City Council Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Colleagues in the City of Memphis, I call to order the Public Service Arson Use Initiatives Committee of the Memphis City Council, August 18, 2026, at 10.35 a.m. Ms. Edgar-Benaki, please call the roll.

Councilwoman Green. Councilwoman Walker. Present. Councilman Warren. Present. Councilwoman White. Present. Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton. Present. Chair Dr. Easter-Thomas.

Present. Colleagues, we have two updates and presentations on today. So there will be no voting today. But first, we have an update from the Urban Art Commission, all council districts, requested by Councilwoman, Chairwoman Swearingen, Washington. Good morning, Director. Good morning. If you can just say your name, give an address for the record, and you can proceed on your presentation.

Ma'am, Lakeisha Edwards, 422 North Cleveland, Memphis, Tennessee, 38104. So today I wanted to give a brief update on our FY27 projects that we will be beginning, of course, going into this fall, and then also a quick update on FY26, specifically the fellowship program. So I gave some handouts. They should be in front of your screen. your podiums and one of the things that i also wanted to mention is of course we're always going to put in this little funding overview that's on the back of what the ordinance provides can be received by urban art commission versus what we actually receive There is a significant gap in that funding. We also received a reduction in funding on our maintenance. And I just wanted to make sure that I communicated that just in case it wasn't widely known simply because we had a lot of discussions last year and also earlier this year regarding maintenance. and the need for a five-year plan, I gave the five-year plan, the need for additional funding, of course I was requesting additional funding, and then we received a decrease, which I understand many departments did. So for this year, what I'm asking is to use a portion of my project funds actually for some of that deferred maintenance, because regardless of the funding that we receive specifically for maintenance, it does not negate the fact that it needs to be done. The deferred maintenance that is specifically out of these project funds will be more so for upkeep to keep our current collection from going into blight. There will be several opportunities for us to clean the pieces, to touch them up, and from that particular pot of money, it wouldn't be any new installs. It would simply be going through our collection, which we do already have a listing of those pieces that need that extra care. Also just want to give a shout out to MLGW and also Public Works. They have been amazing to work with and they have been helping us with the piece that's in the entrance of the Tom Lee Park. That is going to be repaired. There's some pieces on it that have rusted over the years. I think that piece has been there 17 years. So, of course, it's time. But we had to get some water turned on. We had to get some other supplies out there and was really grateful for that additional support. Thankfully, we do have a very good relationship with the different departments, so everyone pitches in to help, and we're grateful. For that piece, we wanted to, of course, get that one in tip-top shape because of the new museum coming into that space. We have two other projects that are very close to the museum that we will also be completing, one of which is the South Main Tower sign revitalization. That's the first one on the list of your chart. And that funding is specifically for the three towers that are on Main Street Mall. They are very outdated. They have not worked in several years. The lights are out of them. Urban Art Commission did not commission those projects, but because they are on city-owned property, we are going to revitalize them. so we'll allow an artist to reimagine what those pieces can look like. The bottom portions will remain the same because, of course, we don't want to spend funding on completely tearing it down and starting over, but it will get a new topper. They've already painted the bottom portion of it and repaired the bricks, so it's ready for us to reimagine the top of it where it says South Main Mall. For South Main, South Main Association, some other constituents in that area have approached us asking about some crosswalks, and they're also raising some private dollars to do some additional work. signs and things of that sort for that area but it's specifically so that when someone's coming off of Beale Street they have a reason to look down South Main to continue walking to the shops celebrating the local artists that are in that space as well as those local businesses and some of the newer hotels. So this is also a part of tourism to ensure that we are when people are coming into our downtown space, they actually see reasons to stay, to spend money, and to support our city. The last one for the downtown area is the Cosette Library, which is directly beside the new museum, and we have a set of six planters there that, unfortunately, right now, the unhoused are sleeping in, as well as we don't have any plants in them, so it is definitely a waste of space. But again, it's one of those situations where the planners are already there. They've already been put there. We're not going to spend money removing them, but we are going to turn them into functional art so that we can utilize this space and not be an eyesore right beside this new development. Any questions so far?

You can keep going. We're keeping the queue.

Okay. Next is the City Traffic Safety Crosswalk Project. This was a project that we are also talking with city departments regarding because we have an issue at the corner of Summer and Highland. It is actually recorded as one of our most dangerous intersections in the city, and we want to, again, use creative placemaking to ensure that we are bringing light to people needing to slow down and knowing which parts of the street where they're supposed to actually be crossing. The cultural heritage mural project, that is a project that is near and dear to my heart. I just wanted to specifically set aside some funds for us to have at least one project that would acknowledge cultural heritage history of at least one of the communities that are underrepresented in our public art collection. So that may be Indian heritage, it may be Asian heritage, but wanted to ensure that we had some funding to be sure that all voices are heard. Pine Hill Community Center is the next one on the list, and there is a deteriorated mural that is on that wall that you can see from the golf course. We would like to remove that. It's been there probably close to 20 years. So I think it's been 18 years to be exact. So we wanna replace that one. And then the public art collection signage is because we have so many of our pieces that have aged and have no signage either because it has been removed or it was never placed there. We also have some newer projects that we just simply did not have the budget to create the proper signage, and we want to make sure that the City of Memphis emblem is on every piece in our collection. The deferred maintenance, that is the $45,000 that I'm asking to use from our project fund, for maintenance, and again, that maintenance is mostly for just basic cleaning, upkeep, painting things that need to be cleaned up and things that need just a little bit of help. So these are no major maintenance projects, but this is just basic upkeep to add to the maintenance funds that were reduced for FY27. And that gives the and then, of course, contingency just in case something happens. And that brings us to 328. And then our project management fees are in the total that we are assigned. And that is the 18 percent by contract. Last but not least, I wanted to mention I sent everyone a copy of our removal collection catalog. Hopefully you received it. This, just in case you didn't know what you were receiving, is the newest version of what we are putting into the public libraries. Every library in the city of Memphis has local artists in it. And this is the 2026 collection that was recently purchased. So these are all local artists that we did a direct purchase program with. So once a year we go and we ask artists to give us pieces of artwork that they've already created that we don't commission. And then we purchase from them to put them in public spaces to again, highlight our local artists. The last sheet that you have that is in color, those are the different projects from the fellowship that was actually awarded in FY26. And the first seven projects are the ones for each of the seven districts. So there is a fellow that is associated with each district throughout the city. They have been doing their community service projects. They've gone into the communities. We had one in particular that went to Juneteenth event at Douglas Park and she had a time to say the least. I can show some pictures. She really had a time and it was very good to see that the community embraced her and really was excited to see someone coming into their community that wanted to know more about the community itself before creating the artwork for them.

That's it. Wonderful, Director Collins. Thank you for joining us and letting us know about all the updates from UAC. Let the record show that we've been joined by Councilwoman Logan, Councilman Ford Sr., and Chairwoman Swearingen-Washington. And in the queue, we have Councilwoman Logan and then Chairwoman Swearingen-Washington and Cooper Sutton.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the update. I appreciate it and for the work that you do. My question first is, how do you determine, I see these projects, what is used or what's the criteria to determine what the project will be?

So it's community driven and the selection committee determines what the final product would look like. So the selection committee would be the individuals which are all listed on our website. Every project we list the people that are on the selection committee so you know who the decision makers were. We always try to get residents, business owners. We actually send the invite to all of city council and we make sure that the public knows that these meetings are happening. They're also recorded. And those conversations that the selection committee has is what forms what the artists will actually produce.

So how do we bridge beautification and public art? For instance, the Elsie Ball neighborhood markers will add art plus navigating or wayfinding or identification signs for the different communities. I know we often hear or we all hear from constituents as well as often say ourselves as council members that other communities such as municipalities, they have beautiful flowers and they have different planters along their roadway. I think I mentioned to you before, how do we bridge because we need those or would like those in communities? in the communities in inside of memphis and here's a that that's that could be seen as art as well how do we bridge those two or have you given any consideration to how we can use the public art dollars and have um those artists that you work with also make art that could serve dual purpose you know that could help with the beautification that could help with bringing those types of things to our communities as well.

That's something that we have done in previous projects. Many of our projects do include other aspects, such as the Orange Mound, welcome to Orange Mound sign, that has a planter, that has additional flowers, that has a community that actually committed to keeping up with what's happening in that space. I think we do have several projects that are dual purpose, but I will say the communities that are more engaged are the ones that probably get more of the additional add-ons simply because they are willing to come together and help to maintain it such as an orange mound they had a very solid selection committee that committed to ensuring that it would be maintained properly We do also have, even with the crosswalks, as I spoke before, that's a safety issue. So we're working with the city to say where do we have spaces where we know we need to put some type of artistic design to draw people's attention to where they should cross the road, when they should slow down. We also have a crosswalk that's going in at downtown elementary because there were several complaints of people coming over the hill and they didn't realize there was even a school there. So we're creating projects that are serving dual purposes with just about every project.

Okay, great. So if we did have an organization in our district that would like to partner to do some of those things, or to be a part of the maintenance of it, we could do more of those if you could identify some nonprofits or agencies that wanted to help.

Or even CDCs. I mean, we have community.

Okay, great. So I am very much interested and will be reaching out to you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. You're back.

Thank you.

I'm done, thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Chairwoman Swearenger-Washington.

Yes, I wanted to share that, colleagues, that the percent for art ordinance requires that the Urban Art Commission receive 1% of the annual CIP. in an amount not to exceed $1 million. And within the FY27 CIP budget, being over $110 million, their allocation should have been $1 million. However, our former engineering administration would historically only advocate $400,000 to them. So they're in the back working on a resolution. I may have to just bring it back for executive, but I would like to transfer 512,000 in unused cip allocations from project ga07018 which is fy mscs upgrades because we hadn't been utilizing those funds and this is something that we could have and could evenly distribute between all of the districts and add some beauty into some of the spots that need it

You said you're going to bring this to the executive later?

Yes, because they're back there. I thought they would be up here by now, but they're not up here yet. So we may have to just do it in the executive.

Okay. We'll add you to the queue. Okay. Thank you, Chairwoman. Is that all? Yes. Okay. We'll be looking forward to that resolution later.

Can you come back for executive? I can. Okay. Thank you.

Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton and then Councilwoman Gray. Thank you. Jonathan, can you pull up that picture for me, please?

This is at Austin Peay and in Raleigh. I think this is your district. And I just heard our chairwoman said that she's going to allocate some funding and this needs to be fixed.

I agree. I've already reached out to MATA. We didn't get a response, but yes.

Well, I'm responding for MATA right now.

Yes.

And I'm sitting in this place because that is in our community. Our constituents sit there, and we need that fixed ASAP for weatherization reasons and just for presentation as well. And so I guess after we get this resolution and we look at what needs to be done, we need to get that fixed ASAP. Yes, ma'am. It's what? It's on what? Order. It's on order? Yes. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

When it was brought to our attention, and as he spoke it, there were a lot of people that were concerned and readily looking to fix it. Of course, we have some drawbacks to it not being our particular property, but I'm very thankful to hear that it's already being ordered. We did also look into it and got some quotes, so yes. And there are several other projects that are in queue. How would you all like to see those updates? Because, of course, I send emails. I know you get a million emails. Would you like for me to come quarterly or... because I can create a presentation of like our current maintenance projects, our current projects that are in queue so that like if I had a presentation today that would have been in my queue and I would have been able to say like we have that in line.

Director Collins is a quarterly maintenance update whether you want it by email, you want her in person, what do you request?

I'm sorry, Edwards. I know another Lakeisha.

I know a Lakeisha Collins. I'm sorry. Yes.

And we are tracking it. We send it actually to the engineering division weekly. We give a weekly report. I don't know who sees it or who has access to it, but we do send it to the Department of Engineering, specifically Michael Swindle and Deborah Higgins. But we send it to them every Wednesday.

Is that possible to send that report to council as well?

Yes.

OK. Director Edwards. Yes, of course. Okay. Thank you, Chairwoman. You're welcome, Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton.

And thank you, Director Edwards.

There's only two Lakeishas in my phone. Y'all got only two.

Chief Winton, can you...

talk about the main... When you see things like that, what Councilwoman Cooper-Sudden put up, who's actually in charge of repairing or maintaining that? Because that's a... MATA bus stop with the UAC art that's on city sidewalks. So who's in charge of that when we see things like that?

Excellent question. So when that came through, I actually reached out to the director over at MATA, Ron. We spoke about it. He said, yes, it's already come to his attention. We couldn't replace that window, so you had to replace the whole thing, which is already on order.

So when the whole thing is replaced, who pays for the art to go back on?

We need to follow up and confirm, but it would likely be right here, the urban art.

That would come from the maintenance funds for agency.

So it's definitely, it's Sherwin-Massouris in Washington, and she says if there's a gap in that, and that includes maintenance, things such as this would also be included in that budget, even though you don't have your full complement of what you need.

Okay. Thank you, Chief. That's all I wanted to ask you.

That's easy to hear. Okay. Well, Councilwoman Lovell, see you next day.

Councilwoman Green. Thank you. I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to be at the ribbon cutting for the Chelsea flood wall. If you haven't had a chance to go out and see it, it's gorgeous. And the points have been made here today, especially Councilwoman Logan. It's a great way for a dual purpose to happen, for us to incorporate something that is structure and safety and keeps that neighborhood from floods, but also infuses art. And Mayor Young was there and spoke yesterday. And he talked about his visits to like Detroit, and he asked them, you know, how do you turn things around? And the leadership there specifically mentioned public art. They said when you have public art from local artists, then people start caring about the neighborhood. They start caring about that one space, then it spreads to other spaces, and then that helps investors come because they can see the vision of what the neighborhood can be, and the people in the neighborhood can see the vision of what you can be. So I love learning about all the different places that we have this. And that is. I mean, I don't even know how many hours were put into the Chelsea flood wall because it is a mile long and it is double sided. And the one section that I was standing in front of was the kids part where we had students actually design and do panels, which is also really very, very cool. So thank you for letting me be a part of that. Thank you for doing this because, and to your point, this is the way that other places who have dug their way out of blight issues have They have started with the public art. And so it is important that we invest in it properly. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman. And I actually had on my list to shout out Director Edwards for her work at the Chelsea Green Line as well. It was years before we get that money to be able to do that. And so I'm glad that you made that a priority and also the other projects that are on your list as well. Chairwoman, did you want to add anything before we close out this item?

I'm still fussing about our snake. Can you do anything to help us with that?

Who owns the property? What piece of property is it on?

We need to find out. Chief, it's on Lamar. Off of Willette. And Paint Memphis, which is one of the organization's colleagues that's asking for grant funding, put a big snake, a rat. No, it's a rat. It's a rat on the wall. And that's right around the corner from Rozelle Elementary School, you know, going to the medical district, and it looks horrible. So we want to make sure that when people are putting murals up, their colleagues that we're looking at it to see what the plans are exactly, what the art looks like. It can't be just a sign off thing, but we really have to be engaged to know what's going on.

I agree. So there are some kind of safety points for Urban Art Commission that prevents that from happening. So number one, we have a community engagement piece with our selection committee. UAC does not make those determinations. We actually ask the community to give their vote and to talk to the artists and have that direct say so. Number two, we have a PAOC committee, so Public Art Oversight Committee. They meet once a month. Those meetings are also public, and we submit the recordings every month, and that is for a committee that there is, I know Summer attends those meetings, but we also have two other individuals that are appointed by city council, one person is appointed by the mayor, and then of course my board chair and myself and my team just there as advocates. But that also is a place where that committee has to sign off on the schematic design, the final design, and also the fabrication. And then on top of all of that, we have those projects on our website so people know what's coming. We also put signs out so people know what's coming, public art coming soon, so that people know who to reach out to. But there are other organizations that create public art that do not have those processes in place. We had a conversation about that once before in regards to who actually reviews that. And that does not come through our public art oversight committee. So I'm not exactly sure what that process looks like, but it is very different from what Urban Art Commission does.

Well, we thank you for your high standards. And Chief, we need you to follow up with this to see what our next steps can be.

And last but not least, I just wanted to add in that the city of Memphis will be on display and celebrated on a national scale for our public art collection. I've been asked to speak at the CODA Summit, which is an international summit. This year it's in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So I will be speaking on our projects, one in particular, South City, because that is a project that during the Creative Placemaking Summit, we had people from throughout the region coming into our space, really celebrating impressed with what we were able to do in that space. The before and after pictures are just mind-blowing because most of us know what that area used to look like and now it has mosaics and murals and crosswalks and sculpture and it's really something that I feel is really serving that community well. So I'm looking forward to speaking on behalf and representing City of Memphis and Santa Fe in September.

Just know that your home is the city of Memphis.

Director, also before Councilwoman Logan gives our last comment for this item before our second item, I don't see the new Chicago replacement signage on the list.

That's from FY26. These are only new projects for FY27. And that's why I was mentioning that I could give that full listing because we've got lots of projects that are in progress. And that's another community that is very engaged and we're super excited for because New Chicago is really needing some love right now. There's a lot of blight in that area. And we've also been working with the city to even get the grass cut in certain spaces and Because what I tell the individuals that we work with in these communities, when you get public art, you get me. I come with it. And when I come into a neighborhood, if they say, hey, they're not picking up our trash, hey, they're not cutting the grass over here, I'm invited, thankfully, to the COO meetings every two weeks. So when I have an issue, I have every director in the city right there at the table. And I go to bat for my neighborhoods because I want them to know that they're getting more than public art. They're getting the advocacy.

I love that director. Councilwoman Logan.

Chair, quick question. How do citizens report repairs that are needed for the art? There's a sculpture that Bobo, the artist Miss Bobo did. Yeah. Is that a part of your project? Okay.

Yes, so they would just reach out to us directly. They can either email me at Lakeisha at uacmem.org. They can hit our info at uacmem.org. And all of my contact information is on our website, including my cell phone number.

They just contact or email you the location and all of that information. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman. And thank you, Director Edwards, and for the work that you do. Colleagues, our second item on the agenda today Our second item on the agenda is presentation on the I Am A Man Plaza, requested by Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton. Whoever is representing that, please come forward. We can hear from you this morning. And Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton, if you want to go, if you want to speak, beginning and end, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, I met this, you're the one that, did I meet you? Yes, I met you and he shared I am a man plaza protecting the Memphis landmark and I just wanted you to come in to present and share the importance of what this project means and what your plans are and what your need is as well. Thank you, thank you chair.

Make sure the mic is on for us sir.

Good afternoon, Council. I hope you all are well. My name is Stephen Fox. I am the commissioned poet and also the community engagement officer and somewhat of a civic producer of the I Am a Man Plaza that was commissioned back in 2017 by the city of Memphis. We are in year seven of the project, really year eight. So today I'm just coming to give you a presentation on protecting our Memphis landmark. And so the presentation is very, very short. I really, really sincerely appreciate what you all have done thus forth in this council meeting. Ms. Cooper-Sutton, thank you for your engagement at early voting. I sought you out. and you told me exactly what to do, and I like processes, so this is a part of one of those processes, so I'm gonna walk you all through this presentation. There's an ask at the end, and then we'll open up to questions, comments, concerns. If you wanna know more how I was involved in the project, feel free to ask that. This is not about me, this is about us right now, so we'll go forth with this.

Mr. Fox, if you would be so kind as to ensure we have a sort of abbreviated presentation. Sure. Since we all have it in front of us and in our information. No problem. Thank you.

You're welcome. This I Am A Man Plaza is an initiative, so you know where it's located, next to historic Claiborne Temple. It was created to commemorate the 1968 sanitation workers' strike and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. It centers around the declaration of the global symbol of I Am A Man, and it was opened during MLK 50 in commemoration. It is 53,000 square feet of marble, granite, stainless steel stone. Of course, there's a history that's embedded throughout the plaza. The central sculpture is the I Am A Man Plaza sculpture, bronze, stainless steel, laser cut. I've been to the mountaintop speech embedded in it. It's got the historical quotations, the names of the sanitation workers and the public workers on the wall that mimics the Vietnam Veterans Plaza. The community decided that they wanted to change that, so we changed it. There's the ASPE timeline that's in an ellipse around it. There's interpretive text and artistic elements, specifically a poem that I curated with about 150 members of four different communities at four different workshops. And then, of course, you have the surrounding area, which is a public gathering space. You can roll to the next slide. so the plaza of course as we all know is both a memorial and a living civic space it's a place of remembrance and it's an education resource it's a tourist destination for residents and visitors it's a setting of public programs and commemorations whether they're in the past or they're going to be in the future and it's a nationally relevant symbol that's rooted in memphis and has an international reach The plaza has gone without planning and routine maintenance. Approximately, it's been about seven or eight years of deferred maintenance that requires a coordinated action. There is a detailed 92-page maintenance plan that comes along with it. I can send that over to you. Routine maintenance is described in the plan, et cetera, et cetera. The UAC, this sits inside of the UAC portfolio. It is a city on property. There is no formal agreement or MOU or actual plan on the execution of the maintenance. There has been some meetings to gather all of this information. And the full condition and the cost of work, I had a meeting with John Jackson last night, and we've come up with round figures, but we still need to day dot, not actually day dot, but we need to verify those inside of a spreadsheet with a team of stakeholders. So this is really about stewardship and structure. Of course, we know that we have a critical gap. The plaza needs a clearly documented responsibility, appropriate funding, and professional conservation oversight. I have begun to facilitate these discussions and I have all of the documents that we need to go forward in order to do this. This slide that you're seeing on the screen now is a stewardship structure. The current status or the suggested status is on the right, the responsibilities lie on the left. It's a pretty much streamlined process. And these are the things that we can put into place to make sure that this one specific city-owned piece of property and memorial, right, is accountable and taken care of.

Mr. Fox, pause on that last slide. Director Edwards, are you aware of the information on this slide? Okay. Director Bowden, are you aware of the information on this slide? Okay. Okay. You can proceed, Ms. Fogg.

Yes, ma'am. So the strategy that I've come up with after some time in nonprofit grant-making and administration is, number one, I kind of switched these around on the one that I have, is a philanthropic partnership. I've already been in talks with Caroline Kugler of the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. The idea is to begin an endowment, right? Not to continually have money coming out of the city budget, but to move money to have the city fund an endowment. So other ideas are institutional and foundational support from the local, state, regional, national, and international, and also sustainable future funding, right? Specifically, an example of that is Elliot Perry's grandfather was involved in the 1968 sanitation workers' strike, so this is a very easy discussion. for him to talk about moving money into a specific thing. For instance, a specific endowment housed at the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. Of course, the city responsibility bullet points are up there because this is a UAC city partnership, so those are just things about the assessment that needs an allocation. The deferred maintenance that has already been discussed prior Right. And just kind of like those things that already existing. Right. Let's taking looking at it through the lens of I am a man plaza gives us an opportunity to laser focus how we're going to implement this process. You can go to the next slide. So my initial ask specifically for the I am a man plaza is we're asking for the Memphis City Council to initiate a responsible assessment and the funding process and what that will entail is the support a comprehensive professional condition assessment. of the I Am a Man Plaza based on the 92-page maintenance plan that has this very, very comprehensive structural hardscape, softscape, et cetera. And this assessment should produce a documented inventory of its current conditions, the immediate stabilization, and the recommendations to prioritize restoration and repair scope, a reliable cost estimate, a recommended recurring maintenance budget that doesn't necessarily have to be a recurring year-to-year maintenance budget. My vision is to have it come immediately and then move it directly into the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis so that you can take it off of the books and I will go fundraise the rest of the money that is necessary to fund it in perpetuity for the next 200 years or so. And then we just have the clarifications of all of the agencies and the departments that are responsible for doing this. Very structured, very organized, very streamlined, very efficient.

Thank you, Mr. Fox, and thank you, Councilwoman.

Oh, this is just the decision. There's only two slides left, right? This decision creates a path forward. That's just the structure, right? That's just the one, two, three-step plan, right? So this, you know, we created this. This was a comprehensive plan. community approach. It was not one person that created this. There was Memphians. There was people from other places. So I just respectfully ask the committee to commit to identifying the appropriate city council representatives to work with. And so we can begin the professional assessment and get the right allocations in place so that we can go ahead and move forward. And maybe this becomes maybe. I'm not sure. I could be right. I like to be wrong. But I could be right and I could be wrong. Maybe this is the model. for how we do business in regards to city parks and public art going forward, and maybe it's the model city-wise, county-wise, state-wise, regionally, and nationally. I don't know what's going on internationally because I don't spend a lot of time there, but I think that we can build this model and move it forward with the right people at the table and the support of you all.

Well, thank you, Mr. Fox, for bringing this and also Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton for bringing this to our attention. If you just go back to the last slide just to put it on there for your, just as a focus on it, I think it would be most efficient and productive if Mr. Fox, and I don't know if, Councilwoman, you're continuing with him in this effort, Um, but since it is city property to get with our parks director, Mr Justice Bowden, um, and probably our COO, uh, went in to be able to move forth on the steps and recommendations that you had on the prior two slides. Um, and then if there is something that comes forth that we need to make a decision on or to give us an update on that progress to be able to bring it back so that we can know what's been put forth of planning. Director Edwards said she was aware of the information. Director Bolden said he was not. So that needs to be the person that I would say the next step is. And then ensuring that it's done with the utmost efficiency through the ways of city administration and seeing where a city council steps in to support and or just is being aware. Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton, did you want to add anything else?

No, I thank you for seeking me out, had no idea who he was. I'm glad to have given you an opportunity to bring this presentation forward and now you can be connected with the right people and not just out there wondering where you need to start or where you need to begin because the I AM project is very important. What we cannot do is just talk about it and then not be about it. Only when Black History Month comes up and then we have a whole city-owned piece of property that we have not.

So, Councilwoman, are you going to be the the triangular liaison between administration and Mr. Fox to keep us aware of. I sure can be.

That's no problem. As long as I'm here for the next two years, I sure will be.

You might be here a little longer. So we're going to do that. Thank you. Also, just as last piece of business in this committee, you will be seeing an executive committee from Chairwoman Swearingen-Washington.

And I asked to be added as a co-sponsor.

She drafted a resolution to amend our fiscal year 27 CIP to comply with public art program, but we'll be seeing that in executive committee since it's a budgetary item. Seeing no further business in this committee, this committee is adjourned.

Thank you all.