City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay.

They didn't send us no separate invitation.

Much less a pedestrian who doesn't get the latitude of having something wrapped around them to protect them if they make a mistake. I thought they may have sent an invitation. We're a super economic portal. I asked him again for this day. I said, yeah, we're going to get on it. It's on our list. That's a really long list. I've been pretty good about picking out the man-made speed bumps. I said, you know, these man-made speed bumps, I'm going to chastise them a little bit. It's just lazy. It's just an unprofessional thing. When you throw asphalt down, expect a 3,000-pound vehicle to flatten it out. It's a big issue. That's what he told me last year.

HE GOT HIM A TENT AND EVERYTHING. AND HE DRINKS WATER. YOU GOT IT?

I'll get you next meeting. I'll have you catch. I'll get you next meeting. Okay.

house what hey how you doing okay okay hello there sir how are you good

Tonya, what's the sign on here?

C-O-S. Is that new? Did it used to be council? It used to be council.

Wait a second.

It's still baking. It's still baking. It's still percolating. Wait. How's Miss Heather doing?

So what's she doing now? Where is she? Mending. Mending, right.

She's got to take them. Oh, yeah, she's got to. Well, there's economics. The key is they're great.

Thank you. I appreciate you. Mine and my car stopped working today for some reason.

Chief Reese. Y'all ready?

Yes, ma'am.

I'm going to pray.

Pray. Can I sing my prayer?

Yeah, you can sing your prayer.

Start with our word.

I can't sing my prayer? Okay. Our word.

You ready to sing? I want you to sing. All right.

All right. Is that lower?

Y'all can sit down. I haven't called a meeting to order yet. You ready? Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. The meeting of the Shreveport City Council is now called to order. I'm going to ask Chief Clarence Reese to lead us in prayer. I'm going to ask Councilman Talaferro to lead us in the pledge.

As we bow our heads, Father God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for all of the citizens of the city of Shreveport. Thank you for the visitors that come here. Father God, we thank you for the leaders who prepare to lead this city, who make decisions to lead this city. Father God, we thank you for everything that you have done, everything that you are doing, and everything that you will do. Father God, we ask that this meeting be held by your will, that your will be done in this meeting. We thank you, Father God, for everything. Once again, we pray for all of our leaders locally, on the state level, and the federal level. We ask that you would keep your guardian angels around us, keep us away from all hurt, harm, and danger. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Amen. All face the flag of the greatest country on earth. And as we say our pledge, let us be thankful and mindful of the sacrifices of our MIAs and POWs. I pledge allegiance to the flag

and justice for all.

Thank you, Chief.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilwoman Taylor. Present. Councilman Brooks. Here. Councilman Tyler-Farrell. Here, ma'am. Councilman Butch. Here. Councilman Jackson. Councilman Green. I'm here. And Councilwoman Bowman.

Present. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of the Administrative Conference Monday, June 22, 2026, in the City Council meeting Tuesday, June 23, 2026? So moved.

Second.

So moved by Councilman Green, second by Councilman Butcher. Any discussion? Let's vote.

It's not coming up for you? No. Councilwoman Taylor? Yes. Councilman Brooks? Yes. Councilman Tyler-Farrell? Yes. Councilman Butcher? Yes. Councilman Jackson? Councilman Green? Aye. And Councilwoman Bowman? Yes.

Does any councilmember have any awards, recognition, or distinguished guests not to exceed 15 minutes? I do. I have a question. It's not a special guest. I think probably for the last 24 hours, our city has been riveting with the posts that Mr. Jackson made as it relates to Shreveport and the Red River. So, Mr. Mayor, since our council phones have been ringing like 90 to nothing, I'm going to ask you to please explain, do you know why we are receiving all this postage made?

Madam Chair, I'm not a mind reader, and the post that he made was ambiguous, and I do not know what was meant by it.

So is there any, I do know that from this point that any time that he makes a post, it's not just something that is just left up in the air. Has our offices made any type of contact with Mr. Jackson?

There have been contact with his representatives, and that is something I'd be glad to brief you privately about.

Okay. I want to have their level to reassure our public because the hopes were high when Mr. Jackson was here two weeks ago with the groundbreaking ceremony along with his chat that he had. And so I don't want for individuals to think that he's not going to be here or he's leaving. or that the words are null and void. So I just want to make sure and provide that reassurance to our public on his being here and his business acumen, because people create a level of narratives that are not always good for us, that are negative for the city, and we don't want that to happen.

Madam Chair, I will tell you that I have no indication whatsoever that he is backing out of any of the commitments that he has made so far.

Yeah, thank you. I want to make sure that we provide their reassurance to our public.

Madam Chair.

Yes, Councilman Green.

Mr. Mayor, what about the repairs on the roof on the buildings that we talked about some time ago that the roof was bad? Have they been repaired? I would be very glad to brief you about that privately. Okay.

All right. Any other questions? Madam Chair. Yes.

Chief Smith, is he here? If he's not handy, we can move on, and I'll get him at the end, so no big deal. Sure. Yeah.

All right. Mayor Arsenault, do you have any awards, recognition, or distinguished guests not to exceed 15 minutes?

I thought Chris Erickson was here to make a presentation on the bond projects. We can save that for next time. Thank you.

Do you have any communications of the mayor relative to city business?

No, ma'am.

Okay. Does any member have any questions or concern relative to property standards for Mr. Green?

I got one question, and I meant to ask you this coming in, and I forgot. Your neighbor on Shreveport-Barstow Highway, what are we going to do about that building?

As a matter of fact, we should be contracting that out this week.

Okay, because you know good and well, I went by there, and there's obviously people moving around in there.

The contractor that did the streets was supposedly contracted to do the demolition. Okay. Well, they're gone, and they haven't done anything, so we're going to contract it out. We couldn't get the demolition on it because it is basically iron structure, steel structure. So we're going to clean the property up, and we're going to secure it. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Green, on the corner of 70th Street and Joella? They're working. Right there where that service, I mean, where that circuit came? Mm-hmm. All of they stuffed and fell.

Well, we'll get zoning permits because they are working in that structure.

Yeah, they're working, but all they stuffed and fell. Right. It looks terrible. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Mr. Jackson.

Madam Chair, if I can call up Shelly Regal.

My pool is already open. Yours will be the last one. When are they going to start digging mine?

They going to dig one for me out there?

If they can turn my mic off in the back so I don't have to go off on my council members. Ms. Regal. A, B, C, D, not D, not E, F, all have a nice place for their kids to come swim. And I got to take my kids to other people's district. I'm not a happy camper. My district is not happy. It's all over Facebook. A lot of questions. Did we start on time? What's going on? Why is the pool not open? Now, Southern Hill does have the largest pool in Shreveport. We're definitely proud of that. But but it's it's not open. It looks chaotic. The mayor and I was out there for Father's Day run. It didn't look like they was going to make it on time then. And then we just had so much rain. But I don't want to speak for the process because I'm not familiar with the entire process. So I do want to give you the opportunity to kind of explain How do we get to July 14th? And one of the nicest pools in Shreveport is currently not open.

Well, this project was bid, and it's a 270-day project. So no matter when we started, we would end up nearing the summertime completing. We wanted to get started because from the time we started with District A and District D's pools, the time we got to District F, price increases have happened to the equipment, the slides particularly. So we wanted to go ahead and start so we'd be sure that we had enough funding to buy the slide for Southern Hills. It doesn't look like if you just were to take a glance, I think it's hard to understand the complexity of the project. We built a whole new pool. because the slide got a brand-new plunge pool, which was a new pool. We took out all the decking, and we actually had to go in, and we chiseled out the entire pool, which, you know, that is an Olympic-sized pool. It's not... the same size as all the other districts and then starting in june when you know you're getting to that point where you think you might be ready to pour concrete we've had um yesterday we had three and a quarter inches of rain that added to the 16 inches we've had since the end of june so we're just in a He's actually going to be awarded 10 rain days, which does not put him behind. You know, he's allowed that by contract. The other thing that's happened to us is we're in a competition for concrete. Not specifically the concrete itself, but enough trucks. So the Jimmy Davis Bridge is one of the largest projects going on. They are taking one day a week for pours. Swepco has the second largest project going on. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they have all of the concrete trucks apparently going, so we have the rest of the time for other contractors. So every time we miss a pour, we poured last week our first pour. We have to do four more concrete pours it'll take for that particular pool. But we missed one yesterday because of the weather. That means we get put off, but we get put off behind everybody else that got put off. And so, you know, we're just at the mercy of weather and concrete availability. And that's really what it's about. Had we started, you know, this time, we'd run into this problem next May, too. I mean, maybe it would have been dry next year, but at this point, we felt like we wanted to get it started. We were hoping to get it complete. The difference you'll see in these pools than what you've seen in the past, we will fill that pool, turn it on. We'll run our pools now. The way they're designed is to keep water in them, running them. And the other thing that Southern Hills has that we don't do at the other pools is we keep it open through Labor Day. So the minute it's ready to roll, we'll turn it on and we'll have it open through Labor Day. And there are times that we can leave it open longer depending on the temperature.

And what's the best guess of opening day based on all the information you have now?

We were hoping that we'd be a week from Thursday. We're thinking it's going to be two weeks because we've really missed this week. I can let you know how many pours we make this week.

Thank you.

We are doing for the children in the rec center, just so that you know, we're putting up, we did this last year in District F. We kind of have a water park going on for our kids in the back of Southern Hills. It'll go up this week. It'll be up through the weekend and next Monday. And it's just an opportunity for those children to have water play during this hot time of year. There are also all the children in our rec programs are going to other pools for lessons and swim days. Okay. Okay.

Last question. Can you speak to, I know Southern Hills used to have an enormous deep end. Can you speak to the new process of taking away the deep end and going to forefoot? What was that about? And why did we make that decision?

Southern Hills will not. Southern Hills is remaining Olympic size and Olympic depth. So it'll stay the same. Okay. Yeah. And when we re-plaster, it'll keep the lanes, also the swim lanes. So it will still be available for that. But in our other pools, it's really worked out to have that depth change. I got a video today from Airport Park. I'm going to send it to you. It's just fun to watch how much fun kids are having. And there's a lot more places for them to play because it's not too deep.

But if the kids want a deep end, they need to come to District 8. Can you let my council people know? Yes, sir. Still the biggest. Thank you.

Shelly, we want to make sure our pools stay open until Labor Day as well, because I'm not sitting in my constituency. To the deep end.

I'm going Thanksgiving for mine. Okay.

All right.

We're going to have a Labor Day party for everybody else whose pool is closed.

Shelly, in the meantime, can you get him some water hoses? So he can have a spray park.

Councilman Brooks, can we use your spray pad downtown?

Gary says, where am I?

You got a spray pad.

You ain't got the Red River.

You got a splash pad. That's on your side.

We'll come back to that in the next infrastructure meeting. Everyone should have received a revenue collection plan and implementation report. Public hearing, there is none. Madam Clerk, will there be any legislation to be added today?

No, ma'am.

Today we'll hear public comments on agenda items only. Madam Vice Chair will handle this portion of the agenda. Please state your name and address. For the record, you have three minutes to speak.

Sammy Mears.

Sammy Mears, 1133 South Point Parkway. Shreveport 71105. I want to speak today on 9A64 and 9A65. Please vote yes on both of these resolutions if you would. They are very good resolutions and ideas. I only had to cut it a little bit short because I was kind of behind a little bit on schedule today. Somebody didn't show up, and I had to find an agenda and two forms of my own, so I didn't know what to do. I was going batty, if you could figure that out. But I do agree with both of these resolutions. If you vote yesterday, it'll be appreciated.

Thank you, Sammy. Thank you, Sammy. That concludes public comments.

We have no executive appointments to consider today. There are no items under consent agenda for introduction or to be adopted. Madam Clerk, please proceed to regular agenda legislation.

Resolution 63, to adopt the Cattle Parish Hazard Mitigation Plan of Date.

So moved. Second.

So moved by Councilman Green, second by Councilman Boucher. Any discussion?

And this passed with seven.

Madam Chair. Yes. Just before we go, I just know that we have Commissioner Victor with us today. I just wanted to recognize him.

Hey, Commissioner Victor.

Resolution 74, authorizing the mayor to execute a contract with the BFA of L.A. to purchase ambulances for the report. 64.

Resolution 64? Yes. What'd I say? 74.

Excuse me? You want me to read it again?

Please. So moved.

Second.

So moved by Councilwoman Bowman, second by Councilman Butcher. Any discussion? Let's vote.

This passes with seven. Resolution 65, authorizing the mayor to execute an amendment to the management agreement between the City of Shreveport and Metro Management Associates.

So moved.

So moved by Councilman Green, second by Councilman Brooks. Any discussion? Let's vote.

This passes with seven. Resolution 66, authorizing a request to be made to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, Louisiana State Mineral and Energy Board, to seek public bids for an oil, gas, and mineral lease involving a property located in District A, described herein, and to execute the lease for the certain mineral interests owned by the City of Shreveport, and to authorize the Mayor to execute any and all documents related to the intent of this resolution.

So moved to postpone.

Second.

So move to postpone by the chair, second by Councilman Green. Any discussion? Let's vote. This passed with 7. Madam Clerk, would you proceed with introduction of resolutions not to be adopted prior to July 28, 2026?

Resolution 67, authorizing a request to be made to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, Louisiana State Mineral and Energy Board to seek public bids for an oil, gas, and mineral lease involving a property located in District G, described herein and to execute the lease for certain mineral entries owned by the City of Shreveport and to authorize the Mayor to execute any and all documents related to the intent of this resolution. Resolution 68, authorizing the mayor to execute a cooperative endeavor agreement between the City of Shreveport and the State of Louisiana Department of the Treasury. Resolution 69, authorizing the mayor to execute a cooperative purchasing agreement between the City of Shreveport and Rapids Parish Sheriff's Office. And Resolution 70, authorizing the execution of a legal service agreement with Petit, Armand, Dokelman, Woodley, and Cromwell, and Fishman Haygood.

So moved to introduce.

So moved to introduce by Councilman Green.

Second.

Second by Councilman Butcher. These items have been introduced. Madam Clerk, would you proceed with introduction of ordinances not to be adopted prior to July 28, 2026?

Ordinance 70, declaring certain city-owned property to be surplus property. Ordinance 71, declaring certain city-owned property to be surplus property. Ordinance 72, amending Ordinance 100 of 2025 and fixing the minimum bid price for certain city-owned immovable property and all improvements thereon, located at 401 Texas Street.

So moved for introduction.

7-11-0.

With introduction by Councilman Green. Second. Second by Councilman Jackson. Any discussion? These items have been introduced. Madam Clerk, please proceed with the ordinances on second reading and final passage.

Ordinance 65, repealing section 26-66 of the Code of Ordinances.

So moved.

Second. So moved by Councilman Green. Second by Madam Vice Chair. Any discussion? Let's vote.

This passed with seven. Ordinance 66, declaring certain city-owned property to be surplus property.

So moved. Second.

So moved by Councilman Brooks.

Second by Councilman Green. Discussion? Let's vote.

Councilman Jackson. This passed with seven. Ordinance 67, zoning case number 26-51C, an ordinance to approve the amendment of the zoning map of the UDC by rezoning property located on the south side of Free State Boulevard, approximately 180 feet south of Hahn Avenue from C3 General Commercial Zoning District to IMU Industrial Mixed Use Zoning District. So moved.

Second. So moved by the chair, second by Madam Vice Chair. Any discussion? Let's vote.

This passed with seven.

Ordinance 68, zoning case number 26-57C, an ordinance to approve the amendment of the zoning map of the UDC by rezoning property located on the south side of Crockett Street, approximately 100 feet east of Texas Avenue, from D1AC Downtown Arts and Cultural Subdistrict to D1AC Downtown Arts and Cultural Conditional Zoning District.

Second.

So moved by Councilman Brooks, second by Councilman Green. Any discussion? Yes. Discussion, Councilman Brooks.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I believe this passed ZBA and zoning here unanimously? Yes, sir. Okay. And I've spoken with the director of SHRAC and Shreveport Common, and they are working with the director of the Providence House, they had some parking concerns, but I believe that that was the only real opposition, correct?

That was expressed in our meetings, yes. There was some expression at the ZBA meeting concerning the height of the buildings and things of that nature, but I believe there's ongoing discussions about that.

Okay, they seem fine with it. I'm going to motion to approve it. Thank you, Steve.

Thank you. Those folks?

I'm just trying to slow up the meeting. You know, she's about to beat the game training record. Oh, it's too late. I'm just slowing it up a little bit. You're talking about beating my record. It's past the seven.

Well, you calling Mr. Jean, you just really blessed my life. Thank you.

I would have swept him so many times. It ain't even funny.

I lost count. Ordinance 69, zoning case number 26-53C, an ordinance to approve the amendment of the zoning map of the UDC by rezoning property located on the north side of Ellery Road, approximately 475 feet southeast of Gulf Ridge Drive from RE Residential Estate Zoning District. to see one neighborhood commercial zoning district.

So moved.

So moved by Councilman Butcher.

Second. Second by Councilman Talaferro. Any discussion? Yeah. Anyway. I second it for you, Jim. You can go and vote.

I have one question.

Anyway, this question is over. Is there a motion to second? It's passed with seven. Thank you, Councilwoman. Madam Clerk, is there any other table legislation to be removed from the table?

No, ma'am.

We have no property standards or ABO appeals to consider today. We have no MPC ZBA appeals to consider today. Are there any other appeals, Madam Clerk? No, ma'am. Are there any reports from offices, boards, and committees? Okay. Madam Clerk, is there a clerk's report? Be quiet.

Yes.

The following letter of appointments were received from the mayor's office on July 8th, 2026 and subject for confirmation July 28th, 2026. Metropolitan Planning Commission, Eric Monroe and Rose McCullough and Shreveport Historic Preservation Commission, April Dam. Okay.

Marisol, do you have, I'm sorry. Marisol, do you have any additional communications? Communications.

I have about 30 minutes, but I'm going to pass on them, Madam Chair.

I would think you would. Thank you so much. Does any council member have any additional communications except James and Alan?

Madam Chair?

Gary, don't start that today.

I think a couple of meetings ago, Councilman Green had something to say. Anyway. Yeah, I did.

Executive session, there is none. If there is nothing else, this meeting is adjourned.