kind of flipped my wig when I got the letter that said it.

Well, let's see what happens with the administration, and then we'll go from there. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

And thank you for letting me go over. Do you have a denial letter? I have two. You want them?

I just need your phone number.

Okay. We had one last year, and there's actually three, but I don't have a copy for the first one. It's eroding away my, I can't, my soil around my home is just eroding away. If you don't mind, will you just step right over here?

Yeah, we'll get you to give it, just because we do have to keep the three minutes fair. I know we went over because we had some discussion. Mr. Cliff's going to hold me to that one day.

No one else has signed up for the public forum regarding non-agenda items attorneys report is there anything

Yeah, we need to spread on the agenda the resolution declaring the state of emergency. for hurricane.

Yeah, I thought that was under consent. Was it? Yeah.

Oh, for Arthur?

Arthur, yeah.

Yeah, as item B. Oh, okay. It may have gotten moved since we did.

I saw it somewhere.

No, it's on here. Yeah, I got it pulled up.

It's on here. He thought it didn't make it. It was 6A. But you don't need to. We approved the resolution. So we are continuing it for 30 days. So we're good. okay okay uh it was in the online it was six eight okay but it was on there we got it um okay and the only other thing is just thank y'all for your shirts i can't say much or i'll start ugly crying but thank y'all i wish i could have seen my face when i looked up when i was trying to ask him why are you wearing such a bright shirt he was like i like that color and then you looked around

we're gonna get a picture with you after please do okay no need for executive session I will call for a motion to adjourn the meeting of July 7th 2026 to have a motion motion motion by councilman Smith of a second second second by councilman DeSalvo any discussion motion motion