Board of Mayor & Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Let us pray. Eternal God, again, we thank you just for this day.

We thank you, Lord, because we know that this is a day that you have made, and we are rejoicing in it. We ask you, Lord, to guard our hearts and our minds as we come to do the business tonight. Bless this city, Lord. Bless these people under the sound of my voice. Give us strength. Give us unity. And most of all, give us a peace that passes all understanding. Bless this city, Lord. Keep us calm. Keep us focused. and keep our mind stayed on you. And Father God, most of all, at the end of this prayer, God, please bless America and Springfield. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you, Mr. Herbert. Our first item on our agenda for tonight is item 1.3, approval of minutes from the regular meeting of the Board of Mayor and Alderman held August 18, 2026. Do we have a motion? We have a motion by Alderman Hallman, have a second by Alderman Hubbard. Any questions or comments? If not, let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Seeing none, would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes 5-0.

Moving to item 1.4, this is our public comment period. We have one person registered to speak. I think Ms. Judy Cobb, would you like to approach the microphone there, state your name, and you will have two minutes to address the board.

My name is Judy Cobb and I wish you a good evening. I am here to support the Jones Chapel road waterline upgrade project. I own a water tap contracted and paid for in 1997. I have been waiting for water since 2005 when a 500 acre farm sold as is no water available per city water department. The ten land tracks sold dirt cheap without water taps. Yet less than two years later, four of these tracks had under the table water taps. I had my two-minute speech already, but the Lord kept me awake last night and told me he had planned this day and brought me here to share the good news of Jesus Christ's finished work on the cross. And I hope to see each of you in heaven one day. The Holy Bible tells us, for I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I received, how that Christ died for us according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. Faith in Jesus Christ. Without faith in Jesus Christ, it's impossible to please God. Jesus came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law. Today I ask you not to destroy the state-approved Jones Chapel waterline upgrade project, but to fulfill it. You did not create this problem, but you have the solution to fix it. Surely you realized on August 18th that the people with the 12 paid water taps want water. We should not have to come to City Hall and pound on the podium to get you to fulfill your part of the contract. Neither should my new neighbors with water be able to deny me water. Did not they steal my water? I propose that even numbered houses occupied have water on even numbered days. fulfill the water taps. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cobb. Moving to our next item, we have the public hearing item 1.5, item 1, ordinance 26-32, and ordinance amending title 12, chapter 1 of the Springfield Municipal Code. Is there anyone here to speak to this matter? Seeing none, we will move on. We will close our public hearing period. Moving to our legislative portion of our agenda, item 2.1, discuss and possibly take action on Ordinance 26-32 on second and final reading and the ordinance amending Title 12, Chapter 1 of the Springfield Municipal Code. We have a motion by Alderman Hubbard and a second by Vice Mayor Harris. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, are we ready to vote? Let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes five to zero.

Item 2.2, discuss and possibly take action on ordinance 26-33 on first reading and ordinance amending title five, chapter six of the Springfield Municipal Code relative to commercial system development charges. We have a motion by Alderman Holloman, second by Alderman Gregg. City Manager Ryan Martin has something to add to this.

Thank you, Mayor. So in this ordinance, this stems from the discussion that you all had last month. You signaled the intent to cut the commercial system development non-utility system development charges from the 50% maximum allowable to 25% maximum allowable. So that change is reflected in the exhibit to the ordinance. What I'll draw your attention to, there are two changes here that are taking place. One is simply a year change in Section 1. That's just something that probably should have been done on the front end, so that's just changing from 15 to 20 years. But if you go down to page... should be page five in your packet, you will see the chart there of the non-residential, non-utility fees, and the highlighted sections there are what has changed. Nothing else changed in that section except for those, and that was basically cut in half from what you all had previously adopted. I'll be glad to answer any questions if you have any. Come out on page three. It says page three at the bottom, but it's actually page five of the PDF. Commercial 256. That's correct.

Yes, sir Any questions or comments Ready to vote let's cast our votes Anyone care to change their vote Would you tell me the votes please motion passes 3 to 2 and Item 2.3, discuss and possibly take action on Ordinance 26-34 on first reading and ordinance amending Title 17, Chapter 1 of the Springfield Municipal Code relative to rubbish and bulky waste. We have a motion by Alderman Hubbard, a second by Alderman Holloman. I believe City Manager Ryan Martin has something to add to this.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So this is something we need to clean up also in the municipal code. It was something that was put in a few years ago that was well intended. And our municipal code currently reads, as it pertains to, let's use brush pickup as the example. Currently, if you have a tree that falls in your yard, you cut that up and you put it out the side of the road, and we come by and pick it up with our brush truck. However, the municipal code does not currently allow us to pick up material, the bulky waste, that was cut up by a contractor. This was done several, several years ago. I believe the intent behind that was to not subsidize a for-profit business and have the for-profit business haul those away. However, the impact of that is actually kind of creates a disparity. Let's say that there is a perfectly healthy resident on one side of the street after the storm comes through that cuts up there. tree and puts the limbs by the road to be picked up but there may be a disabled neighbor across the street that has to hire someone right or maybe it's an elderly neighbor that that's not physically able to go and cut theirs up we wouldn't pick that up right so that creates a discriminatory disparity between the municipal service that's provided my recommendation to you all tonight is to repeal that entirely and let's provide the same service to all city residents

Mr. Hubbard? As a young 79-year-old senior, I support that. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I have seniors around me that have treated a subject of all these things.

I support it. Mr. Harris? I'm not saying that I don't support it. My question would be, What if the tree has not fallen or anything? If they're just hiring a company to come in and cut trees on their property, can they still put that out for the city to pick up?

I would say so. Yeah, I think we use the storm example because that's usually when we see it. But I think because we would pick up, you know, yours or mine, right? If we decided to trim a tree and put that out. So it's just our regular brush pickup that we do. And so it would apply regardless of a storm or if you're just trimming trees.

Any other questions or comments? If not, let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes 5-0.

Item 2.4, discuss and promptly take action on resolution 26-19, a resolution declaring certain property surplus and authorizing the disposal of such property. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Harris, a second by Alderman Hubbard. Any questions or any comments? Hearing none, are we ready to vote? Let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes five to zero.

Item 2.5, discuss and possibly take action on Resolution 26-20, a resolution accepting a performance bond from SHD Jasper Fields LLC to guarantee the completion of required improvements in Jasper Fields Phase 1. We have a motion by Alderman Holloman, a second by Alderman Gregg. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, we're ready to vote. Let's cast our votes. Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes 5-0.

Item 2.6, discuss and possibly take action on Resolution 26-21, a resolution accepting a maintenance bond from Reyes Construction Incorporated to guarantee the repair of defects and required public improvements during the maintenance period for Reyes Estates. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Harris, a second by Alderman Holloman. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, if we're ready to vote, let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes please?

Motion passes five to zero.

Now we enter the administrative portion of our agenda. Item 3.1, discuss and possibly take action on the adjustment to the retail electric rates due to the wholesale fuel cost adjustment by Tennessee Valley Authority. We have a motion by Alderman Gregg, a second by Alderman Holloman. Electrical Department Director, Mr. Terry Reesham.

Yes, sir. Lower by 8.29.

Lower. Very good. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes 5-0.

Item 3.2, discuss and possibly take action on the adjustment of monthly gas rates. I have a motion by Alderman Hubbard, a second by Vice Mayor Harris. Gas Department Director Miss DaVinci Davis, what do you have for us, sir? Any questions or comments? Hearing none, let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes please?

Motion passes five to zero.

Item 3.3, discuss and possibly take action on a contract to provide public Wi-Fi at Garner Street Park as part of the Tennessee Broadband Ready Committee grant. We have a motion by Alderman Holliman, second by Vice Mayor Harris. I think City Manager Ryan Martin has something to add to this.

Thank you, Mayor. Point of order first. I've asked the City Attorney on item 2.3, I guess it was item 2.2. I've asked the city attorney to verify that vote was 3-2, Mayor, and we just need to make sure that what we know, the city clerk read that it passed. The city attorney is going to check to make sure that that is in fact the case, that it doesn't require a majority of the board. only requires a majority of the members present for that ordinance to move forward so i didn't want to let the meeting get away without pointing that out that she's checking so we may find out later that that ordinance did in fact fail as opposed to pass but we'll hopefully know something soon within the next day or two thank you ryan uh on item 3.3 the uh this is a grant partnership grant that we had with robertson county government that they had worked with us on for broadband ready and we know that we've had a few different components to this grant we've partnered with the library on part of it to provide tablets broadband ready tablets for folks that don't have broadband access we've worked with the senior center in a few aspects and this is the final phase of that grant project which is to install free wi-fi at garner street park we would like to roll out wi-fi to all of our parks garner street park is the first of that So we're thankful to the state of Tennessee. So this contract is with Comcast to do that through fiber installation and lighting fixtures that will help also broadcast the wireless signal.

Very good. Thank you, sir. All being covered through a grant.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Hubbard? That's a great idea. I frequently just like to go out there and I can take my tablet. That's right.

Mr. Terry?

Any other questions or comments? If not, let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes five to zero.

Item 3.4, discuss and probably take action on change order number one with USG Water Solutions for the Water Treatment Plant Pipe Coating Project. We have a motion by Alderman Holliman, a second by Alderman Hubbard. Any questions or comments?

How's that project going?

We need to do this part before we coat.

Brian, go to the microphone. But it's imminent, right? Everything is ready to go except for this. Before we can coat the piping, there are leaking valves that are dripping oil on it. Can't put paint on something that's got oil on it, so we need to replace these valve actuators. And then they've already gone out there and started doing some of the work, but the coating can't take place until this happens.

Any other questions or comments? If not, let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes please?

Motion passes five to zero.

Item 3.5, discuss and possibly take action to approve funding for the city's contributions to the TVA Home Uplift Program. We have a motion by Alderman Holloman, second by Alderman Hubbard. Any questions or comments?

We do have impoverished people in this town who really can't keep up, and they need assistance. So I support it 110%.

Anyone else? Our part is already budgeted. It is. Yes, sir.

Any other questions or comments? Let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes 5-0.

Item 3.6, discuss and possibly take action on an easement acquisition for the W. Smith Road gas line project. We have a motion by Alderman Holliman, a second by Alderman Gregg. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, are we ready to cast our votes? Let's cast our votes. Anyone care to change their vote? Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes 5-0. Thank you.

Item 3.7, discuss and possibly take action on an update on the progress of Fire Station 3. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Harris, a second by Alderman Hubbard. I believe City Manager Ryan Martin, you have something to say.

Yeah. Well, thank you, Mayor. Well, I don't, but I want to kind of preface the presentation that you're going to see with we finally reached the finish line on the precursor to this project. And, Mayor, if you don't mind, I would ask that you would recognize the Industrial Development Board Chairman Mike Beshear to approach the podium and give some information to the board regarding the fire station project.

Mr. Beshear, you have the floor, sir.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're here, so it's been a We thought originally this might be a four- or five-month project, and we've been in this nine months now. So the committee is thrilled to be here tonight to show you what we have come up with. You see on the screens a picture of the fire station that you did a second ago. Can we go back? There we go. side with the fire truck and the springfield fire station on it is the front that'll face south main street so when you go up down south main street that's what you will see the porch you see on the left actually faces the south side of the property and i'll show you that in just a minute so that's the uh the front photo if we can move to the next slide This is a site plan. In order to get things legally like they needed to be, it was recorded as a two-lot subdivision. Or maybe subdivision is not the right word, but two lots. You can see our lot at the dotted line that runs down South Main Street all the way to the back and up. And then you see a dark highlighted area. And that's a street that will come off of South Main. It will be the first section of a road that will lead to the residential development behind the fire station. We agreed to put that in as part of them giving us the property, and it's also necessary because that's how we'll access the fire station. When a truck leaves the fire station, you can see a small concrete drive that leads out to South Main. When they come back, they'll turn onto that road, come behind the fire station, turn south, and then left into the Apparatus Bay. Any visitors who come to the fire station will come on down that dark highlighted to the far south side of the property and that's where public parking will be and where you'll enter the building from that south side. I don't know if you have any questions. If any questions, stop me as we go along. If you don't, I'll keep moving. Can we see the floor plan? Let me walk you through starting at the Front porch, which is on the very south side of the building. Candace, can you point to the front porch for me?

Can I what, sir?

Sorry. No, no, the front porch. Can you point and show them where the front porch is?

Is that it?

Right here. There you go, right there. When you enter the building from that porch, you see a small vestibule there. That will be accessible from outside, and the entire facility will be card reader controlled. So they won't be able to go farther from that unless they're allowed in. Immediately on the left is the battalion chief's office, and he'll have a window into that area. When they come through that door, straight ahead you see desks and chairs. That's the training room, meeting space. And then when you come out and turn to the left there, there's a half bath. That's the only public access there is, unless somebody is allowed into the building. When you go through that door immediately to the left, you see a kitchen. Whoever's got the cursor, thank you. There's a kitchen there. There's a door out the kitchen that goes to the back porch. That's where they'll have maybe a gas grill or lawn chairs or whatever they want to sit outside. Immediately across from the kitchen is the day room. You see what are recliners there. There'll be a big screen TV on the wall. There is a storage closet on the right, and there's an IT cabinet there where all of our electronics will be kept. When you leave that area and go into the far left side of the building, there are the bedrooms and baths. There will be a battalion chief and lieutenant's bedroom. There will be four firefighter bedrooms, and there'll be two full bathrooms in that section. Again, that area is closed off and have to be accessed by card as well. Then when you move into the Apparatus Bay, let me tell you what you're going to see in a minute, because when the video starts, it's going to catch your eye. Part of what we've done in this is consolidate the apparatus bay. It was quite larger before. When you start cutting $1.9 million out of a building like we've done, you only do that with square footage. You don't do it with microwave ovens and chairs. It's size. The apparatus bay is as small as it can be. And it will hold four trucks. They'll park front to back. But we had to cut some significant things out of that. Straight in front of the apparatus bay on the far right hand side, there's a exterior storage room. And that's where utilities will be housed where she's got the cursor now is the where they'll store their turnout gear. The next room is for the oxygen machine where they'll build their oxygen tanks. And then there are other storage closets. The one on the far left is where they'll keep their Lawn mower, the chief has contributed to the money by saying we'll mow the yard, so they're going to have a lawn mower, and that'll be a help too. Right above that, you'll see a stairway. That stairway is on the outside of the building. On your right, you see an area over here to the right all by itself, and again, you can see that stairway coming off of it. That will be the area for workout equipment, treadmill, elliptical weights, whatever the firefighters use. We had that originally on the ground floor in a lot better location, and in order to save money since above the turnout gear and all of that was just hollow, we moved their workout area over those areas and put an outside stairway. Originally that stairway was inside. We're not that hard on them, And when we cut that apparatus bay down, it had to go. And so they're going to go outside whether it's cold or hot or raining or whatever to get up to that area. The reason I tell you this is when you see the video, as soon as you leave the bedroom areas, and walk into the apparatus bay, the first thing you're going to see is that area up there. I promise you. And you're going to see a handrail across it. And that area in the photograph looks very nice. But I want you to know what it is and why it's up there. It's because of dollars. That was the cheapest way for us to keep them in a workout room and not take up floor space. That would save money. Any questions about the floor plan?

Mike, on the restrooms, does it have to be male, female, or are they community?

No, the half bath off of the foyer there is for anyone. We haven't declared male and female bathroom. There are two bathrooms in the bedroom.

I didn't know if we were required to or not. Chief?

Chief? And since you don't know the makeup of the shift, is there no ladies on one shift and three on the other? But all of those, each room is locking. And so if there's a female in one of the bedrooms, she won't get walked in on. The bathrooms are the same way. So it should work seamlessly.

That was my concern as a privacy issue.

We think we've taken care of that. And if you could ask, we have complied to all city ordinances when it comes to development. The front of the building that faces South Main is all brick. When you turn on the road that's coming in, that north side up there where the stairway is, it's all brick. The other two sides are a mixture. But we did meet the code on that. And everything, Mr. City Manager, as far as I know, we met every code there is.

Yes, sir. And I would add to that. Mr. Chairman, that we have also, this will be the first fire station that we have of the three that has individual bunk rooms. So we moved away from the community bunk rooms. And so the standard now in fire station construction and fire station operation is to have individual bunk rooms. So that will be something that will be new for us here. So that's... Certainly a better situation from what we're talking about privacy in restrooms. We should add that the bunk rooms too will increase in our privacy as well.

Any other questions? Comments?

Okay, let's see the movie. Okay.

We still haven't figured out whose vehicles those are.

It didn't have sound, did it?

Now, let me tell you, two weeks ago today, I signed the papers to accept the property. The property is now the property of the Industrial Development Board. It's in our name. Two weeks back from tomorrow, Industrial Development Board met, and they accepted the plans and specs, as you've seen them tonight. They also approved the GMP that's on your paperwork. And they also gave the chairman instruction to sign the contract subject to your action tonight. It wouldn't require action tonight except for over budget and I think all of you knew that and we kind of expected that. The number is in your packet. The number now is 8.15 and so we're a million 150,000 over budget and as of I'll answer any question you have, but it comes down to this. We've spent the last two months working as hard as we know how with money on one side and the building on the other. And every time you mess with something, you mess with the other. And what we're telling you as a committee tonight is here we are. Any more cutting and we're gonna damage the building, we're gonna damage this utility, and its usefulness to our fire service. We simply do not want to cut further. During the process, we've cut $1.9 million out of what we started with. And at this point, to cut any more is just not what we want to do. It's going to require floor space. We can't cut those five chairs out and a TV and get to $1.5 million. We can't cut out the refrigerator and get there. Any cut that will get us that million dollars back is going to require rooms to disappear. We can't cut the apparatus bay. It's going to be tight. The four trucks will fit in there and be operable, but we can't cut another foot out of it. I don't know where we'd go. If you said cut a million dollars out of it, I really don't. At some point, I guess you're going to have to believe us that we've gone to every extent possible to find that money. And prices are high. If you ask the city manager who's most unpleased about the price of this building, he's going to tell you me. And that That includes Alderman Gregg. That includes you, too. I'm more upset about the price than you'll be. We've done everything we know to do, and here we are. We've got to have a fire station. We've got one that will meet the need. We've got one we can be proud of. But any more cuts is just going to damage it to the point where we don't want to do that. And so we're asking you tonight to vote to supply the other money before the city manager takes over to answer one question, the builder's sitting on go, and so I've been given the authority by the board to sign a contract as soon as we're ready to go. We're ready to go as soon as and if you provide the additional funds. We've gotta get the pad down before winter. If we don't get the pad down before winter, then who knows how long it's gonna take. Right now, they're on a 12-month, construction schedule. So this time next year, they're planning on us moving in. And to make that happen, they've got to start right away. And the city manager is going to talk to you about the money.

Can I comment now? Yes, Mr. Sullivan.

Sir?

I'm going to comment. All right. I'm coming from the heart. I look at the necessity. And I'm ready to pull the gun on the extra million dollars. We need it, and we don't need it to crash the neighbor and argue over it. That's my vote.

And St. Harry's? On the apparatus bay, is that where you had to make the major cut, or has there been other major cuts?

The biggest cut in square footage was probably the workout room, I think, maybe. Everything was condensed. Everything was condensed. We cut significant size out of the apparatus bay, but I think when you get down to it, reconfiguring the workout space, which was another room like that training room you saw on ground floor, it completely went away. And so that was probably the biggest space. Mr. City Manager helped me. We cut.

The size of the training room was also condensed as well.

I think we cut 1,200 feet. I think that's right. About 1,200 feet out of the building.

But you had intended for there to be four bunk rooms. That hasn't been cut or anything.

No, we didn't cut any bunk rooms. The only thing we did is make them smaller. They are not going to be luxurious. They're going to be tight. They'll have a bed. There'll be storage under the bed. There'll be a small dresser, and there'll be a cabinet. They'll have three sections, one for each shift. And there's not going to be extra space.

And how much did you cut off of the bed? How much was their bid when he came back before you cut him?

Quite a bit? It's hard to say because when you reconfigure some stuff, it changes. But we've cut about $1.8 million is what we've cut out of the cost of the building.

Yeah, we've cut $900,000 twice. So it would have been close to a $10 million building. Yes, sir.

And let me tell you, it wasn't the Taj Mahal before. It wasn't. gold fixtures, it was just more space is what it was. And like I say, when you get into cutting millions of dollars, you don't do that with fixtures. It just doesn't. It's space you have to cut. And we cut everywhere.

I guess my point would be in two years, are we going to look at this and say we shouldn't have cut that or shouldn't have? It's my only concern. I mean...

I think to Mr. Beshear's point, we got down to where there's no more cutting that can happen because we've got, you know, you've got the decontamination area, the laundry area. There's certain things that, as he said, affect the utility and the safety of a fire station. So there are things that have to. So, yeah, could we relocate the workout room or relocate the chief? But Oski was the one that. kind of said, if that has to go, the architects helped us come up with an idea to relocate that. Chief Podosky and Mr. Beshear have both been instrumental in the process in trying to figure out how to make this work. It's just not going to fit within a $7 million budget. A $7 million budget, to kind of qualify that, we established a $7 million budget three and a half years ago. So here we are three and a half years later, and we know what the cost of goods and items and things have done. So it's not a surprise, I guess, that we're over budget. I think we were all shocked maybe that we thought we could get with the original iteration of the design for at or close to budget, and we're just not able to.

I guess my question, then, for what you have cut, do you think we've cut too much?

No, sir. I think we've been responsible to the taxpayer, and we've tried to be responsible to you. And I won't put words in Chief's mouth, but he can answer you to whether this building meets his need or not. I believe it does.

Anyone else?

Oh, I was just going to clarify exactly what Alderman Harris just said, which is just to ensure that we did not cut more than was needed and that we don't get years down the road and look back and say, darn, I wish we hadn't cut that. But based on what you said, I think that alleviates my concern.

Any more questions? Does the chief have concerns this year? I have a comment. Jeff? I know this has bothered Mr. Beshear a lot, and I know that he put a lot of work and time in it, as well as the others that's on the IDB, as well as our city manager, and I appreciate what y'all have done. I know it wasn't easy, and we're just gonna have to bite the bullet and see what has to be done.

Mr. Seaman?

Yes, sir. If I can. So $1.15 million is what's needed. We had provided the Industrial Development Board with $7 million. we would ask you all to appropriate an additional $1.15 million. That would come from general fund reserves. Of course, our general fund reserves can't be spent on utility operations. They can't be spent on electric or water or wastewater. They can be spent on general city business such as fire, police, parks. So it would come from our general fund reserves. I don't want to create any confusion by us appropriating additional money. What would happen is if you all approve that tonight, it gives the chairman of the Industrial Development Board the opportunity to go ahead and proceed tomorrow with securing a contract after the IDB's attorney has reviewed that contract. What would happen later is we would bring you all a budget amendment to formally transfer the money, but we'd have plenty of time before that money would need to be spent. So we'll do that in a future month, but your vote tonight would allow him to continue and move forward.

I just want to comment to the city mayor that you're a conservative. We have handled the budget. We have a nice reserve. So it came in at the right time. And sir, thank you. I know you do good work. I know you work labor hard.

At this time, I'd like to make the motion to appropriate additional funding.

I need someone to make the motion. I'll make the motion that we appropriate the funds. Hit them in. Hit them in.

OK. I think so. I pushed it. OK. I'll second it. The motion has been made.

Are we ready to vote? The amendment. The amendment. The amendment. I'm not sure. There we go. There we go. You ready to vote the amendment? Let's cast our votes. You wouldn't care to change their vote. Would you tally the votes, please?

Motion passes 5-0.

Mr. Beshear, thank you for your hard work. Chief Podhasky, thank you for your hard work.

We appreciate it. If I may, it wasn't me. It was a committee, the city engineer, city manager, assistant. city manager and the chief. So this was a team effort. It wasn't me. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Moving into our consent portion of our agenda. Mayor, without objection, I move to take as one. All righty. We have a motion. A motion by Alderman Hubbard, second by Alderman Gregg. Any questions or comments? Let's cast our vote. Anyone care to change their vote?

Motion passes five to zero.

this time city manager ron martin did this report thank you mayor and i again i appreciate i want to uh special thanks to mr beshear and the industrial development board for taking on this project uh we're just in time once we get this going to uh start the next one so as you know we're have a backlog on facilities and uh mr price's building is is long overdue to be uh replaced so that will be our our next focus once we get some dirt turn i would expect uh just for to establish expectations to see uh silt fencing and some mobilization of the contractor maybe within the next seven to ten days i would expect for the fire station we are well behind on that fire station and uh and so it needs to move as quickly as possible so thank you all for your support on that and um one thing we are monitoring i'll call your attention to Our electric rates and gas rates tonight are down significantly, so our citizens and customers will see a relief next month on their bills based on the fuel cost adjustment and the purchase gas adjustment, which again, for those that aren't aware, not within our control. Those are things that are passed along to us from TVA and from the natural gas market that we have to pass along to the customers. But excited to see some relief on that. That will really help our customers. One thing that's not helping folks right now is the price of gasoline. We see that trending upward, and we see it continuing to trend upward. That's something we'll be monitoring in the budget, and if we need to, we'll take some precautions in order to conserve and save money as needed, but we'll be monitoring that. Mayor, that's all I have tonight. Thank you all.

Mayor, on behalf of the board, Mayor Dalvin, extend our condolences to Alderman Hubbard and his sister.

She's a beautiful lady.

Thank you.