City Council - Regular Meeting

I call the Bristol, Tennessee City Council called meeting of June 20th, 24th, 2025 to order. Mary Lee, would you please call the role? Fire Robin here. Hutton here. Powers here. Turner here. Like to welcome everyone uh to our meeting this evening. Thank you all for being here. There are a couple of opportunities to speak uh this evening on matters of city business. There was a signup sheet uh in the hallway that explains those opportunities uh in the hallway. But as we go forward uh with tonight's agenda, I'll note each time that uh public comment uh and public comment is welcome. Uh, and when we get to the appearance of citizens, if you didn't sign up on the signup sheet and still want to speak, we can make that available to you. Uh, in fact, the first thing on our agenda is the appearance of citizens. Uh, let me um explain a few things. Tonight's agenda, our called meeting is to focus on the first reading of a new ordinance. It's ordinance 25-15 which is an ordinance to adopt the annual budget and tax rate for the fiscal year July 1 2025 ending June 30th 2026. Uh during the ordinances and resolutions of the evening you will have opportunity to speak specifically to that uh that first reading that ordinance and resolution. uh during the appearance of citizens that that section is really designed for someone to speak on any matter not on the formal agenda. So if you'd like to speak during the appearance of citizens about something that's not on the formal agenda, you're welcome to do so. I know a number of folks signed up this evening. Uh and what this signup sheet is for is for the appearance of citizens for that matter itself. But during the uh ordinance and resolutions, you'll have an opportunity to speak specifically about the tax rate uh and about the budget. And so that's that's how this sort of thing is arranged. And so uh if you are on this

signup sheet and what you want to speak about is what's on the agenda tonight, uh you can just simply say, "I'll reserve my com my comments until later." Uh we can we can do it that way. U if you have things you want to talk about that have uh they're outside of the formal agenda during the appearance of citizens that's when we do that. Okay. So uh let me we're moving now to the appearance of of citizens. Let me call uh the role here. And again if you signed up uh but you want to speak about the budget about the tax rate and all that you will have an opportunity to do that during that time in our meeting. So the first person here is David Mezer. I'll wait until you get to the Thank you, Mr. Metser. Uh Joe Manion. All right. Norman Cook. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council, can you speak to the microphone so we can hear you? Well, Mr. Cook, would you tell us your name and where you live, please? Norman Cook, 605 Vance Drive in Bristol, Tennessee. Thank you, sir. Mr. Mayor and members of city council and other guests, I'm here to voice my concerns to the new city's tax rate proposal. This will be the second year in a row that the taxes have been increased and be the third year in a row that our water and sewer bills have been increased. And I just ask, have you ever considered the hardship that this will have on a lot of the citizens in our city? Have you ever considered that many people are not as blessed as some of us are that we can afford to pay this increase? But it would be difficult for many people. Have you considered that that you have many citizens today who are struggling just to buy food? Have you cons considered that every place that has a food bank either churches or private organizations they have cars

lined up waiting to get food? Have you considered the widows who must live on a small a very small social security check each month? This same widow might not even be able to buy the medicine that she needs because the city's fees and taxes. Have you ever considered that maybe we don't need new ball fields and electric cars? Have you considered the future debt the citizens will have to pay with your purchases of all these old buildings? Have you considered that maybe we need to see how we can lower taxes and fees? Have you considered that maybe there are things in this budget that are not really necessary? As a resident, I chose to move here 12 years ago like a lot of other people did. But if these yearly taxes continue, I wonder how many other people would want to move into the city of Bristol. If fewer people move in and more people move out, who's going to be left to pay the debt service that's been incurred? Have you considered the growth of businesses and manufacturing's concerns who may want to locate here, but decided not to when they see that this constant and continual increase of taxes not only for them but but for their employees? Is your continued tax increase the reason there's so many businesses that's closed their doors in our area? As of last year, Bristol had the highest rate of any city in the Tri Cities area. Is this how you want our city to be recognized? Are you proud of this? You know, you can continue to this tax or you can stop it. You can be remembered as a council

members who fought for the poor and for the working people or you can be remembered as the one who always wanted to increase taxes. You have that decision how you want to be remembered. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Mr. Cook. [Applause] Again, let me reiterate that this is the appearance of citizens. It's about anything that's not on the formal agenda. So, we'll get to the tax and the tax rate in the next uh section itself. Uh ne next is Ron Kirk. Thank you. Denise McCall, Mary Ror, Robin Ror, Amy Henley, Donna Triani, Donna Triani, Jen at Maple Tree Drive, Bristol, Tennessee. Um, I have a question. Um, has the city of Bristol, Tennessee purchased the LLC King building? Is it complete purchase yet? No, it has not been closed on yet. It's not a complete purchase. It has not been closed on yet. Okay. So, are you planning on purchasing the complete purchase of it this? The plan is to close on it. Yes, you're planning on closing it. Um just a reminder uh you have three minutes in this this time. Okay. Okay. Um if the taxpayers don't agree with the purchase of this building, then what is the um um explanation for purchasing it? Why would the council members want to purchase the building when the taxpayers don't want it purchased?

M Mr. Goundy de during the appearance of citizens we you may or may not get an answer to your questions. We might not be in a position to answer those at this time. Okay. I I'm sorry I unders misunderstood. I thought it was an opportunity to to address you with our questions. Sorry. It is but specifically about things that aren't on the agenda. Are aren't on the agenda that Oh, so is that building on the agenda tonight? I didn't know too the taxes the the tax rate and all that uh in the budget is the formal tax rate. I mean you're you're welcome to talk about it but I'm not sure at this time. I was just wondering why would you purchase a building that the citizens don't want purchased? Well, I mean it may be that there are there are groups of citizens that may not may not, but there are still those that do. We in terms of purchasing property that's that's a discretion of the council. I understand your question. I'm just Okay. So, it's um again, you have three minutes. I'm just trying to So, it's your discretion that you can commit to purchase items that other pe that the rest of the um people in the community do not want. So, that's your discretion. Is that what you're telling me? So unless we do a referendum, we don't know what all the citizens we're hearing from some people who are talking with us now. There are other citizens and there are citizens who came to a meeting that covered there were over a hundred people there. So who want we have a city hall. So why would we need another city hall? It's not that's not the purpose of that building. All right. What is the purpose of that building? This this isn't the best time to have a dialogue. Last time during public comment uh the public hearing, we had a

lot of questions and we answered which actually isn't even how public hearings are usually conducted. is supposed to hear what you think, not necessarily uh back and forth. Last time it worked out well. It was we were able to give some information, etc. Um but it's very difficult to have that kind of conversation in this forum. We'd be more than happy to answer your questions, but but not necessarily in this sort of environment. Just Yeah. Thank you. [Applause] Linda Derby budget. Great. Thank you. All right. All right. Now, moving on to ordinances and resolutions. We have one ordinance on first reading to consider tonight. It's ordinance 25-15. It's an ordinance to adopt the annual budget and tax rate for fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026. Finance Director Holly Vin will present. Good evening, mayor and council members. An item for first reading tonight is ordinance 2515 to appropriate the fiscal year 2026 budget. To briefly recap, on June 19th, 2025, ordinance 2513 failed on second reading. Tonight, the fiscal year 2026 budget ordinance 2515 incorporates the $187 as the tax rate and totals 154,626,310. This reading still includes the police and fire wage increases based on the

department analyses, the 4.7% pay increase for all other city departments and funds for the remaining department analysis implementation. The budget presented tonight includes cuts such as not filling open positions and pushing out capital equipment projects to the future years. Example of these items include a grant specialist position, an IT help desk position, some part-time positions in the parks and recreation department, some police overtime for special programs, money for a training facility study, money and some public works operations accounts, capital equipment such as a prime mover for the fire department, forklift for community engagement events and the meridian barriers. Additional monies have been removed for grant matching on the Shelby lot and also the neighborhood traffic calming projects. This proposed budget still includes funding for both the Bristol Public Library and the Bristol Tennessee city schools and remains unchanged for those as they were shown the other night. At the dollar 87 tax rate, the increase in property tax revenue would be approximately $3.8 $8 million and this would leave the general fund at about a million dollars lost at the end of fiscal year 2026 as it stands. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions of council for Miss Baron? Is there a motion to take action on ordinance 25-15? Okay, we're doing in that order. Uh yes, I'll make a motion for ordinance uh 25-15. Is there a second? Second. All right. This is an opportunity now for anyone in the audience to address council on uh this matter on ordinance 25-15. Um I will go through the list of those that you signed up. Uh in the order that you did, at the end of that list, if anyone else would like to address council on that matter, we'll make sure to give you that opportunity. Let me

remind you that that this ordinance-25-25-15 is on first reading, which means if the ordinance passes tonight on first reading, we have to have a second reading, which would be held on July 8th at our regular uh city council meeting here at 6:00 on July 8th. Uh so uh you'll have three minutes to speak. Uh you'll hear the timer go off and that would be uh helpful if we made uh attempts to stay within that 3minut time limit. So, let me begin at the top of the list again for those of you who wanted to delay your time. Uh, beginning with David Mezer, please. Uh, Mr. Mezer, state your name and your address for the record. Good evening. My name is David Mezer. I live on 101 Penrod Road here in the city of Bristol. I appeared before this body last summer to ask some questions relative to the development of the ball field and what now would comes around again to have its impact on the tax rate. The two questions that I asked last summer were number one was the modifications at the Todd Houston field within the consultant developed facilities plan for the school system or did it just let's do this right now as it comes up because of the state liners. The second question was the site at Tai Houston field which was pointed out by a gentleman in the audience at the last council meeting which was of insufficient size to meet the requirements for the ball field. Was that site, even though the pool was demolished, going to have sufficient parking? No one has contacted me with any answers, and this has been months ago. I can only draw negative conclusions from the fact that no one bothered to answer those questions after the fact. To that, I add another question. I recall in my many years with the city of Bristol years ago when the property down on 394, which is now White Top Creek Park, but at the time was called Multi-purpose

Park, was purchased by the city and developed with multiple ball fields, soccer fields, and all the other amenities that are down there. One of the selling points in the budget, because that was a multi-year process, was the fact that the multi-purpose park ball fields were being built as a replacement for Todd Houston Field because of its inadequacies and to have a place for the Tennessee High School baseball team to play at a new modern full-sized facility, a facility that is away from residential areas, a facility that has a lot more parking than what you see around Todd Houston Field. Why didn't that ever take place? Why are we now looking to spend additional dollars which would add it to the tax rate instead of using the ball fields which do need modification if you're going to use that for the Appalachin League like uh locker rooms and such as that that aren't down there. But all that was done 20 years ago. Why isn't the city taking advantage of that? Why is it going back to the old obsolescent facility and trying to fit, as my grandfather used to say, 5 pounds of potatoes in a three pound sack? Hopefully I will get some answers to these questions this time around. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Masser. [Applause] Mr. Mansion. Thank you and thank you for serving. I'm Joe Mason, 118 Flocks Creek. Uh I've lived in Bristol about 35 years. Before I came here, I was a CPA for 25 years. I have audited cities smaller and larger than Bristol. So, what I'm going to ask you, uh, I pulled off the internet this afternoon, but I want to make a statement first. If the city government only grows as fast as the city, there will never be a need for a rate increase

because your assessed value will follow the growth of the city. And so I I'm against any increase any time. You need to know that when I stand up here, we were friends to start with. And I told Margaret, I hope we're friends when we get through. But the last I'm trained to go back and do some of this stuff. So I looked for minutes online this afternoon. The last city council minutes I could find were March the 19th. Did you authorize that? That's a question, Mr. Mayor. I'm I'm sorry. Did I authorize the last city council minutes online were March the 19th? Did I authorize Did you authorize the ceasing of the posting online? I don't think there was any intentionality about about that at all. I think be made available. I don't think so. No, not at all. But I was appalled. The the next thing I saw, I went to the proposed budget posted online and under revenue general fund there shows for last year $32 million. The proposed budget has $37 million. And I don't know how that con uh confirms to or relates to the dollar 87, but strangely to the right of that it says 26 versus 25 and it shows $8 million difference. Well, I don't need a calculator to know that's five. And then it shows the increase to be 26.9% and it's 15. So, at that point, I lost confidence in the budget that's online. I don't

know if that's the one you're working with. I have a question. I've heard for the last few weeks, last few months, several months, that you got surprised by the financial condition of the city. I don't know how that could happen. Are you looking at financial statements every month? Are you that's a question Mr. M we we we may or may this is an opportunity for you to speak not necessarily for us to be grilled grilled so the reason for the question Mr. pay is if you're surprised and we end up with 25% increase. I got you. You're okay. If we end up with a 25% increase because you're surprised, I don't understand why how you get surprised if you're doing your job. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ron Kirk. Mr. Kirk, please state your name and your address for the record. My name is Ron Kirk and I live at 175 Robinson Walk in Bristol, Tennessee. I um I've played with a lot of numbers on this thing on the budget and the tax rate. Uh learned a lot. Uh I actually had a meeting with my representative from my part of town who's very gracious. Uh and I appreciate that. We spent probably 45 minutes on it. I'm just going to cut to the chase. We keep hearing I keep hearing about last year was 2.25% 25% to figure the city

taxes and then I think the year before we were 1.98 1.99 something like that and everybody keeps talking about the the percentage you know the 1.87 87. I sat down and said, "Okay, if we take the new home appraisal, everybody's went way up and then we take the I think it's 25% of that is the base to multiply that percent time 1 and a half% if we use instead of 1 187 if we did a 1 and a.5% on my home that's a 15.6% 6% increase over last year. And last year, uh, I'm I don't have enough. I think we increased roughly 9 or 10% on our property taxes last year for the city. Is that close? Okay. Well, if we use if we do 1.5%. It's a 15.67% increase on property taxes over the prior year. And I've double checked it. Now, I I I don't I haven't I haven't looked at the revenues that we need to do all the things we need to do, and we know that prices have gone up. I'm not against a rate adjustment at all. It's you're not living in the real world if you think things are the same price they were last year or if they've gone down. That's not happening. But I I'm just I guess what I'm thinking is instead of one and a half% or 1.99% I want to kind of walk away from that for a minute and say we don't put percents in the bank when we take money and we put dollars in the bank. So if if I'll summarize and I'm done. If we could come up with a way to increase everybody's property taxes this year 15.6% over last year that's going to put a whole lot more money in the bank. how much I I I don't have the numbers to figure a total. That's in my mind that's a very complicated thing depending on what all

the line items are, but that's a significant increase in taxes for one year. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kirk. [Applause] Jim Jordan. Mr. Jordan, please state your name and your address for the record, please. My name is Jim Jordan. My wife and I live at 232 Colony Drive. Um, I'd like to thank Mayor Hutton, Vice Mayor Turner, elected city members for your service to the citizens of Bristol. Um, I'd like to state my remarks in the form of a prayer. Dear Father in heaven, may your name be hallowed in the hearts of those gathered here tonight and in the hearts of all the people in both Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia. I pray that you will turn the hearts of these city leaders to place the finances of the people of Bristol before the financial needs and desires of the city of Bristol. May they consider the people's finances before the items of the city budget which include buying buildings and real estate, providing amenities, attracting tourists, purchasing new vehicles, and planning for the growth of the city. May the city employees and their wages be considered first and before other city expenses and not be used as reasons to raise property taxes. May our city schools and all their employees be considered first for the benefit of our children and grandchildren and not be used as a reason to raise property taxes without a city referendum. Amenities, tourism, city growth are fine. And it's the people who make a city

great and make it a good place to live. Lord, you know the financial situation of every person and family in the city. We are dealing with rising prices, economic uncertainty, and increasing personal debt. You know, and care for the homeless in our cities, as well as those who may lose their homes due to higher cost. Thank you for your provision, which allows most of us to afford to keep our homes and pay higher taxes. Our prayer is for those on fixed income who may not, but their trust is in you. And Lord, I appeal to you to turn the hearts of the city council members to further reduce the newly proposed tax rate of over 21% increase. And I ask this in the name of my savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. And I have uh one final comment. In closing, I find it so ironic that this city council is considering a tax increase of over 21% after last year's increase of over 13%. And after both this year and last year increasing taxes on our water, sewer, and garbage, when in a few days our nation will celebrate the 4th of July, which we were freed from repressive, excessive, and unfair taxes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Denise McCall. Miss McCall, please state your name and your address for the record. Denise McCall, 216 Bluff City Highway. that that's hard to follow. That's hard to come behind. But what I wanted to say

is kind of the same thing. When you guys sit down, whether this is voted in or not voted in, consider the average median yearly income of the families living in your city. The 14.1% that are living below the poverty line. You know, you've got Mary Lou over here who's 80 and her little house that was built in 1940. If she can't pay her taxes, then who's, you know, where's she going to go? What is she going to do? This is her home, you know, and this make I made that person up. But that's the reality. That's what we're looking at. And I know you guys aren't going to answer questions. I'm just asking you to think about every person that lives here. I was excited that the last thing got voted down and I posted it on Facebook. And I understand how our city manager feels because somebody came at me on Facebook because I was excited that I might not be paying $4,100 in property taxes. That, you know, that's a lot of money. My husband is 100% disabled Army veteran and I can guarantee you that the VA does not give big uh cost of living increases. So that's all I'm asking and I think that's what everybody else is asking is that you just know how this is going to affect the people sitting here and the people who couldn't make it. Thank you, Miss McCall. Mary Ror.

Miss R. Please state your name and your address for the record. Mary Ror, 114 Hickory Road. Miss Ror, I'm sorry. Could you speak into the microphone? Mary Ror, 114 Hickory Road. I don't think this was on the agenda, but I'm going to make my remarks. Uh, it's concerning the AOA Library, and there's rumors that it's going to close, and I'm wondering if this tax increase passes, then why is the library going to close? And that library has been there for years. I've lived in the subdivision behind it for 50some years and I use that library all the time. The subdivisions down through the parkway on Weaver Pike going toward Bluff City. If you can imagine how many families and children are going to be affected by not having that library. So, I just want you to consider that. think of that of all of the children that it's going to affect if it closes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ror. [Applause] Robin Ror. Miss Work, please state your name and address for the record. Yes. My name is Robin Ror. I live at 114 Hickory Road. Actually, that's my mother, so I live with her currently. Um, my concerns with the tax property tax increase. I am a first-time home buyer and I have been searching and searching for the past couple of years. And with this increase, it's not going to happen for me. I will literally have to move out of this area. And right now, that's impossible for me because my mother is almost 80 years old, my father is 82, and I'm having to

take care of him. Um, I only I work on the Virginia side. I only make 40,000 a year. By the time they take out my federal taxes and my income taxes, I barely bring home 2,000 a month. There's no way I'm getting a home loan. And especially not a house that doesn't have to be torn down at this point. If you've looked at trying to buy a house right now, what I have been approved for, if I go into the county, it's only 150,000. If I'm in state in or in the city limits, it's only 125. And those houses aren't even worth that. They have to be torn down or gutted. And I can't afford that. And if you raise the tax, if you raise the property taxes, this is my hometown. I was born and raised here in 1970. I grew up here. I graduated from Tennessee High. I'm 54 years old. I don't want to have to leave my hometown. But that's where it's getting at. if you do this big of a tax rate hike. And not only that, but the elderly, my mom, her income or her property taxes are going to double. She's on a fixed income. She just gets social security. My father is on a fixed income. And this is going to doubling their tax rates is going to possibly put them out of homes. That's not right. We have been here our entire lives. Please just take into consideration that that this is affecting the people that have put their blood, sweat, and tears into this town and that love this town. We should not be penalized and having to pay that much. It's not. People will have to leave. Take that in consideration. the big casino that has now come in. People aren't going to move here with that big of a tax increase and having to pay that

much in property taxes. They'll go elsewhere. People will have to leave the city of Bristol. And that's not right. It's just not right. Please take that into consideration. Thank you, Miss Ror. Amy Henley. Miss Henley, please state your name and address for the record. Amy Henley, 3053 Oaks Drive. Um, I just I know you said it's at your discretion the purchase of the building that we're all talking about the LC, but at what point does our money become your discretion because that's what's purchasing these buildings. That's what's making these the things that you said you were going to cut are things for the community. So the community is paying for these things and you're cutting the services to the community but buying a building and that makes no sense to anyone in this room. So I'm just our money at your discretion should involve what we want done with that money. That's all I have to say. Thank you, Linda Darby. Miss Darby, please state your name and address for the record. Linda Darby, 1435 Holston Drive. Um, I want to start off just by commenting on the um the wage increase for the police. I just want to say that I fully support

that and I applaud that and I I've for the last several years thought that that our police officers were not getting paid nearly enough. And so I really appreciate that part of the budget. And I only wish that it could be more, but I I know we have to, you know, limit it somewhere. Um, aside from that, I've been trying to understand how all of this budgeting works and you put the slides up and I try to understand them and they're detailed. Um, but I'm uneducated on how it works. And I know you can't answer my question now. So, I guess I kind of have to tell you what I'm thinking is I'm trying to understand how we came to such whopping amount um that requires such an increase. Um and I'm starting to wonder is the city of Bristol like horribly deep in debt, but I don't know if debt carries from year to year or from previous budgets. So, I guess my thought is, are we horribly in debt and then we keep adding more things to it or do we balance at zero and this total is all new things? Um, so I guess that's my question is does the debt carry over or are we at zero and it's all new or is it a split 50/50? Some of it is previous debt and some of it is new um new expenditures. That's correct. Thank you, Miss Darby. [Applause] Right. We've come to the end of the folks who signed up, but we are open to anyone else who would like to address council on ordinance 25-15. You'll have to come to the you'll have

to come to the microphone. There's probably a queue over here. U so as you remember to to you're speaking on the matter at hand. You have three minutes. Please state your name and your address for the record. Hi um Leila Ganerys, 109 Britney Circle, Bluff City, which is in the city of Bristol. Um, first of all, I I don't think that you could find anybody that would object to the need for raises for our public servants. I think you've got 100% support for that across the board. But in this time of economic decline, um, you have wants and you have needs. But when you're in an economic decline and you're we're we're obviously looking at maybe the cost of gas going up to ridiculous amounts of money, which is of course going to increase cost of everything. and the struggle that that's going to put on people. I don't think this is a time to be looking at wants. We should be focused strictly on needs. Um raises for for public servants or needs. Baseball stadiums, art centers, and historic preservations are wonderful, but not right now. Not right now. I think we need to wait until our economy is a little bit more stable. Now, um I have hard questions that I'm certain you're not going to answer, but

and I I couldn't find um how much was going to be paid for the LC King building. Um but I would love to know how do does that match equal to higher than lower than what is needed for raises for public servants? Um who owns the LC King building? Are are you already committed to the point where you you cannot back out? I understand that that we need parking in downtown Bristol. We do need parking in downtown Bristol. Um but oddly enough, that was not on the list of possibil possible uses for the King Building. Um who owns the King Building? And this is a really hard question. I hate to have to answer it, but I got to. Um, did the person that owns the King Building contribute to any of your campaigns? Okay, that's mine. Please state your name and your address for the record. My name is Tim Greenwood and uh I live on 715 Taylor Street. start this off by saying I know you didn't ask me to move here so I don't have any um it's not your fault that I'm here but I should say also I'm also trying not to attribute nefarious motives. You guys look pretty competent and so I'm going to assume you are.

But I will say there was a remark that somebody said this is your city and this is not your city. This is our city. I have four kids. They are 8 six three and one. So if I were to buy health insurance through my work, it's about 1,300 a month. So, my kids have health insurance and I do not. I moved here and the house that was available that would fit what we needed was $420,000. That makes our payment starting out when we moved here $2,100 and like $98. It is almost at $2,400 right now. And if that goes through, good lord, we have to rent out a room. And as you know, um, actually, you don't know. I encourage you guys to drive up Taylor Street. It sucks. There's cracks everywhere. It's bumpy. Although the college kids use it as raceway. So, and as you know, the food increase at Food City, Kroger. I just think if you want me and my kids and my wife to stay, don't kick me out because right now we're about $4,000 a month just to live. So keep pushing it up. You won't have this ne next generation here. Thank you. [Applause] Please state your name and your address for the record. Blair Henley, 305 3 Oaks Drive. And I actually had no intention

of speaking until the ordinance was read. And uh at your work session and at the last meeting, uh the 192 proposed tax rate, there was a I guess a deficit or a debt payback of $1 million. And tonight at 187, it's still the same $1 million. So I think all of the angst in here is nobody knows what you're doing. If you if you've automatically in 3 days said we're going from 192 to 187, something's had to change. And I'm with everybody else that our police, firemen, and city servants absolutely get a raise. and I I'd be willing to pay more for that. But in actuality, if you're whatever percentage you you've given them, if you're raising their property taxes, well, then they're not really getting that. They're not getting the whole thing. It's kind of like giving a 2% cost of living raise and raising health insurance 10%. So, I think all of the uh confusion and and all I'm trying to understand is what are you doing? I don't know where the LC King building is, but I don't think I need to because there doesn't seem to be a plan for stuff like that. And as I've stated before up here, just line item what you're doing with the funds. You know, like again, there's there's all kinds of line line items in the budget, but there's nothing that says what are you doing with it. An example is the budgets that I have to do. We've got a line item of software. Well, you can look at my budget and see every single piece of software that I'm buying, how much it's getting used, and how it affects the budget. All the confusion here is you've got stuff in the budget like these real estate purchases of empty buildings that are sitting there doing nothing, but you're raising the uh taxes. So, I

really think if you just went back and and tried to be more transparent, some of this wouldn't even I wouldn't even be up here. But the fact is I don't understand what you're doing with our money. So that's where my questions are. Thank you. Thank you. Please please state your name and your address for the record. James Kaiser, uh 2204 King College Road, Bristol, Tennessee. I guess want to start by saying probably voted for every one of you. And Bristol's a good place to live. We're all I think everybody here would agree we we want to support the police, the EMT, fire department with the best we have. You know, having said that, consider city residents pay double taxes. They say, "Well, it's not my problem. You chose to live in the city." Of course, if you talk to the commissioners, they will give you a long list of things that they say they help with, they pay for. Here's why you pay as much as you do in the county taxes. So, when we're talking about raising taxes, you're probably paying, you know, twice of uh what uh well, I don't know anybody can get out of it. You're in Sullivan County or in the city. You're just you're just there. You are. So, you don't get double benefits. Somebody 50 feet outside the city limits. I don't think anybody here would would say that they get double. You get something. I'm not going to say you don't, but you don't get double. Um, like I said, the commissioners would be happy to tell you how much they contribute, but according to them, that's that's a whole lot. But I don't know if you considered that. Uh, when you go down the road now, you're going to see you already see a huge number for sale, for sale, for sale. If you go on realtor.com or Zillow, you see price drop $5,000, $10,000, what have you. I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say, the gold rush is over and you just need to try to take in consider that.

I know there's things you have to pay for, but I think people in Tennessee, they want sound physical uh dodge type management. They want it they want to see it done efficiently, and we don't want to see the hard-earned tax dollars wasted. That's all we're asking. Now, you guys sit there and I'm standing here. There's nothing I can do about it if you raise what you do. However, we vote. That's all I got to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kaiser. Please state your name and your address for the record. Yes. My name is Steven Dah. I live at 61 Kingsbridge. And I I'm listening to all these people here and I think what most people want is transparency. Um I I've been here about three and a half years. I have no idea how they figured the tax rate. Um I went through the experience of this reappraisal situation. I guess I get the county does that is what I'm I'm assuming, but you guys kind of tack your own thing on to what they do. Well, um there are several of us that are that are friends and we all actually negotiated um a reappraisal with the county and to be perfectly frank, it was probably the biggest collusion uh mess that I've been in in a long in a long time. Um I think they just said this is what you paid last time. we're doubling it and then we'll let the state figure out what the tax rate is going to be so things are equal. That's extremely poor way of doing things and it I think it needs to be re-evaluated. Um because I look at uh I can't remember there's guy over here in the the orange

um who talked about um my rate based on the the 1.52. Okay. Which is supposed to make us kind of equal to what we paid the last year. I'm still paying 6% more based on my appraisal. So, and I know they look at I'm finding out a lot of things. They look at the kind of the overall what every everybody kind of got reassessed and then then they figure out a way to equal what you guys made last year and that's going to be the tax rate. So some people will pay a little less and some people pay a little more, but that's frankly not a very fair way or very good way of doing things. So and I think in my my case, um 1.87 kind of tax on almost at the 33% increase in in my in my tax rate. I really didn't even know we had a 13% other than the fact I looked and said, "Oh, I'm paying more to the city. I'm paying more to the county." And it wasn't wasn't outrageous, but um having moved here, I'm one of those California people. Having moved here from California, I actually know their system a lot better than I know this system. And I just don't think this system is well done. And so I think you guys need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how you're going to reappraise things um and not depend on the state bailing you out with a with a new tax rate. Okay, that's just my my opinion. Okay. Hey, first of all, thank you very much for all that you guys do because I'm sure I don't want to be in your seat uh listening to pretty much everybody say they don't want what you want. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Do. Please state your name and your address for the record. Yes, I'm back again. Uh, my name is Brian Suzac and I live at 114

Monroe Drive, Bristol, Tennessee. And what I'm here to talk about, although I agree with what's happening, that it is not good that taxes are being raised the way they are, what I wanted to talk about was something that I hope will impact what the city does from here forward um in terms of county records. Uh when I moved and I bought our house, I was paying $157 a square foot for our house. It was based on 3,969 square feet. After receiving, I didn't receive it. After researching in the county records that we we were getting taxed because they never mailed anything to us, our tax was going to go up. I went ahead and researched county records uh in preparation for a meeting with them to debate or to uh yeah debate that the new appraisal value and as well as the taxes that they were going to charge. So when I did that, I found out that our house, it was actually uh the basement of our house, 1,248 square ft was in it wasn't a basement. The crawl space of our house, 1,248 ft was included as a basement. So I pointed this out to the uh the county during my meeting. So, the first notice that we got of change, they were charging, they were going to charge usund, they was going to increase our uh basically the appraisal that they did increased our house to $179 a square foot from $157 a square foot. And what I found out was I was using an errant square footage to come up with 157. and they were using that same square footage because that's what's on

their records. After pointing out that my house, they were including the crawl space as square footage of the house, they came back and they increased the appraised value by $5,000 over what I paid for it. Now, the actual square footage that I paid for, 2721 square feet, is $230 a square foot. They came back and said, "Oh, yeah, they they see that's wrong." But they increased the value of my house to that. If I paid $157 for my house at 2721 square ft, I would have paid $420 something dollars. I think it's $428. I just can't read right here. Dollars for that house. Now, I was willing to buy that house for what it was, but I thought I was paying more. So, I went back to them. They increased it again, and now they're trying to charge me $231 a square foot for my house. I did an analysis of almost every house that's sold within the last year and a half around our our place. The average was 155, depending upon how you look at it, 115, 118 or 161 a square foot. That's breaking the houses up into different places. What I would ask is that the the city consider looking at county records before you just increase taxes on people because it could be there could be problems with other houses that are like this. I might be a one-off, but am I? I don't know. Thanks for your time. Thanks, sir. [Applause] Please state your name and your address for the record. Jim McCall, 216 Bluff City Highway, Bristol.

Gentlemen, thank you for your service. That being said, like you heard the other folks say, no one here is opposed to your increases. Okay. Um that's just part of life. You got to have them in order to keep up with the economy. So I have a question and that question is based on the fiscal year 25 budget. It says recommendations from compens uh compensation consultant. All eligible full-time and part-time employees will receive a 5% market rate increase in order to continue the compensation strategy based on current wage market. The compensation consultant also recommended that the pay plans minimum, midpoint, and maximum of each position range be shifted upward 3.6% in fiscal year 25. So you increased our taxes 13% last year. I'm pretty sure I heard you guys say and gals that that was to help alleviate the increases for employees of the city government and from the last data it shows that you have 384 employees. Is that right? Okay. So, like I said, we want to see these employees fairly compensated, but if you guys are planning on raising our taxes again,

what are you doing with that money? because $2.75 million for the LC King building, which you purchased from UPM Pharmaceuticals, owned by John Gregory. Um, is that wrong? Yes, sir. That's wrong. So, it's not $2.75 million. That was not the owner of the building. That is not the owner of the building. That is what? It's not the owner of the building. That's not who we purchased it from. Continue, please. Okay. So regardless, the $2.75 million um I'm pretty sure that could have uh taken care of uh wage increases for your employees. So I'm urging you all to do a better job with the budget and your spending. Prioritize what is necessary and uh let's avoid the frivolous stuff. Thank you for your time. I have one more. Uh, normally we just allow uh folks to speak one time to an issue. Sir, sorry. If we open it up to you, we'll have to open it up to anybody else who wants to speak again. We we shut that down in our last meeting. I I appreciate that. I really do. But we the last meeting we we didn't allow it. So, we're not we're going to be consistent. Does anybody else who has not yet spoken to this issue desire an opportunity to speak? Thank you. All right. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion among council? Go ahead. Yeah. Listen, there's a lot of people in this room. There's we have a lot going on here and I understand that there's

certain projects that certain people want, others do not. Um, you're never going to find a project that everybody wants, whether it's the baseball field or the LC King. Um me personally, I I agree with a lot of people in this room of some of these projects that it's not that taking away. They all have merit, but maybe now is not the right time, which is why I'm going to be a no vote on this of raising the taxes. And it no it's listen there's everybody up here all of our council has worked to get get it as low as we possibly can and I'm there's still going to be work. This is the first uh reading on it, but um our staff and making sure our employees are paid a fair wage for me, I think comes before some of those. And not that you don't do the projects, but maybe just not do them now. But that's and a lot of these I'll say I've I've supported in the past and spent a lot of time going back and rethinking. I always I try to probably say I overthink a lot of things but um you try to think through everything as you're going along and listen none of us are perfect. you're going to miss stuff. And um

that's kind of like I said that that's where I am and I respect everyone's opinion up here. Uh thank you all for coming out. Um that's that's where I am. Thank you. Other discussion. So, I just wanted to say a few things from from what I've been listening to. And first off, it um is really hard to um particularly now things are tough and anticipating things are going to get tougher. Uh that's what I think's going to happen. Um and we're going to see more people with needs. But I wanted to say just a few things about how we do our work with the city. And I've been on city council a long time. I was voted out once and voted back in. Um and I know some people think we ought to have um uh term limits, etc. At this point, we don't, but it does help for some perspective sometimes. So, I'll say the city of Bristol, Tennessee has always been very conservative with our budgeting, with how we do things. That's been the history of how we've we've um done how we've acted. Um and every year for Holly could say how many years we have been recognized with our budget from the GFOA which is the um financial it's a national award recognizing the work that you do with your budget and um completed budgets if you find those online the first 20 pages have a lot of information about the city in addition

to information about the budget. Um, so we are really proud of that work. We're very proud of this our staff and it's the staff that we've had for years off and on different people but the expectations are very high. Uh, we have very detailed budgets. Not all those budgets are the it's spreadsheets and spreadsheets and spreadsheets to get the detail of the budget. So not all those are put out. They could be you can have access if you want but um there is plenty. There's also a process we go through to model. So we have work sessions. We put up on the screen. We model different tax rates. We get to look at all the different items and talk about them and ask about them. So that's very helpful. uh and work sess all of our meetings are open except if we have litigation pending that's the only time in Tennessee that you can have a closed meeting so any meeting that we have with city council y'all are welcome to attend it's a law um there's a difference between uh general budget and capital budget and sometimes those aren't interchangeable and you've got to be sure that you can fund your general general fund year after year after year. So, it's not just the first year of increased employee pay. It's got to be continued further out. Um, I'm saying things on different scattered around. Um, vehicles some what we've been finding is that it's been more expensive to maintain a vehicle than to purchase a new one. I know y'all been in that spot where um you're it's more

expensive to do that. So that was looking at some of the vehicles and what our process was. We also receive grant opportunities at different times that help us to save money that we want to take advantage of. So we try to do that as much as possible. Um and um so and for the budgets going up, some of our safety vehicles were the costs were up half again. So something that we had budgeted a million dollars, it comes in at 1.5 million. That adds up very quickly in a budget when it when it goes up that much. Uh we've talked a lot about raises and I'd like to say that it's not just raises. We found that there are people who are very much out of alignment. So, it's not just a raise. It's being sure that they're put in the right um category and the right position and having the salary that will keep them here and enable them to do the the job that that they are hired to do. Um so it's and um with why if with the reappraisal every four years and it's going to every two years so hopefully can have a better job of it and uh we don't have anything to do with the appraisal. That's Sullivan County. So um that is not our city. We have no input for how they calculate that. So all that is falls and that's done by the state. The how appraisal the assessments work is laid out by our state. It it's not our um purview to change that process or anything but what we have had

in our city and it's other places too. Um and I've been here for a lot of it. In 2008 we had the uh housing market that the bottom fell out. we had to really scale back. We cut we fortunately we were able to cut enough to still keep the people services that we had. Um so that happened. We were just starting to recover from that because we were a little slow to get hit with it. Um and then COVID came. We got some extra money with COVID. Very helpful. But as y'all are probably aware, the labor costs have gone up a lot during co we got behind. What also happened is that we had a tax cut um in 2009 2010 and then we didn't increase taxes again till last year. So that's when you when it's important to look at raising taxes is if you didn't do it and didn't do what you needed to do and there might be good reasons why we did that but it leaves us in a bad situation. So I would encourage anybody to attend our work sessions. There's a lot of details. The city covers a lot of different subjects, a lot of different territory. there's a lot of things moving parts so to speak with sitting. Um so I would encourage you to attend. Um and at this point I would um be willing to look at an amendment if we wanted to amend it. But at this point, I'll uh support the 187 and do everything we can to continue to look and see what we can do and maintain um

maintain our services, try to keep from increasing taxes at the same percentage that we've had to do the last couple of years. Thank you. Do you have any discussion? Second. I do not. Okay, great. Okay. Uh, seeing no more discussion, Mary Lee, will you please call the role? Yes, sir. Fire Robin, yes. Hutton, yes. Akre, yes. Turner, no. Okay. So, this ordinance uh will now be placed on the agenda for our July 8th uh 2025 regular meeting for the second reading. Uh, and there'll be a public hearing at that meeting as well. That's July 8th. It's a Tuesday night, our regular meeting at 6:00 here. Um, that gives us opportunity between now and then to even take a even closer look. But at this point, uh, the motion, uh, passes on first reading. With that, uh, our meeting is now adjourned.