Remarks by Douglas Lawson
171 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 5 of 7
- Play at 2:27:40
“Oh, yes, yes. So that our educated friends, we know you guys have to get to school in the morning. We have some students here. But after public comment, we're going to take the item that we're going to discuss tonight. So we'll take it in a few.”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 2:27:53
“Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the board.”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 3:17:58
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 3:19:43
“No worries, Mr. Chairman. Mayor Masters was a great mayor for the city. I appreciate the compliment. I do want to make a quick comment, though. We are rushing through this agenda, and I do appreciate the board affording the item to hear this a little earlier. But, Mr. Chair, if we can just take a little breather. go through the agenda in the proper timing and allow for us to vet everything and have the board opine on every comment prior to rushing through. So I know that we want to get through the item. We want to hit a certain timeline. But because the agenda, and we did add this, so I…”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 3:20:28
“um i that that's that's the problem with me if and i agree mr chair this is not a debate or discussion it's the fact that we want to have every board member applying on items and the last item did not have any discussion and we spent five thousand dollars so i want to make sure that we have this clear discussion before we push anything through even if it's added at the last minute which i said again appreciate it but let's make sure that we're doing the business of the city in a respectful professional timely manner THANK YOU, MR. CHAIR.”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:13:21
“NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. AND THANK YOU, COUNCILMAN MILLER-ANDERSON. WE DO WANT TO CHANGE THE MOTION TO POSTPONE. THERE WERE A LONGER LIST OF QUESTIONS THAT I HAD. LOVE THE PROJECT, BUT THERE'S CONCERNS THAT I HAVE WITH IT. AND WE'LL ADDRESS THOSE WITH STAFF SO THEY CAN GET THOSE OVER TO YOU. BUT THIS IS AN AFFORDABLE housing project that's also a senior assisted living project. So I want to make sure that staff is very clear on our code as to what it says for affordable living facility. and make sure it's properly outlined in the documents of what we're giving for them for an affordable…”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:26:29
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:26:46
“Employee permit free, and they just apply the same way like a resident would apply, correct? How do the employees apply?”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:27:00
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:27:54
“similar to how we do employees if we can do that for the residents and employees are already free but at least those vendors as well because they are working for the city they're doing the um services of the city um and while they're on city staff if we can even issue them that free pass as well but thank you mr chairman thank you mr chair um yes and there's an employee that worked for the cra and the best adore said that he got five tickets and um”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:35:08
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:39:47
“You're speaking to the mic. Pull the mic down.”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 4:59:08
“First thing, if we can't have the speaker, please stop speaking from the audience. Number two, I also wanted to clear the record. I did not unilaterally direct the city to take any action. I made a statement to the board and Chairman Guyton asked for a legal opinion. That wasn't clear direction. So there's been a lot of misinformation coming from the public. So just to clarify the record, I made a statement to my colleagues and my chairman asked for clarity from legal to give an opinion at a later date. So let's continue to just move the city forward with the right accurate information as…”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:03:19
“Mr. J? Yes. Did we finish the discussion with the recruitment process?”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:03:33
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:04:18
“I'M SORRY, THE PROCESS WAS OPEN TODAY OR YESTERDAY, RIGHT?”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:04:23
“RIGHT. SO WHAT I WAS ASKING IS IF YOU REACHED OUT PRIOR TO THAT.”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:04:30
“BOARD, WE HAVE A FIRM THAT WE USED FOR THE LAST TWO EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS, PRICE POINT. THE PROCUREMENT PROCESS IS NOT GOING TO GET BACK TO US UNTIL JANUARY, MEANING WE'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE APPLICANTS UNTIL MARCH, POSSIBLY APRIL, DEPENDING ON THE TIMELINE. We may want to try to expedite that process, looking at some of the firms that we've used previously and directing staff to come back with a potential price of the firm that we used previously that actually charged us less than the $25,000 manager spending authority. Four months because of the holidays and the time frame is a long time before…”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:07:04
“I understand that one of the council members, one council member was not impressed, but I think that the discussion is that staff needed to actually look out to see if there was any firms that were available below the manager spending authority. The timeline, as Mayor Anderson just stated, is very lengthy going through the procurement and the search of the national firms. and i think that we need to price a few other firms that could potentially come in at a lower price to give us some options it doesn't mean hiring a city manager tomorrow but we want to have a quicker timeline and if i'm not…”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:09:44
“Mr. Chair? Yes. If we can delete this item. just to air on the side of caution with current litigation if we can't delete this item off the agenda.”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 5:13:24
“Just want to let everyone know Healthy Wallets, Healthy Lives grant initiative written by my chief of staff is live on the city website. Applications are being accepted now, so please go online and register. It's a program for families to help with financial literacy, address childhood obesity, and support our community. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilwoman Davis-Preneur.”
City Council · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 22:29
“Thank you. And I want to echo the same sentiments, Director. A phenomenal job. the programming, the activities, the events, you do a great job over there. I want to bring some more exposure. So we're working with our communications department, making sure a lot of the programs that you're doing are updated on social media, on our pages, doing a few mailers, and even looking at your budget to determine if you have any funds for marketing or programming or activities, because I want to bring more things and more exposure to the library. I wanted to kind of also couple that question, space-wise,…”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 40:51
“AND DIRECTOR EMMONS, THIS IS NOTHING PERSONAL. NEW SPEAKER YES. NEW SPEAKER CURRENT SPENDING FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES. Do we have an idea of what we've spent this past year for local businesses?”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 41:14
“Okay. So those local businesses that we write a check or the primes, we don't have any of that data. Do we have an idea of what our target is for local business in regards to our spend for this coming fiscal year?”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 42:22
“You just celebrated your two-year anniversary. Congratulations. Thank you so much, sir. What has been your struggle with collecting and gathering this data to identify where the money is going for our local businesses?”
City Council · Aug 24, 2026