City Council - Regular Meeting

Our May 26, 2026 meeting is called to order. We're going to have invocation, and then we'll get into the Pledge of Allegiance. Will you all stand for prayer and pledge at this time? Let us pray. Oh, dear God, we thank you for always seeing us through. You've seen us through so many things that we were to be reflective in our lives. Thank you for seeing us through the storm that we recently experienced. My God, we also thank you now as we are looking ahead at the calendar. A few events that are coming up, not only our ongoing Farmers Market, Juneteenth, the Sports Hall of Fame weekend, and July 4th celebration. My God, we ask that those events will not only be well attended, but they will be safe, they will be enjoyable, it would be a great atmosphere, and that they live up to be everything that they should. We give you glory and praise for guiding us and leading us. We pray that you would convict our hearts and minds, that you would lead us tonight to do things that are decently and in order, and that therefore your glory... We just want to do your will in serving your people. So thank you for touching each of the decision makers. We give you glory and praise now in your son Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Now please join us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okie dokie. Now we have the reading and approval of our minutes from our most recent meeting just a couple weeks ago.

May I make a motion that we approve the minutes of May 11th, 2026, and that they be adopted as recorded, if no corrections? Second. And dispense with the reading, I'm sorry.

Motion made and seconded to the dispensary to read and to adopt the minutes as they have been recorded. Any comment about this particular motion? All righty. Seeing none, Mrs. Stacey, roll call vote.

Eli. Yes. Nelson. Yes. Smith-Kirkendall. Yes. Harrington.

Yes.

All right, that motion carries. As we typically ask you all, just make sure you silence your cell phones during the meeting. We do encourage public participation, but We want to make sure this is done in a respectful manner, okay? All righty. Next, and this is on the agenda. I'm not sure we have anybody here.

I'm sorry.

Oh, anybody here? Okay. Yeah. The Mayor's Athletic Leadership Awards. They had those awards, not the past Saturday, but I think the Saturday before. And just what it is, it's a recognition of high school students in the parish. Lakeview, St. Mary's, Niagara Central is what they look at. And we've been giving some awards to some city schools or some city athletes, I should say. But anyhow, I don't recall who those recipients were this year. Okay, next, y'all, we have one proclamation that's on the agenda, and it's read by Councilman Nielsen.

Thank you, Mayor. Resolution number 33 of 2026, excuse me, is a proclamation declaring June 19th 2026 is Juneteenth Day in the city of Natchitoches, whereas Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom more than two years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. And whereas Juneteenth stands as a powerful reminder of resilience, hope, freedom, and the enduring pursuit of equality and justice for all citizens, and whereas The city of Natchitoches recognizes the importance of honoring the contributions, history, culture, and achievements of African Americans who have helped shape our community, state, and nation. And whereas Natchitoches, as the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, possesses a rich and diverse cultural heritage that continues to be strengthened through unity, education, reflection, and celebration, and whereas Juneteenth provides an opportunity for all citizens to come together in fellowship to celebrate freedom, promote understanding, encourage civic engagement, and reaffirm our shared commitment to equality and opportunity for future generations, and whereas the City of Natchitoches supports efforts to preserve African American history and recognizes the significance of cultural events, educational programs, music, food, art, and community gatherings that honor the spirit of Juneteenth, now therefore I, Ronnie Williams, Jr., Mayor of the City of Natchitoches, Louisiana, do hereby proclaim June 19 2026 as Juneteenth Day in the City of Natchitoches and encourage all citizens to participate in activities and observances that celebrate freedom, heritage, unity, and the continued pursuit of justice for all. And I move to adopt resolution number 33 of 2026. Second.

This is, okay, motion made and seconded. What this proclamation is, is to, you know, in essence, recognize Juneteenth, which is June 19th, happens to be on a Friday this year. And we'll talk more about some of the things that we're planning, actually, on that Saturday. But on a Friday this year, and it... We're proposing it to be an off day for the city employees. That's what we pretty much have here. I think we've talked a little bit about the history of just freedom for those slaves that were out in Texas is where this holiday originated. So I think a few big things that we're going to do during the summer, but this is certainly going to be one on June 20th. Okay. Any comments or questions about this? I think we've done this proclamation the last few years. Yeah.

We're just kicking off on the 19th at Friday with the Juneteenth parade, 6 o'clock being part.

Okay. Any other comments or questions? All right. Seeing none, Mr. Stacy, roll call vote.

Eli.

Yes.

Nelson.

Yes.

Smith. Kirkendall. Yes. Harrington. Yes.

All right. That motion carries. Motion carries. All right. The next item on the agenda, we have an excellent motion to take ordinance number 011 from the table.

May I make a motion that we take ordinance number 011 from the table?

Second.

All right, motion made and seconded. This item was tabled at our last meeting on the 12th, and so, you know... It's the budget. So in order to really have the finances for the year that starts June 1, we've got to address it. So that's what that is about. Any questions or comments about this particular motion to take the budget ordinance from the table? Okay. Seeing none, Mr. Stacy, roll call vote.

Eli. Yes. Nelson. Yes. Smith-Kirkendall. Yes. Harrington.

Yes.

All right. That motion carries. We now have ordinance number 011 off of the table, and we're able to deal with it. And it's for final, and it's read by Councilwoman Elora Smith-Kirkendall.

Thank you, Mayor. This is ordinance number 011 of 2026, an ordinance adopting the budget for the City of Natchitoches for the fiscal year June 1, 2026 through May 31, 2027. Whereas the fiscal year of the City of Natchitoches is from June 1 through May 31 of each year, and whereas a budget has been prepared by the Finance Director, Clarissa Brown-Smith, and has been submitted by the Mayor, Ronnie Williams, Jr., to the City Council for review and consideration. Now, therefore, be it ordained that the Natchez City Council does hereby adopt the budget for the fiscal year June 1, 2026, through May 31, 2027. City of Natchez, 2026 to 27 fiscal year general fund, $23,008,192. Proprietary fund utility, which is $44,433,098. Special and capital project funds, $44,980,588. Be it further ordained in accordance with LSLRS Statute 39-1305, the following specifies the mayor's authority to make budgetary amendments without approval of the government authority as well as those powers that are served to the government authority. This ordinance was introduced on April 13th, 2026. and published in Actors Times on April 23rd, 2026. This ordinance was tabled by Smith-Kirkendall and seconded by Harrington at the April 27th, 2026 City Council meeting. I have read the ordinance 011 of 2026.

I want to confirm a couple things. There's some information that was going around, but the amount to NEDA, and you told me right before the meeting, was staying at what it was previously. It was $45,000, right? That hasn't changed at all. No, sir. And the amount to FANA will be increased, you said, on June 1st?

June 1st, we'll make an amendment to increase it to 5,000. Right now it stands at 2,500.

Okay. So I just wanted to clarify that for everybody. Okay. I want to offer, I'm going to make a motion to adopt Ordinance 11 of 2026 with an amendment that any use of the budget economic development consulting fund requires prior approval by the city council before any consultant is hired or any funds are spent. And that's a condition on the expenditure of those specifically appropriated funds rather than a restriction as whole or of any kind. It's only in those specifically appropriated funds. So I'll make that motion.

Second.

Okay, we got a motion and a second. Look, I just want to share just briefly something that I know behind the scenes, y'all don't necessarily always see it. And I got Sean on this email, Nick sent it just a couple weeks ago. So we, as it relates to just site development or the NACDIS next master plan. So I think we could do a better job. I could do a better job maybe saying what we're doing. But we do have a $2 million earmark. That's mainly going to be for residential development with that earmark that we're going to use. It's actually a hood earmark. And that's going to help us to improve Rudy Gabriel and extend that road all the way through With the thought being that it could open up some residential now. We've got something hopefully that works through the state and we'll see and if we can just get planning dollars this year, that would be Fantastic, but I'm just reading just a portion of Nick's email here If we were to get Phase 2 from the state, it would extend Rudy Gabriel further westward, Lime Kill Road, and it would open up, and I really wanted to say this part, around 250 acres for commercial development. And it goes on to say that this is identified by the Natchitoches Next Master Plan as prime commercial development. So just to kind of say, really just to share that we are trying to work on some things. Hopefully we're successful. We were successful with the earmark. Hopefully we'll be successful with the state. We don't need construction dollars this year, but we can get some design and then hopefully they'll follow with construction dollars like they've done with two line and even with the fire station that gave us design money first and then they follow it with construction. So we're hoping that we're able to hit like that again. So there's some other things that Nick put in there. So I did just want to share that. So we are working on some economic development and you know, always taking a multifaceted approach to economic development. So that's really just what I wanted to say.

Is that $2 million? That's for, like, the roadway?

Yeah, Rudy Gabriel, which right by Westside Baptist. It's a pretty rough patch right there. But it's also going to create – because if you go at the end of Rudy Gabriel, really behind Park Natchitoches, if you were to look, it's just wild – Bambi land. Out there.

Yeah, and so the idea is to put a road there and... Highway 6. Highway 6.

Yeah, I guess it'll be parallel to University Highway 6. It'll be parallel on the other side there. And... you know, maybe spur some residential development. So we're trying to.

Because I guess the big expense, I guess this would be a Tim question, I guess the big expense was getting those sites ready. Utilities. Utilities, sewer, water. What are you looking at? Have we even looked at how much that could be?

Yeah, Nick's numbers, Shauna, it could get close to $10 million, right?

Oh, my gosh.

But we are asking the state for the majority. There will be a match that we have to put. So we're hoping to get some planning dollars this year and hopefully some construction dollars will follow next year to do, like you're saying, some of the sewer. I don't know exactly what utilities he's saying, but, again, you know how thorough Nick is. I wish I had that before me. That plan that he wanted to do.

Well, at the recent economic development meeting, just to identify what's the cost, how far away is it, and how long would it take to complete it? Because a lot of these projects... If someone's interested in it, if it fits their timeline, it may be a year and a half to get it in there. But if that fits their timeline, that doesn't necessarily X you off. But you've got to know what you're looking at.

Yeah, and trying to get them as ready as you possibly can. So I think we've got a plan that we can secure some of these funds.

And I think that one is probably going to end up being the number one property.

Yeah, and I think we mentioned a negative next master plan. I think also the targeted, yeah, no, he also said the targeted industry analysis. I don't know if I read that part, but that was a big one, too. You've got those experts in this subject matter area saying, hey, this area would be good to develop a site that's out of the flood zone and helping to get these sites as rid as we possibly can. All right, any other comments or questions here?

Only comment that I got that we'll probably discuss a little bit more and stuff is I toured the animal shelter and stuff. I think that they need a little bit of good fence. You know, they basically going in there fixing things they sell for the animals and stuff. You know, we can probably, you know, tour and see what we can, you know, make it home for the animals because they are getting adopted. You know, we just have to put it out there.

So if I understand the amendment correctly, you want to amend it whenever we do go out for a firm to look for companies?

Yeah.

You want that to come back before the council? Yeah.

Okay.

That's fine. All right. Any other comments or questions? All right. Seeing none, Mr. Sticey, roll call vote.

Eli? Yes. Nelson? Yes. Smith-Kirkendall? Yes. Harrington?

Yes.

All right, that motion carries. All right, next we've got, again, this is a standard one. Ordinance amending the 2025-26 budget to reflect additional revenues and expenditures. And that's read by Councilman Harrington.

Yeah, this is Ordinance 18. It's been previously introduced. An ordinance amending the 2025-2026 budget to reflect additional revenues and expenditures. I move to adopt Ordinance 18 of 2026. Second. Second.

Okay, motion made and seconded. Clarissa, I know pretty much the same spiel you give every year, but don't know if anything is different.

No, sir. This is for us. Each year we have to go back and make sure that we are in the 5% compliance, within 5% compliance with the proposed budget and all changes that were made throughout the year. So this is just adjust our revenue and expenses to make sure that we're in alignment with that as we go into our auditing period. So this is pretty routine. The largest things you'll see on there, as I mentioned last time, was the cost of electricity. So we had to adjust that. So in turn, we adjust the revenues to respond to that. And then we just had some grant dollars that did not come in this year that are going to be coming in next year. But if we budget for it and it doesn't come in, we have to go back and amend the budget to reduce our budget by that amount. But not to say that you lost it, it just didn't come in this year just based on the timeline of that particular project. So, yes, ma'am. So the majority of the line items are those types of things, nothing out of the ordinary there.

Comments or questions for Clarissa? Any public comments? All right, seeing none, Mrs. Stacey Rocapo.

Eli.

Yes.

Nelson. Yes. Smith-Kirkendall. Yes. Harrington. Yes.

All right, that motion carries. This next item, I think we had it on as a resolution. It should have been an ordinance, and we got it as an ordinance today. And it's read by a councilwoman at large, Smith-Kirkendall.

Okay, Mayor. This is, excuse me. This is ordinance number 019 of 2026. which is an ordinance of the Second Street and Two Line Street concrete pavement replacement, bid number 0680. This is an authorization to award the contract, whereas the Louisiana State Legislature appropriated a total of $2,200,000 to the City of Niagara City. for planning and construction of a project known as Second Street and Two Line Street concrete pavement replacement. Whereas this project was advertised for bids on March 19, 2026, whereas the bid advertisement included provisions for submittal of a base bid along with two bid additive alternates. Whereas the bids for this project were received on April 30, 2026. All bid amounts shown include the total for the base bid and two additive alternates. Skyplex Truck and LOC of Natchitoches in the amount of $2,315,156. Regional Construction, LOC of Natchitoches in the amount of $2,396,884.50. APEC Construction of Anacoco, Louisiana, in the amount of $3,599,141.80, whereas the low bid was submitted by Skyplex Truck and LLC, whereas this low bid amount was within the budget within the amount budgeted for this project, plus required 25% city match, whereas the city engineer, Nick Verrett, recommended a ward of the base bid, plus additive alternates to Skyplex Truck and LOC. Now therefore, whereas, okay, now therefore, be it resolved that the Niagara City Council hereby authorizes Mayor Ronnie Williams, Jr. to award the low bid base bid plus the two additive alternates for the project to Skyplex Truck and LOC, subject to approval of the state of Louisiana. And this ordinance was introduced on May 11 and published in the Niagara Times, May 21, 2026. And This is for final, and I move for adoption of ordinance number 019. Second.

Okay, motion made and seconded. We had Nick here at the last meeting. We had three bids on it. Skyplex was the lowest, I think, right?

Skyplex was the lowest.

Yep, so this, outside of our match, You know, again, this is state capital, our late dollars. We may have had a 20% match on it, so it's a good deal for us. It's a street that we need to repair. As we know, when the bridge does come, I believe it is coming, as you notice, they were doing some inspections on the bridge on Friday. So they were doing do TD. That's do TD. We're doing some inspections So when it does come of course to line is going to be the temporary spot So again as I said before it just made sense to go ahead and try to seek funding for Seek funding for this particular street and And I know, Ms. Sandra, there may be some concerns about, you know, affecting Christmas Festival, but I can tell you, I know Nick Verrett is really good about thinking about things like that. So, you know, we've got to do the construction project, but we'll certainly be cognizant of what's coming up with the 100th celebration of Christmas in Natchitoches. the best place to celebrate Christmas, all right? So it's a good project for us.

I want to add also that the bid review committee consists of Ed Lee, our Purchasing Director, Donna Forrest, our Public Works Director, our Finance Director, Ms. Clarissa Brown-Smith, and our Councilwoman, District 4, Rosemary Eli Washington. Rosemary.

Yes, ma'am.

Washington. Right.

Any comments or questions about this? It's a win for us. It's money that is a needed project for us, but not money that we're spending out of our local treasury. We competed for it on the state level. Again, the lobbyists that we use on the state level, it's not easy. when you don't have their representation in terms of somebody anchored and born in Natchitoches, went to a Natchitoches school. But you know, we appreciate the work that fund has done for us, okay? All right. No other question or comments? All right, Mrs. Stacey, roll call vote.

Eli.

Yes.

Nelson. Yes. Smith-Kirkendall. Yes. Harrington.

Yes.

All right, that motion carries. Look, we've got one piece for introduction, and it's read by Councilwoman Washington Eli.

I have on my paper, there was an ordinance number 02 of 2026, an ordinance authorizing the city to lease the office building located in the admin mill site being located between the mill street and the railroad right away, Debbie Smith. Setting the terms of condition and the same authorizing the execution of the lease by the mayor, Ronnie Williams, after due compliance with the law and further providing advertising of the lease and effective date. Whereas the City of Natchez owns the Avenue Mills site bounded on the east by Mills Street and the west by the Railroad Lane, with said site several buildings located on it. Whereas Debbie's sometimes hear out that A. Smith has approached the city expressing interest of the office building, said building identified as the A. District Building 2. an attached map to use at the location for retail sale business, whereas the city and Smith has negotiated the lease of the office building sometime reference to a historic district building to detach as the historic building to attach map the asset of said lease including 117.14 square foot office building and identify the attached map. Whereas the further the rental rate of the lease is .08 per square foot of annual base for the total rent of $8,406. rent should be probably monthly rate of 700. And whereas further the city of the city of natives is opinion of the office building is currently not in use of the city and surplus does not hear. I declared a fund of surgical office building, locate of the property air core. of the City of the Natchez of Horch Daniels Midline Company and their donation to the city locator, the Mill Street, to the surplus property. And this is just for introduction only.

Okay, yes. I've got Ms. Debbie Smith here. We talked maybe about a month ago about her idea. And the building, I don't know if we have a picture here, but we'll certainly get it next time of the building itself. But it's the building where Donald and Fred and Ms. Gale had their offices when they were in the Mill District. It's the one that we're talking about leasing out to Ms. Debbie Smith. Ms. Debbie, do you want to? kind of come and address the council. And if you've got, what you got a jump drive there? Okay, good. Steve can help you with that. Kind of let you know some of the things she. And look, Ms. Debbie, we'll get you in the microphone. Okay, no, you're good.

I haven't done presentations in four years since I retired, so. Okay. But I've lived in Natchitoches 20 years. I retired from the Federal Government National Park Service, which brought me.

Give me your name again, please.

Debbie Smith. Okay. Which brought me to Natchitoches. And so again, I've retired since then. I'm originally from Michigan, if you hear an accent. I don't hear it, but people say there's an accent. I lived in Boston before this, so I really don't have that. So for a year and a half I owned, or I didn't own, I rented a space on St. Denise Street. And I sell vintage clothing, antique and vintage clothing, and other things. But these are a few pictures of the shop I had, and a few pictures of some of the items in the shop. And then, oops, something went. Well, anyways, most of what the pictures in the shop have already sold. These are some of the items I have. And you can see there's a Victorian dress there in the middle. I have everything from the turn of the century to Y2K. And I really cater a lot towards the high school students and the college students, but also to tourists. And so again, this is my daughter, Mary, who would help me run this store. She's young with lots of energy. She compliments me well. And one of my, picture here, one of my best sellers was sweaters in Natchitoches. Unbelievable, but over 100 of them in a year and a half sold out of that shop. I really enjoy the hunting for and the cleaning up and the fixing and the displaying of the clothing. And I would love to do that in the Mill Street area. I like that it's so close to the brewery and that it's close to Natchitoches, I mean to the NSU. where both my daughters went. And I actually worked on the campus of NSU.

You shop.

You've been there?

No, I found one.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this was one room. I love the character of the Mill Street District building. I love the features, the... the safe, the old weigh station, everything. I don't want to lose any of that. I'm thinking of maybe making the fitting room in the vault. I'm not sure yet. But I love the two rooms. They have the... the two offices with the windows in front of them. And I'm thinking, wow, one of them might be my earliest clothing. I didn't carry in this shop my best of my best, because I wasn't there every day. It was a leased space. And I just didn't want my best of my best just to be thrown on the floor. But again, I do have things from every decade, from the turn of the century to what a lot of the students like today, which is 90s and Y2K. I have men's, women's, and children's. And I have some really fun ideas for the shop if it happens. So any questions for me?

Excuse me, I have a little tickle.

Do you know yet what your hours of operation will be?

No, but I'm thinking to look towards the brewery also. I'm thinking maybe instead of the typical 10 to 5, maybe it would be 11 to 6, or if there's a special event. One of my challenges is going to be, because it's not downtown, is advertising. I am planning to do, of course, the social media and getting my daughter's help on that, but also advertising at the university. I'm hoping. I know they don't have a printed curtain sauce anymore, but maybe the radio station. I'm not sure. The radio station. What is the name of the radio station? KZBL. Yeah, and they do the Saturday show by Mike from Laughing Sam's. Right, right. Oh, yeah, right just all kinds I'm thinking of you know post a picture with one of my outfits and you get a 20% coupon your next visit anything I can to do that and I like the anchor there of of the brewery, you know, it's it's it you know, yes downtown first downtown would be perfect, but I I like the space of this. I like to be able to really, of that shop, really expand what I did in the other shop. It's a unique building. It is a unique building.

Very unique.

Unique building. I know it needs some work that I'll need to do. I know windows need replacing. The floor could use some work. I don't know about the HVAC yet. I don't know how it's working. I don't know about a roof. You know, I've got to figure all that out too.

I have some questions, but not necessarily for you. Okay. So anybody else have?

Any questions? It's not a thrift store. I'll tell you that right now. But it's also not, you know, students buy from me all the time. So stuff is clean in there. It's marked by the decade. Any information I have about it will be on a tag. I won't be trying to fool anyone. There may be some, a few really nice modern pieces in there that are like what they call boho. You know boho? Kids love boho today. It's kind of like hippie boho. You're looking at me like, what? What you talking about?

I think relaxed colors.

Again, I sell shoes, hats, purses, gloves, and there will be probably 75% clothing and 25% other things to accent the space.

What will the price range be?

My average price of sale was $20. I sold things from two for five to 55. Probably 55 at that time was my highest. Now some of my best things that I might put in, like that silk Victorian wedding gown you saw, that online I could get a lot more than I could get at the shop. But I want it in the shop. I want people to come in and have fun in the shop if they don't buy anything. You know, this is not something I need to live on. This is not anything that if I broke even, I want to create this place. It's not something that, I mean, I have a pension, I have Social Security, I have all my retirement. I'm okay. So it's nothing like that. I certainly don't want to lose my shirt, so I'd be working really hard to make it work.

What will be your days of operation?

Probably Monday. Excuse me. Hold on for one second. Probably, again, maybe in the summer, Tuesday through Saturday. But it may be, you know, in the beginning, Monday through Saturday. Probably I'm looking at 6 to 8. But, again, if there's something happening at the brewery, even if they don't come in, I want them to see it's open. I want to see that there's something happening there. Okay. And just recently, I may be getting access to a very large 1947 Coca-Cola cooler, which I think would be eye-catching, even if it's sitting outside of it. I mean, it weighs a ton. I just have ideas for it that I want to bring in some fun things that maybe people aren't used to. Maybe have a typewriter where kids can type out their name or type something. Or the old phones, they can experience it. I have an eye on a Victola, which would be fun for people to hear. But my main point of sale is clothing and clothing accessories, like you saw in some of the pictures. Okay?

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Ed. All right. Thank you.

Appreciate it. I think you said yes on council.

Ms. Rock, does this go to historic commission?

Only if they're going to change the outside. As far as the use of the building or changing anything in the inside, no, it wouldn't. Only if there's going to be a change on the outside of the facility.

And then I'm thinking of? Certificate of occupancy? Advertising, merchandising for that. What are restrictions, if any?

I mean, it's still retail, correct? So it will still be treated like a regular commercial building. Still have to go through.

The sign ordinance size and stuff may apply to that because it's in historic district.

Yeah, the signage will still have to be approved by HDC. Still have to do certificates of occupancy, making sure that you submit to the state fire marshal everything as any other business from one location to the next building.

I think you figured out what needs to go in that thing. I hope. Sales will tell. But my big concern, I guess, thinking broader, if you will, I know with the brewery, The parking situation and that whole layout, we've got to get a little bit more forward thinking on that before we get too much further. And that's incumbent on the city to do, not her or the brewery. And we've got to kind of figure out what is the parking layout of that whole site. So maybe this will encourage us to move a little faster on that.

Any other comments? All right. Again, this is just for introduction, so we'll see it at the first meeting in June, which is June 8th. That's our next meeting. Okay? No. We're not going to be closed on June 8th, though.

No, we'll be open. Okay.

All right. That would be close.

It sure does.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So we will be open on June 8th.

We're all used to being off.

And our meeting is on June 8th. Okay. Yeah. All right. So go Natchitoches out and regroup, especially as we get close to hurricane season, which is in about a week, huh? Yeah. Not a week. June 1.

June 1. So less than a week. That's Monday.

Less than a week. Okay. Steve, I think we've got a few announcements. Oh, that's it?

Well, no, there's more. But are these old or current?

Let's see. Wait. Where is it?

Oh, it's over there. Current?

Oh, it's right here. Oh, I'm sorry. It didn't show up there. Okay.

That's not showing up.

Yeah. So, okay, Billy Cannon, yeah, that's taking place tomorrow. No.

Tomorrow.

No, Thursday. Thursday. Yeah, today, Tuesday. Yeah, it's off. That Memorial Day gets us off. But, yeah, Billy Cannon, that's a pretty big deal. Six to eight Thursday. All right. Good deal. All right. So at the Sports Hall of Fame, let us support those events. Mental health day in the park, bring the kids at play. This is going to be this Friday from 9 to 1. And, you know, music, food, portable park, door prizes. I think that's a worthy program to have. Again, this is Mental Health Awareness Month. All right, another... Even at the museum, restoring our languages, Mobilian trade jargon, and Sabine River Spanish. So it should be pretty interesting. Looks like there are two presenters on that day talking about the languages of the Choctaw Apache of Ibar. So it should be another good session.

Oh, that already happened.

Oh, that happened already?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Sorry about that.

All right.

So Juneteenth is June 20th, uh, celebration. Uh, we've got local DJ, Mr. DJ Royal. You've got tipsy, the band we've had them before. They're pretty good out of Shreveport. And then we've got, uh, Jay Paul who was going to be here. So, um, should be a pretty good attraction. We've got a really good team of people who have been playing and working out the details. It's going to be ample security. ample food vendors. So again, it should be a great day and really appreciate the team that's been planning to make sure it is as we celebrate Juneteenth in the city of Natchitoches. All right. Let's see. What else you got? That's the last one? Okay. So look, we're looking at $250,000. years of america all right uh... and we actually have some locals on this one uh... mistreated himself i think you get a little something at the jazz fest yes he did oh he killed it okay so uh... he'll be able to do a few more songs then we got uh... johnny earthquake and the moon dogs not sure if you know that band but uh... eddie's supposed to guest appear oh that's what's gonna happen okay We've been in talks with another band maybe, but if not, it would be these two groups coming to perform. Patriotic Day. We're thinking of doing some other things maybe before the concert part starts. We've got some ideas, so stay tuned for that. We're working on some other things as well. You'll see. We'll put it through video, put it through social media as we're, again, celebrating 250 years of America on the 4th of July. Exciting. Looking forward to it. I think it's going to be great. Now, I'll say this in between, and we don't have the flyer up there, but in between Juneteenth and America 250 is the Sports Hall of Fame weekend. And so we'll get it up on the first meeting in June, and we'll share. We've been sharing a little bit, some of the things they've got going, but again, the Sports Hall of Fame is one of those great entities in the city of Natchitoches that we should be blessed to have here. So, gosh. Who are they putting in this year? I'm kind of drawing a blank on that. But always... So they're going to be... June 10th is the 20th. So the 27th is going to be Sports Hall of Fame weekend. And that Friday night is always a free night, open to the public. They usually have a pretty good band. They do fireworks. You get to meet the people who have been the inductees. All right? So... Is it Joe Horn this year, anyone? I think Joe Horn might be one of the ones this year. Y'all remember Joe Horn from the Saints? Yeah, Joe Horn.

Joe Horn is, and Sylvia Fowles is. She was at LSU when I was there. She was in the WNBA and everything. Okay. Yeah, and Joe Horn, yeah.

Remember Joe? He scored a touchdown, had the cell phone hidden. Y'all don't remember that. Y'all ain't watching.

Oh, my God. Oh, Coach McCollum?

Steve, why don't we have him? Florida up there about the Juneteenth parade on Friday.

Well, Steve just shows it. I got somebody else who puts it up there. So, yeah, Steve, he just wanted to put it up there.

I would like to have it at the next meeting on that, please.

Oh, yeah, we'll have it. We'll have it. Okay, so look, that's a great event. Okay, those are announcements. You did hear Councilwoman Lorsch-Smith-Kirkendall say that there's a parade on Friday. June 19th, that Friday. I will say, too, something that we didn't put on the flyer. We know we got Jay Paul coming at night, but during the day, we're going to have our basketball games. It's going to be at the MLK Rec. What time did we say, Clarissa, on that?

Now.

9 to 12. All right, 9 to 12. So we're organizing some folks to play, some people you may recognize. I think you're playing, aren't you? Yeah, I do my yearly crossover of Clarissa, my yearly three in the face of Clarissa. But maybe we'll get some more department heads to play this year and maybe some counselors as well. We have a good time. All right. Okay, if there's nothing else, all right, good. At this time, we have a motion to adjourn.

Make a motion to adjourn.

Second. Motion is made and seconded. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right, this meeting is adjourned. Have a great night.