Town Council - Regular Meeting

I did not work. Hey, everyone.

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Good evening and welcome to our Smyrna Town Council workshop. It is our January workshop which we don't get to say often to set for the January council meeting. Uh we usually have our workshop in December but because of the holidays we moved it to January. So before we move into our awards tonight um I would like Mark Atkins if you will do our prayer. And who's going to be Jenny? Will you lead us in in the pledge? If everybody stand with us, please bow with me, please. Father in heaven, Lord, we just come to you tonight and once again, as always, Father, we're just so blessed here in the town of Smyrna. And we thank you for that. We thank you that you watch over our employees and the citizens of our town, Father, and you continue to bless them. Keep them well. Father, as we uh process this meeting, we pray for discernment. We ask for your guidance in all the decisions we make that affect our citizens. be with our country, Father, and continue to watch over our country and the leaderships that we have, the leaderships here locally. Continue to give us guidance. Forgive us where we fail you. We ask all these things in your name. Amen.

Amen.

Please to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Jenny. Okay, tonight we have quite a few recognitions and bear with me. Our first um is going to be our parade participants. This year we probably had as many or more in regards to our parade. It was our 50th annual. That's kind of hard to believe, but it was and one that we were really excited about. And um our first float division was the float division winner and it was the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office. And there and we've got a photo there on the screen and if they will come up to receive their award and we'll let you [applause] see you.

How are you? I'm good. How you doing, sweetheart? familiar face, right? Yes, it is a familiar [laughter] face. So, who wants to tell us a little bit about your float? A [laughter] she was the committee head. She was committee head. Okay.

So, our parade float was the Sweetest Gift Community. Um we're with the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office um Citizens Academy. Um and so we honestly were not aware we were competing. Um we were Yeah, it was a nice surprise. So, we just wanted to come out and, you know, kind of promote the citizens academy and and share with the community, you know, the the fun things that we do and how we like to love to really support the sheriff's office um and all that they do for us and and you know, just those relationships that we have within the community. Am I putting you too much on the spot if I ask you to tell us a little bit about the Citizens Academy and if somebody wanted to get involved, what they would do?

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, the citizens academy, like I said, what we're really there for is, um, just supporting the sheriff's office in any way that we really can. Um, we do fundraising. Uh, we also partake in, um, a lot of volunteering and, um, and then the fun things like getting to build the Christmas parade float and such. Um, if you'd like to become a member of a citizens academy, you take the citizens class um through the sheriff's office and then uh once you finish that 10-week course, you are happy to join us in the academy or the alumni association. So, I'm going to let each one of you tell your name. Um, I'm Rihanna Herren. Great.

Uh, my name is Libby Stark. I'm the treasurer. Great. I'm Kendrick Rut. I'm the president. Great. Well, we are so excited that you all um are receiving the recognition, but we're also glad that you all participated in our parade. It makes such a difference. So, we appreciate you guys. And Miss Heather's going to get a photo. Council, do y'all want to jump up? [laughter] [laughter] Come on in here.

[laughter] All right, here we go every

So our next group was the walking group winner and it went to Smyrna High School marching band. So ah come right in. [applause] Thanks Mark. So why don't we let you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the band and how many you have in the in the group. Okay. Uh I'm Ben Ray. This is my first year as the director of bands at Smyrna High School. Though I've been here uh for this is my 23rd year teaching at the school. Um so glad to take over the reigns there. And this is uh my new assistant here, Miss Juliet Lang, who's helping out. Um we very much enjoy being part of the town of Smyrna and the Smyrna High School band uh doing annual event uh with the parade. We had our biggest band we've ever had this year. Uh we in the marching band, we had 150 members. We actually had to get some new uniforms this year to accommodate our size and we look to continue that growth uh in the future.

Great. Well, we were so glad to have you guys. Jerry, how many were in the band when you were in school? Six. [snorts] That's the growth for you. That's the growth for you. That's exactly right. [laughter] Good answer. Well, we were so glad to have you guys. Y'all make a huge part of our parade and we're always glad to have you. So, thank you. Uh glad to be here. Okay. Miss Miss Heather's gonna get our photo counsel. Do y'all want to Oh, we want us to shoot this way. Okay. Good. Okay. All right, here we go.

Good. Thank you all very much. Okay, our next winner was the antique vehicle winner and it goes to David and Jenny Williams. [applause] So, Jenny, how long have y'all participated in the parade? 14 years. 14 years. But how many years would you say you've been in the parade? Oh wow. Day one that I was trying to think. I think I was day one for with the parade as well. So because your grandfather was driving Santa Claus and my daddy was Santa Claus for the first two years.

There you go. There you go. He was the your dad was the helper for Santa, right? Yes. Yet. Oh, my dad was Santa and then your He was s He was helper. Yes. He's the helper. They got in trouble because the train stopped them. Oh, that's right. I did. The train stopped them and they were talking. I do remember hearing about that and that they were visiting and they were almost late for the parade. Yes. Cuz the Well, we have a much better route now cuz that we don't have to worry about the train. That's right. That's right. Well, we appreciate y'all always being in the parade. So, if y'all want to jump up. It's really fun and everybody enjoys it. I enjoy seeing

Okay. More this way. Okay. Okay. [snorts]

Thank you, ma'am. Uhhuh. Okay, let me get my glasses back on. Um, and our last one was our mayor's cup, which was won by SRM. [applause] So, um, we really appreciate SRM. I know that they do a ton of work on their float every year and they bring lots of people and they have some of the best candy that there is. So, if you get a chance to get their candy, that's that is um, so we appreciate them participating. You got their thing. Okay. Next on my agenda is Nourish Food Bank. And I'd like to do the totals for Nourish. I can't remember how many years ago we started doing the um asking citizens and asking those that participate in the parade to um bring those non-p perishable food items. and it is so important in our community more now so than ever. And we are so excited and I think that um I can't tell you how much we appreciate our employees that work on the float and push those carts along the parade route to pick up those items and to those that participate in the parade that bring those items. So with the town of Smyrna and the Smyrna Fire Department, we collected more than 40,500 pounds of nonp perishable food items during our annual Christmas food drive to support Nourish Food Bank. The contributions will help provide food assistance to families in need throughout our community. We also have money that came in as well. So Norman, if you'll come up, please. And oh that's church.

So this is the money which I think is important soant. It's so important. So tell us a little bit about those families that are our neighbors that are our friends that might just need a hand up especially during the holiday season.

Yeah. Um you know this year has been a little rocky, a little crazy for Nourish. Uh we're excited to still be fighting the good fight and doing the work that we do. We this past year served over 54,000 individuals. The majority of those live right here in the Smyrna Leverne area. Um we make sure that those people coming to see us get at least 21 meals is our goal. Three meals 7 days. Um and they can come to us every month if they need to. We're just there trying to offset the cost of groceries, right, that they're perhaps EBT is not covering or their family's first doesn't cover. So, we are supplemental, but we are giving grocery carts full of food to these families to make sure everyone's getting what they need.

So, let's talk about if somebody wants to contribute what they would need to do, but also let's talk about if it's a family that might be watching that needs assistance, what they need to do.

Yes. So, if someone out there needs food, and I don't care who you are, if you need food, walk in our door. We have three direct service sites located here in Middle Tennessee. We have one in Murersboro. We have the one in Smyrna that's been here for 25 plus years. Um, it is our home. So, come see us. It's over on Richardson right behind the health department. All you've got to do is walk in, fill out a quick application, and we will sit down, get a little more information from you, and then give you a grocery cart full of food. It's that simple. If you want to help us continue feeding our communities, all you've got to do is go to our website, nourishfoodbanks.org. You can VMO, you can send a check, you can give us cash, we'll take whatever you want to give us. Uh food drives are always helpful, especially in the middle of the year when they're not as prevalent as they are at the end of the year.

Yeah. Great. So, we appreciate you. We appreciate what you offer our citizens here in the town of Smyrna. And when you think about that number that was served, guys, that's almost what our population here is in the town of Smyrna. So, I promise you, there's somebody you come into contact with every day that's in need of this service. So, thank you for what you do and we appreciate you. Thanks. Oh, wait. Oh, sorry. Got to get a picture. You forget about the photo. Yes. Get our exercise.

Good. Thank you. Okay.

Yes. So, um, not everybody gets to come out and view the parade along the parade route. Um, some of those people watch our parade from at home. And for the last couple of years, we have had Steuart's Creek TV bring that into the citizens living room um, for our parade. So, at this time, I'd like to ask Steuart's Creek TV to come in. Come on in. And I'm gonna let you just kind of start right there and make your way down this way. [applause] Perfect. Y'all act like you've been on TV before, knows a little something about it. So Chris Bissinger has been a godsend to the town of Smyrna and what he does to pull this off every year. So, Chris, I'm going to let you talk a little bit about what you have to do to make this happen. And then I'm going to let each one of you give us your name and what grade you are in school. And you don't have to tell me you go to Stewart's Creek because every year we'll have people say their name, their grade, and that you go to Stewart's Creek. So, but Chris, tell us a little bit.

Thank you for giving me the microphone that you know that I don't like. Uh, Sent Street Television is honored to be a part of this project. Uh it's our fifth or sixth year doing it. Uh this year was a different element because it was the 50th anniversary. We moved locations from being at uh town or the fireh hall to Zama Park. That took two and a half years to plan. So uh the work that puts that we put into it is all done from the students at uh Stewart Creek High School. We package it up, bring it down, plug it in, and pray that it works. It did work this year. No technical issues. we were able to uh get the broadcast out and I think that it went very well. This is only half of our crew. We had a crew of almost 20 students putting this project together. They work very hard. They work very long and I am very hard to work with sometimes, especially on a project this big because I know what it means to the mayor, the council, and the members uh town members of Smyrna. So, thank you.

I'm gonna let you start right there. And if you'll just tell us your name and what year you are in school. Uh so, my name is David Scobby and I'm a sophomore. Um, I'm Trey Smith and I'm a sophomore. I'm Kate Vogle and I'm also a sophomore. I'm Paulie Shock and I'm a junior. I'm Lacy Tobin and I'm a senior. I'm Kennedy Walker and I'm a junior. I'm Gracie Wayne and I'm a sophomore. I'm Maggie Lupier and I'm a senior.

I'm Nola Fave and I'm also a senior. So, I think we'll probably see a lot of these young people go on to do great things. We hope that you all will come back and make Smyrna your home when you get done going out and doing great things after college. And we just want to say thank you for everything you've done to make our parade so successful and to be able to take it into the homes of people who might not be able to make it to the parade. So, thank you very much. And we're going to do a quick picture council. Get close. Heather's gonna say get close.

Thank you all very much. Uhhuh.

Thank you. So, last but not least is um what I find the best part of this is going to be the crowning of the person who of the council member or admin that brought in the most money or canned goods. And this year we have a new winner. Can I get that? And I think it was pretty close, wasn't it, Casey? Is Casey in here? Casey, pretty close. [snorts] So, our winner this year was Councilman Short. So, Councilman Short, COME ON DOWN. [applause] We are P. Oh, wait. Let me put this on first because I don't think this will fit over your crown. Okay, there you go. Oh, yeah. Don't look at the year, Pat. We're We're Okay. Sorry. Put your arm. Put this This arm comes out. Have you not ever worn a sash before? Oh my word. Never. Never. Never. Okay. Never won anything. Okay. Well, there. Wait. Let me kick this. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, um, we all want to say congratulations to Jerry. You did an amazing job. And I know you did it for the sash and for the crown was the only reason you did it. Was that it?

No. No. No. No, it wasn't. It wasn't. I do want to say thanks to uh Southern Bank down here. They were really a big help. Great. Great. So, they put you over the top. Is that what you're saying? And the bottom, too. Oh, and top and the bottom. Okay. Top and bottom. Well, we're going to let Miss Heather get a picture with all of the council. Do we have Yes. Yes. Yes. There you go. Yes. Okay. So, Jerry, we're probably going have to scoot this way a little bit. Heather, look. Look up on the screen and look what you One, two, three. Okay, Jerry, you still got another year before you can still deth.

Oh, there you go. And and Jerry, you have to wear that through the whole meeting. [laughter] The whole year. The whole meeting. The whole year.

Oh, you're saying the whole year. Okay, Amber and Casey and Heather, is there anybody I've forgotten awardwise or have we covered everything? We are We welcome all of you to stay if you would like to stay for the meeting. But if you would not like to stay for the meeting, this is probably a good time if you were here for uh the parade information, but you're always welcome to stay if you'd like. So, I will give you that option. [laughter] [clears throat] Thank you. Not you, Mark. [laughter] That's right. Yes.

What? [snorts] [clears throat] I don't have an agenda. I got it. Okay. Before we um move on, we have a um presentation by Tom Rose, our public works director, about our brush truck service update. Tom, were you wanting to wear the crown?

No, I'm [laughter] I'm good. No one can truly wear that crown like Jerry does. I will say this, Tom. You do an amazing job of heading up the town employees uh for doing the float and for getting the middle school band on the float and for collecting the items. We really really appreciate it. Yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. It is. Agree. Okay, I'm going to let you talk a little bit about the brush truck service.

Let's see. Okay. So, just uh earlier uh last year we went through a little bit of what uh our brush service uh issues that we were having. So, talked to Dave and Todd and put together the presentation kind of discuss what we had been working through for the last several months and a plan what we're going to that we're proposing to you all to see what your uh thoughts are on as far as moving forward with our brush truck service. [snorts] Um, so a little bit about uh existing service uh regulations for our brush truck service here in town. Uh, we only pick up we pick up single pile. Uh, no commercial cut brush. We only pick up at residential homes. Any leaves have to be in biodegradable bag. Uh, sizes of um, limbs can't be larger than 6 inch in diameter, no longer than 10 feet. uh over, you know, sometimes over the years we have people who make some who hire somebody professionally come in and cut down maybe a significant amount of trees or limbs on their property. And um you know, that's something that we don't pick up if it's been commercially cut, we don't pick that up. But if we can't find out if it has been commercially cut or not, then we go ahead and and pick that up. Uh sometimes, especially last year, we've had a significant amount of brush that was dropped off. Um uh in the springtime, that's typically where we see most of our brush is when people first kind of come out of that winter and uh when it first comes to a warm day, we get a long weekend. We see a lot of brush start picking up and that's when um we start struggling a little bit. We struggled a little bit last year as far as being able to keep up with the amount of brush that was put out. Um feel free to interrupt with any questions at any time. Uh don't have a problem with that. Uh just want to kind of go into looking back um a little bit at least over the last 10 years. I've

been here for a little over 10 years now. Back in 2015 uh when I first started here, our brush truck cycle, we try to keep it on about a 4 to 6 week cycle to hit every home in about a 4 to 6 week time frame. Uh back then in 2015, we had 11 about 11,000 residential locations. We had two brush trucks. They carry about 70 cubic yards each and we split operations on the east and west side. Now back then our brush trucks didn't run constantly. Uh we had we'd run two brush trucks at a time. They'd make about a two to three week cycle. They'd stop. They would mow for about a week, then they come back on a brush truck, work brush truck for about two to three weeks, and then go back to mowing for two to three weeks. So it kind of went back and forth a lot. We had a lot of issues start to develop because as you can see from the bar graph up there, the little line graph u kind of shows what our growth rate was over the last 10 years. Uh we're up to about 16,000 residential locations. Eventually between 15 2015 and 2025 it got to the point where and I think probably around 2017 2018 it got to the point where there just too many homes. We couldn't keep up with the same number of people running the brush trucks as mowing. So, we hired some more people to take over mowing. And we had a dedicated brush truck crew. We had four people. We had two uh twoerson brush trucks at that time. And uh they were able to keep up with that four four to six week time frame. Sometimes it's a little bit shorter in the summer when people aren't cutting as much, but typically it's four to six weeks we're shooting for. And again, like I said in uh right now, we're currently have we're running two brush trucks. We have three brush trucks. So, we've got a uh a oneperson brush truck we bought in 2024. We have

two twoperson brush trucks we ran in 2015 and 2004. A little bit about the difference between those [clears throat] is that a single person is somebody where who's operating in the cab driving the vehicle to a location. They get out of the cab and immediately right behind them are the u uh joystick and the toggles to be able to manipulate the arm to be able to pick up all the brush. The two person requires somebody sitting on on top of the cab while someone drives it through a subdivision and the person on top operates the uh boom to be able to grab the brush, put it in the back. Uh definitely the two p the one person brush truck is what we're going to go to in the future. We need to replace them. You can see one of our vehicles is a 2004. It is an older vehicle. It's really just kept uh running in such a way where we can use it kind of more in emergency situations. [clears throat] But we've gone, like I said, we've gone from 11,000 residential locations up to 16,000 residential locations. Uh a little bit about the challenges we had in spring, early summer of last year. Normally, we've had about two, three homes with what we call excessive brush, meaning that they line their entire front of their property with brush, 6 to 8 ft high, uh [clears throat] 10 ft deep. This LA that last year was slowed us down tremendously. We had 35 homes that just dumped brush instantly. And it would take all day for one brush truck to go to one of those houses, load up, haul off, come back, get another load, haul off, come back, and take it all the way down to uh Florence Road. So, it really set us back. We probably were running about a 10 week cycle at that point and getting brushed and started getting a lot of phone calls. I know you guys got a lot of phone calls and concerns from citizens on what we're going to do. So that's when Dave, myself, Todd sat down, started discussing it and come up with a game

plan on how we're going to help keep this from getting out of hand uh in the future. So I'm going to be getting to that here shortly. Okay. I'll be patient. What? I'll be patient. All right. He wanted you to repeat that because he's not used to hearing you saying that.

That's okay. That's okay. [laughter] uh a little bit about some of the just went around saw some pictures of some brush. Some of it seemed like it might be compliant. Uh just want to point out to everybody who might be watching if that's a laser pointer. No, it's not. But uh you see like the larger pieces of brush in the picture on the left. Also on the picture on the right, there's a sidewalk under there. Please don't pile your brush up on top of the sidewalk. Had another incident where a person uh put all the brush in the road, blocked a lane of traffic. Please don't do that. You're going to be responsible for it in case someone does have an accident. Uh, another thing that the guys deal with sometimes is that larger logs left and left in the brush pile. Sometimes they'll pile it at the very bottom and put a bunch of brush on top to pretend like it's not there. And the larger logs that is. So we call them and we tag it and make them come out there and separate out the smaller limbs from stuff that exceeds what we can haul off. And just let you know those 6 in diameter and 10 foot long is not our requirements. That's requirements for city of Murph. They operate the mulching facility on Florence Road and they tell us that you know these are our stipulations we have to live by. So, if we start bringing them stumps, things like that, they're not going to allow us to haul to their uh their mulching facility. Uh last one was actually a pretty good uh pile. I saw that on the way to work. It's on Brook Haven uh right off of Brook Haven when the little rose off there and u just nice pile kept uh kept all together nice and tight and uh had correct diameter of material inside of it. Uh, so I started contacting some of the municipalities in our area to find out what they do with brush truck with their brush truck service, how they provide it. A lot of them used to have what they called a chipper service. Now they've gone straight to a brush truck service.

They don't chip on site anymore because that's extremely as hazardous as well as excessive amount of time to do that. Uh, Lever right up the road, they have two brush trucks. They operate on about a 6 to 8 week cycle. They take a 10 x 10 x5 pile each cycle until complete. Meaning if you got a pile that's 10 by 10 well let's say it's a 30t long 10 x5 they would take a third of it one time 6 to 8 weeks later they come back around they take another third 6 to 8 weeks later they take the rest of it. So that's kind of how they operate. If it's less if it's equal to or less than that size they will take it all at once. uh city of Murphersboro, they have about uh they have 14 brush trucks as well as a pickup truck that goes out to do, you know, special calls. Uh they operate on about a three-week cycle. Anything larger than a 6x6x5 size, they leave it for their extra brush truck. What they do is they contact the owner, let them know that's an excess pile. And if the owner agrees to pay that pay, they charge them a $100 fee per load. And if the person agrees to pay that, then they add that into their utility bill. Um, if they don't agree to pay the $100 fee to haul off the brush, then eventually codes enforcement comes out and they start finding them for litter until it's either the $100 is agreed to to be paid or the pile's gone. Uh, city of Gallatin brush service. Gallatin is about 55,000 population. They run eight brush trucks. Um they take about one week to a 6 to 8 week cycle to go through and pick up all their brush. I can't imagine it taking long to [clears throat] pick up brush with eight brush trucks and uh 55,000 people person population. Anything

larger than 20 cubic yards, which is about a 10 by 10 x5 area, about the same size of uh pretty much same size as Lever has. um they'll charge a $75 uh fee per trip for every time that the brush truck will come to your house and haul off, but it's just for anything larger than that. So, the brush service would still be, you know, a regular service for people. They would not have to pay anything extra as long as they didn't exceed any of those pile sizes or anything like that. Any questions or anything? Yes.

So, all right. So, we looked at uh what some other municipalities are doing and put together some optional recommendations. One of them is no change, not to do anything. Wait to see if we have any excessive brush piles this next year. Uh another option is to put in the budget and purchase uh two oneperson brush trucks. They're about a4 million a piece. So, you're talking $500,000 investment. We would not have to hire any new employees because that would be one brush truck. We currently have one brush truck with a single person and another brush truck that has two people. So we take the two twoperson brush truck and break those people out and each of them would operate a brush truck separately. So again, we would not have to hire any new employees. That way we run three brush trucks continuously and we could have an we would have an extra brush truck that we would probably keep and not au auction off in case one's broken down or in case we needed to have a special run. Uh, another option is to hire a third-party company to come out and pick up brush. I called several of them. They gave me prices that vary anywhere between 2,000 and $5,000 to pick up a 10 by10 by anything larger than a 10 x 10 x5 area. So, kind of excessive cost on that. And uh we also looked at a policy change for excessive brush. And Mr. Peach helped out putting that together, writing that uh policy. Um I don't have any thoughts or anything so far?

Yes, sir. So um the first comment is um on your previous page where you're talking about um what other communities are doing. Obviously I was thinking when you were saying you're going to charge potentially charge someone let's say $100 for per load for an oversized load, right? So, uh, let's say it's, you know, three loads, 300 bucks or whatever. Um, compared to the cost to have somebody come pick it up. That's still a deal. Yes.

And so, I don't think that's going to detour the problem. They're all just going to say, "I'd rather pay you 300 bucks than pay somebody five grand." So, it's not going to stop them from piling it up out in the street. It's just going to get us more money. Money doesn't actually fix our problem unless we buy a truck or do something, right? So, I don't know that that's going to really help solve the issue because I would still put it out there and just pay the 300 bucks or whatever because it's a lot cheaper than paying someone else, which is my only other alternative. Um, the u the other question I have is um it seems like with the 2004 brush truck, we need to buy one truck soon anyway. Um whether we fix this issue or not, we've got one that's pretty much aging out even though that's our spare. That's our only spare. So, um, two trucks might fix the problem, but it seems like that's a little bit of a different, we probably need to spend money on at least one anyway. So, maybe that to me seems like a different issue. That's more of a maintenance of our equipment problem. Two would help fix our problem because we get another one in the in the thing. Um, and then I guess the the last one is I don't like the third party brush pickup obviously because that's [clears throat] going to cost [snorts] us a boatload of money,

right? So, that's my comments. I I kind of was as you were going through them I was thinking I was like how's that going to help or how's this going to help right so the only thing that really is no change or buy two trucks is really the only thing I see as an option so to fix the problem right what is your what is your recommendation to us of what you would like to see happen

well what I think would help is we need to keep maintain a schedule so if we do come up with someone who come on someone who has an excessive brush pile. We let them know it's going to cost a fee and then we leave it and we have two trucks that continuously run their route without stopping to handle anything like that. Once we agree on picking up that load, whatever it is, if we charge a fee or whatever is decided, then that would be bringing in bringing in a third brush truck, having those people on who probably normally our guys work in ditch crew. So, we would have our ditch crew take that uh take over one of our third brush trucks at that time and go pick it up. Now, I do agree that it's getting to the point where that older brush truck is aging out. So, it would be great to get to that point where we can buy another oneperson brush truck. And that way, instead of having two people on that, we have one person on that brush truck. And then even [clears throat] though it's a twoerson brush truck, if it's something where they're coming out to just pick up one pile for that day, that person can go operate on their own because they can set it up, get out of the vehicle, spend some time picking up a larger brush pickup, and then haul it off and come back. Um,

what is the what does this ditch crew do normally? Normally they go around cleaning out culverts, repairing driveways, uh digging out ditches, things like that. Because honestly, I I'm not sure we can afford for that to get behind either because now now pulling them off on 35 piles of trash in a year in a three-month period, right? That's pretty much if each one of those took a whole day, that's 35 work days out of eight weeks, right? So they're really not doing much ditch work now, right? Which is a whole another problem. So we we might be just moving the problem.

It is a little bit of that. And it it's tough because we're in that transition stage of a size of community who's gone from two brush trucks occasionally running or running about half the time to now two of them running constantly to now we're at the point where we really need, you know, we can look at adding a complete third brush truck running all the time. And that would help out during the high peak times. But at the same time, like I said, we got to the point where we were we were running a route in about two weeks. That was a last time I talked to the guys probably for the last two or three months, they've been running around in two weeks. So then it gets to the point where, you know, we don't really need a third brush truck for certain times of the year. So it's kind of that transition time of really needing that third brush truck. I think you said at the beginning we have four people. Are those people those aren't are those dedicated or No, they're also still cutting grass.

We have three people dedicated to brush truck right now. So, one on the single and two on the the twoerson brush truck. So, buying one truck, we now have a person kind of out, right? If we bought another single person truck, we'd have two single person trucks, but one person and then we have that third person and they could be dedicated to handling excess brush. And then they could also help out with the ditch crew or mowing things like that as well. So there would definitely be a place for them. If we look at doing a new truck, I'm assuming that's in the next budget year. Yes, [clears throat] there have a question. Sure.

Is this was there a storm or anything that was promoting more brush during that period and do we wait and see if that was an anomaly? We we did have some storms that time of year. Uh well, I shouldn't say storms. We had a lot of excess rain because as you know, we got behind on our our mowing as well. But that was really more excess rain than it really was any storm event. There might have been one or two storm events that did cause some of that. But a majority if it was just people posit people hiring uh other people to come out companies come out maybe on the weekend or we didn't know about it and they cut a bunch of brush and put it out there you know and the reality is is that you know a lot of the homes that are being built now they have very small trees and stuff in their yard but as those tree as those homes get older and any trees people will plant get bigger and bigger our brush truck needs are going to continue to Mayor.

Sure.

I think I think with um just [clears throat] the trucks themselves and uh Council Member Sullivan [clears throat] said it's a it's a separate issue. In some ways it is. I think that's just something we need to look at through the budget process. It makes to me perfect sense to move from a twoman truck to a one-man truck, trying to gain that efficiency and try to free up some staff who's dedicated to that on occasion to be able to do other things within the department. Um, so I I think my recommendation would be that we we look at that moving forward. Um, and as those trucks age out, we we make that switch. As it relates to the the excessive brush piles, um, that is two viable options and concerns. one, you know, was this an anomaly? Is this going to continue to occur? I think the excessive brush piles are in some degree are going to increase just just based off of new homes that we have, but at the same time, [clears throat] I don't know if we're going to see 36. If if we do, it's just to recognize that that does become a problem. And quite frankly, it's an equity equity issue for the rest of the community because we're not getting to those in other neighborhoods as quickly as we should because of piles that are not compliant with with our rules. So, it really just a matter of we probably need to handle that in some fashion. Um, recouping some costs, I think, is it's not going to be a deterrent, but it's more of a cost recovery type of type of issue.

Yeah. So, um, from what I'm hearing, what I think would make sense was for next year's budget, I think we should probably try to look at adding one truck to replace the 2004 truck, a single man truck automatically, whether we, no matter what else we do, we probably need to do that for next year's budget. Since the period of time you were looking at was April to June, that's coming up and it's really before June. So, maybe we look at it this spring and see if it was an anomaly. And if it was, then let's do amend a budget amendment in June or July and add a second truck if we need to. But rather than make that decision now because we may have an anomaly, right? It may have been a one-off.

Well, you know, do we put a restriction on the size of the pile? You know, because like I said, a lot of commercial cutters are coming in and that's reduced cost of the homeowner. I know we've had 13 trees taken out in the last few years and and uh we always just let them mulch and put it on the property. So, do you rather than add more resources to it, try to limit the size of the pile? Well, I I think you could My concern with that is is do we end up creating a situation where we've we've created a problem for a homeowner that they don't know how to resolve now? if if my pile's a little bit too big, right?

And now they come and get the 10 x 10 or they don't get any of it and now I got to figure out what to do with it. Maybe I did cut my own, right? Maybe I didn't pay a company. And that's the problem is it's too hard to know when it's a company and when it's not, unless you happen to see tree service out there doing the work, right? And that's that's why I'm trying to get try not to impact the citizens any more than we already are. The ones that are following the rules and doing it right. Um, and I appreciate whatever you guys are doing to try to figure out which ones are not legit because I think that's a that's hard to figure out. I saw work being done down here on Mayfield on Christmas Day and it was two folks out in the yard cutting down tree limbs and piling them up. It's a huge pile, but I have no way of knowing whether they were homeowners or or a company,

right? Because it was just two people. So, are we opposed to letting them tag those piles that are oversized? Tell the homeowner there's going to be a charge to doing those as well as looking at putting the truck in the budget for the upcoming year. But what Steve recommended in regards to looking at the spring and are we having those um additional piles and then either put leaving it in for the budget or taking it out based on what we see. Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, if they're costing us, maybe it will help deter um if there's a fee, but also it does offset some cost. I think it might be a nightmare for you guys to manage

because you got to try to guess how many loads it's going to be and how much to charge them and what if it's not and but that's for you guys, right? So, um but yeah, I agree with that. I hear about 10. Well, and will we have to bring that back to vote on to put in the fee schedule, Jeff? I would think so. If you're making it part of the fee. Yes. [cough] Yeah. [clears throat] If if you're just going to Dave and I were just talking the other way is if it just doesn't meet it, then you could site them and you wouldn't have to put that in the in the ordinance. But, uh, you're probably not going to get as much as you would from I would really rather not site on the front end as opposed to seeing if they wanted it. Give them an option first and if they don't want to do it, then we start cing. Yeah.

And that that's how we kind of thought about it. If we did implement a fee, then we'd provide them the opportunity. Um, and then if they, you know, didn't respond or said no, then then we could move over to to that enforcement mechanism. Yeah. When when we're talking about that, are we talking are you talking about are you thinking like just piles that are bigger than the 10 x 10 or like piles that have logs in it? You know, I I think you said earlier that if the logs are in there, you guys kind of call them and tell them to separate it before you pick up anything. I mean, is that how that would work still? Could they still separate out the brush, pick that up and then deal with the logs separate or? So, we can't pick up the logs at all. Anything larger than 6 in diameter, 10 ft long, we can't pick it up because of the restrictions we have. It doesn't matter with the fee or not, you can't get the logs.

Correct. Okay. So, could you bring back to us what you all are going to put in place so that we at least as an update what you're going to do to move forward with the charging? And and I is that what you're going to do here?

Well, yep. That was the policy idea we worked around with Jeff is um yeah, anything larger than a 10 by10, we would tag it, let the property owner know that they can haul it off themselves or we could haul it off for a fee. That way that truck doesn't stop. That truck just tags it, lets them know and they keep going on the regular routes, gets to the people who are doing it the right way, don't have excess of brush, and that way we don't fall into like a 10 week out cycle. We're still saying stay staying on four to six week cycle for something like an excess of brush pickup. We would activate that third brush truck and then come pick that up and maybe as you said see how it goes this time add into the budget. If we decide we really need this third brush truck we're at that point where we need to add another one person maybe at that point we we do that. I just want us to be really careful about how we tag that we're that the homeowner knows what's going on.

Yeah, we we will amount. How are you? You you just chose the $100 based on Murphy'sboro charged that I think gallon was $75. So we said 300. So that's why I'm wondering there were a couple different loads. Like it depends on the load. Like we haul our truck will haul 70 cubic yards. So most likely we can haul whatever they put in their front yard, even the maximum amount, that can most likely be hauled off in one to two loads at the most. And and Tom, some of the questions that I received from uh council members was are we going to know how many truckloads it's going to take by looking at a pile? And I think our if you could just address that.

We can kind of estimate that a little bit. We can take some rough measurements of it and then of course calculate you compact it down a little bit, but we can give them an idea if it's going to be close to two or close to three. Yeah. I think the only comment else I would say there is if we estimated at two and it ends up being three, I don't think we should go back and ask them for another one. That was our fault for missing because you're going to get in a situation where you've hauled off two, it was really three, now you owe me another $100. It just gets messy. So, make an estimate, best guess. That's what it is. That's what we're going to charge you to hold it off. And that's it.

The other thing I would ask is I think we need to do a lot of education. I think we need to educate about what is and isn't allowed. I think we need to educate about what we're looking at doing. And I think that's probably going to be multiple times that we're going to have to do that. Okay.

All right. Okay. So, if I just want to make sure I'm I'm clear, council would like to see a policy come come before them, see what we're what we're thinking, and then as well when we have that discussion what that implementation time frame would look like. And and of course, it sounds like if we do move forward with that, and if we don't, regardless, we need to do an education campaign on what's legal brush and what's not legal brush. and putting the thing in the and putting the one in the budget. At least one truck in the budget. Yeah, we'll look at that through the budget process for sure. Yeah, with with the plan to get rid of the 04 truck. Great. Yes. No, I thought it was keep it as a standby. It's already a standby. Yeah, we keep the 15 as a standby.

Right. Okay. Other questions? Thanks. Yeah, I've got to say something. No, you don't. I'm not sure that I agree with charging these people. It's not like they're re repeat offenders or anything like that. They've had a situation, something that has come up and caused them a problem and so they've put all of it out there. How many times is going to happen to the same person again? And I don't know. Yeah, it has happened to me. I have put large loads out there, but [snorts] uh So, you want to give him a warning? This time it's too big. We'll take it this time, but next time you get a fine. No, I want to pick her stuff up and go on about our business like no matter what it

Okay,

I'm I'm not sure. I don't agree with USG. I'm starting to feed these people. Not something I care to do. Um what's working right now seems to work well. Uh if we can differentiate what's commercially cut and what's not, we've been doing that. Not sure I see the need to change it. That's just my perspective of it. Well, I' I'd like to we see the period of time that we have that issue come and go to have some more discussion on it. You know, whether we need another truck, whether we need to implement a policy change. But there's there's offenders out there that that hire commercial people to cut and and then it they put it out there for us to call off. I'm not saying everyone does that, but you know, how do you alleviate that? You know, how do you alleviate us basically becoming that commercial? You know,

that's not new. That's been going on all along. Yeah. Yeah. The the issue with that though is is those offenders are [clears throat] causing an impact to everyone else who's following the rules. Yeah. Because it's slowing down truck routes. And I don't think the offender is the homeowner. The offender is the tree service. That's right. Because they know I I've heard of cases where the tree service said, "I can just pile it up here though." Well, it goes back to and the homeowner didn't know that. I mean, agree. If we're educating the public that you can't commercially cut, expect to have it picked up. You've nailed it right there. Unless we don't have to charge them anything. let's educate, you know, draft up a policy, wait for that time period and re-evaluate it.

And even if people did just keep it to that 10x 10 x6 or smaller size and so if they cut down certain number of trees or limbs and then 3, four weeks later did the same thing again and then the same thing again, it wouldn't slow us up, right? You know, it's it's the massive amount all at once. Storm damage and storm damage. Yeah. Well, and back to the other side of that, how do you differentiate what 10 x10 pile is? I mean, it's differentiating one or the other. It's, you know, it's who's going to who's going to measure a pile of of a brush? It's eyesight. And then it's it's up to the states. So So, majority council, do you want something brought back with the money attached or without the money attached?

Without. You're without. You're without. I I don't care. I didn't see the value in the money anyway. It doesn't really solve our problem but to get $100. So I don't really care what that is.

Rael, I'm I'm more concerned with I understand the money doesn't resolve the problem, but if we're having to go and get it and we're wait we're driving gas and at least we get something to help with that issue. But I'd rather go ahead and do the evaluation, see what this time period brings, and then make a decision on it after they bring it back to us. But just because we don't do the money doesn't mean we can't tag it and tell them that we're not that it's commercial cut that we're not going to pick up. So we still solve that pro solve that issue too. So okay. So we're in agreement. We're going to or Jerry, sorry.

No, that's okay. I mean you you said on some that what they would do if there was more than that load out there, they just take one one month, they take one the next month and take the next month. that that might you were talking about the Vern. Lever does that. The only problem with that is you could have brush laying out there for 60 days before it's ever picked up and that's a that could be an aesthetic issue for the rest of the community. That's the only concern about that. No, no charge for me. Mayor, no charge. Okay. So, Jerome, you were no charge. Yes.

Okay. So, it sounds like we want something brought back or do we at that point do we even need to have anything brought back because we're not it's we're not having to to vote on anything regulations in place right now in terms of the size of the brush pile. So, we'll see what operational changes, education, um, program changes, and then, and then when we get into the April, July time frame after July or sooner if if we feel like we need to, we'll we would come back and and give you guys an update and tell you, but you still have the option to move on from that brush load to bypass it and let them know that because it's too large, we can't Okay. All right. We'll do it. Are you good? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Perfect.

Okay. Um, does that mean you have something or you're No, I was just a little tap of irritation. It didn't mean anything but anybody but me.

Okay, got it. Okay, so we will move into our items for discussion. And first we have public comment. And the town's public comment period shall be reserved for those citizens that have signed up to address the town council or a border committee at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting pursuant to the town's public comment policy. Speakers are limited to 3 minutes and additional comments may be submitted in writing. Tonight we have two people coming to speak under public comment. When you come forward, I'd ask that you state your name, your address, and if you live in the town limits. And um we ask that everybody here be respectful of those that are speaking. And um um that we ask that there'll be no clapping or any cheering or anything like that. um that everybody gets their time to speak. So our first person is Joe Gurley about the Morton Lane renaming. Mr. Gurley, [snorts] thank you. I'm here to speak on item 22, the naming of the Morton Lane uh bridge over Rocky Fort branch. I just want to kind of

stop you for will you just give your name, address, and if you live in the I'm My name is Joe Gurley. I live at 3542 Morton Lane and I live in the town of Smyrna. Thank you.

For a long time. [laughter] The uh I got to thinking about, as many of you know, we sold our farm into public domain back in '04. uh first to the county who built schools on it. The town got a parcel for a fire station. They built the fire station on it and then a few years later uh part of it was sold uh from the county to the city and uh Cedarstone Park has uh evolved uh on the 80 acres on the uh south side of Morton Lane. Many of you may not know that prior to 1959, Morton Lane didn't exist. When my family bought the farm in 55, it was just a pig path that went to our driveway and no further. Now, we had a neighbor a half mile at the base of the hill, which is the Ryan development, that also had a house and lived there. His name was Benny Smith. And every time it rained, the road would wash out on the hill. And many of you know that that hill is steep. Uh so he came to my dad and asked him to give a right away across the bottom. Well, at that time in 1959 and we saw no real benefit to at all to that. Uh it meant fencing a half mile on either side of the road with bobwire, which we did the following summer. But the county took the road over and extended and connected the two portions, the hillside and the lane that went up from Amville Road. Eventually, a bridge in the 70s was built which was deemed unsuitable. Uh when the town

annexed and decided to build a fire station, it was rebuilt. But uh I got to thinking of how I could honor my parents. And what gave me the idea was I was in Pigeon Forge several months ago and on Veterans, which is the back entrance to Pigeon Forge, there is a bridge named for the a memorial bridge named for the farm that it went through. So my proposal is to name that bridge over Rocky Fort Branch the Girly Farm Memorial Bridge. I think that's a good way to remember our egg roots. I've thought of several others. The Lee family's farm, uh, the Batty Gryom. I could go on and on out in just my area and I'm sure there are other areas of the town of Smyrna, but up until a few years ago, we had a very agricultural enterprise here and within the not in the town of Smyrna, but right on the fringes of it, we were a part of Smyrna.

So, thank you and I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, we will move on to item one, which is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute a contract amendment with Thomas and Hutton. Speaker. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Um, there is another speaker. Uh, Mr. Nepal, but I'm not sure that Mr. Nepal was going to speak. Is Mr. Nepal here? There's not another speaker.

Not another speaker. There is on paper, but I I thought that we figured out Mr. Manipal was not going to be here. Um, so we'll move on to item one, which is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute a contract amendment with Thomas and Hutton for permitting services relative to the Cedarstone Park phase 2. Mike.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Councel. Um, as you well know, we've been working on plans for phase two for a while now. [clears throat] Pretty close to getting those done. um where we can get this bid out. Uh during the time we brought this to the planning commission, it was asked, excuse [clears throat] me, uh to do a updated hydraulic determination um for that property and most of the area that phase 2 is or some of the areas over near the creek um and we needed to update that. So you can see u I went back to Thompson Hutton to uh look at this and they worked with a subcontractor uh to get us uh to to start that process. And when we did that, we did find out there was some uh delineated wetlands in there. And you can see in the information there once it hits over half an acre, it got goes into a different permitting process. Um so I do have Ryan Shambbley and Caitlyn Howard here tonight to if you got any really tough questions that I can't answer. Uh I'll I'll turn it over to them. I did want to explain to you kind of the process and the price. So uh the amendment will go through Thomas and Hutton and it's a flow through um to their subcontractor SMME and they did reduce the the flow through price for us by 5%. I really appreciate that. Also I want to let you know that we have a teams meeting tomorrow with the core of engineers and tde core has authority over those waters and those areas. So, we want to get a timeline about bidding the project uh versus the permitting. And you can see um if you look in the contract amendment uh where kind Ryan wrote that up, it says as requested by the planning commission, the hydraulic determination for the site is out of date. Needs to be made current. The required work was performed by personnel certified by the TAC hydraulic termination training and as a result wetlands have US Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction when delineated requiring additional permitting. And the summary of the work is below that. And you can

see the price. Um the total amount uh well the 25,251 is for most of the permitting. And you can see if additional services were needed, it was 10,450 more. So I figured instead of come back and ask for more, it'd be best to go ahead and uh had that in the contract amendment. Um I apologize. I did not put an exhibit in there. Um Ryan did bring one, but it's basically on the eastern side of the property towards the creek. And most of you have been out there, you kind of know where I'm talking about. If you've got questions, I'd love to hear it. Questions for Mike on this.

Are there different levels of core uh jurisdiction? I mean, I can remember when we were dealing with the Gregory Mill 20 20 years ago or whatever that they talked about that their jurisdiction stopped at the dam there, but now we're talking about way on up and sure even in a different tributary than Stew Creek. I'll probably need Ryan or Caitlyn to answer that, but I can tell you we did deal with that at West Fork as well. It's kind of that same situation. It's really not a creek, but it's a there's wetland in there or water in there that they deal with. Let me let Caitlyn talk her language.

Uh yeah, so I'm Caitlyn Howard with SNME. I'm a natural resources project manager. Uh work on the Cedarstone project with Ryan and Mike. Uh essentially to answer your question, water resources are constantly changing on the federal level. Uh it seems like every time we get a new president, we get a new cycle of regulations that come with it. But for the moment, that wetland in question, wetland D, nearest to Rocky Fork Branch, you call it wetland D.

Wetland D. There were other wetlands identified on the property. However, they were isolated and currently the Army Corps does not regulate those. But wetland D is connected to Rocky Fort Branch through a series of channels and those channels are what create the jurisdiction. So, is there a level that goes to Gregory Mill and then stops? So, when was that, Mike? When was that? Yes. 2003. I had to think for years. I had not been practicing that long, but I imagine the water resources regulations were incredibly lax back then.

Okay. HD. I think on on Gregory Mill they were just concerned about the uh field within the within the core's jurisdiction. They wanted to balance on it. Balance aside. Yeah. We couldn't we could follow the cut pos.

Can can you tell a little bit about how y'all tested to find out test the soil just go out there and look at it that type of

Oh, sure. So for an area of land to be considered a wetland, it has to meet three criteria defined by the core. Essentially, it needs to have hydrophic vegetation. That's vegetation that prefers to live in wet conditions. You need to have hydrarology, whether that's surface water or water that's just beneath the surface. Sometimes it leaves indicators in the soil. Uh sometimes it leeches tannins out of leaves, creates dark leaves on the surface. uh really the conditions range widely but it's the presence of water that creates these conditions and as Mike was mentioning soils over time as the soil profiles inundated you have a change in the chroma or the hue of the soil essentially the iron that's present in the soil will turn towards the reduced form which is more gray in color as opposed to upland soils it's exposed to oxygen think of rust rusted iron, it turns like orange and brown. So you'll start to see more of those colors in upland circumstances.

So that's what the study is to determine the levels, right? The study is to determine how frequently throughout the year an area is inundated or saturated with water. Okay? And so the additional service is if something changed in the water, you'd have to do additional archaeological studies. Is that right?

Okay. So as far as the species studies go and the archaeological survey that's mentioned, essentially the Army Corps is responsible for making sure that any project that they authorize or oversee does not impact federally protected species or cultural resources. On the state side of things, the TACK is charged with ensuring that no state protected species are harmed during any of their projects. So what's the additional services then for archaeological reconnaissance? I don't understand what that means because it's already says archaeological study is part of task five under the phase that you're already doing, right?

Okay. So the one that's included in the bulk of the permitting fees already, not the additional, that is a background review that is desktop only. It will go on to the state historic preservation office for uh review during permitting. And at that time, the preservation office can require that we go back and do an infield survey. So it's kind of as a if it's required, it's going to be that additional $10,000 figure.

Okay. Okay. Other questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, we'll put it on the agenda. I did um forget to remind not only council but the public, our first 13 items are items that would fall under the consent agenda um at our meeting next week. So item two is approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute a rental agreement for the from here to there exhibit for the Smyrna Outdoor Adventure Center. Mike

Yeah, thank you mayor. Uh and also want to say thank you Caitlyn. You can see why I wanted her to answer that question. Um the SOAK continues to to rent approximately three educational exhibits per year. Um and the staff has again coordinated the rental of the the popular from here to there exhibit uh for the summer of of 2026. It will run from May to September and it's a hands-on exhibit. We have had this exhibit before. Uh was very popular and it's a good time to have it because our summer camps will be happening very busy in the summer and we're just asking for the mayor um to approve this uh after it's on the council agenda. Uh the cost of the exhibit for the three-month period is $29,500 plus whatever shipping cost we will have at that time.

Questions for Mike? Yes, sir. Um I think in the description it costs for 3 months and then also in the somewhere in there it calls for May through September. So when you know May through September I think is five months or something. Yeah. Typically it comes in at the end of the month and we'll it takes us a week to set it up. Right. And then we have to pack it up. Takes another week. So when we get the official dates uh so the date that you exhibit it will be 3 months typically around 3 months. You got a set up and a take down.

Yes sir. And that can change like if u if it needs to come quicker or later. Um but it's typically the the the month the time period you're paying for is 3 months. Um they're usually typically three months or you can extend them to six months. But you do sometimes get more weeks out of it than what you really planned. And that's we try not to have gaps down there, but when we do, we just kind of set up some games and things out there. But it's a good question. I appreciate that question. Other questions? Item three is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with CBRE relative to the Stewarts Creek gravity sewer sewer project reappraisals. Hey, Mike. Hey, how are you? Great.

Okay, so um let me back up just a little bit. We had discussed before, this is on the Steuart's Creek sewer project. So, we had already started getting appraisals and CBRE had gotten 23 appraisals. Then we met with TAC Environmental. They told us we could not put the thing where they want we wanted it to go. We had to lower everything below the creek, which caused reappraisals, which we now have to go back and get. So, a couple of questions to that. One, is it standard practice that we would do the appraisals prior to going to TECK to ask them for the information that we gained to know it had to go lower?

We didn't know there was going to be a problem until someone spoke to environmental, which is typically there's not one, but what they said was where we had some crossings that were coming up in the creek. They called it in pounding water. So, we had several options. You can technically go to banks or lending institutions and buy credits for somewhere else. Oh, excuse me, somewhere else to let it go. But the estimate on that cost was 7.5 to $8.5 million additional for the project. So, it was easier to do the redesign and get everything down below where they were happy with it. Um,

but when we originally designed it, why was it it not found that we were going to need to go this low? I'll be honest. I don't remember exactly. We weren't to the we were to the point that we were getting ready to submit the design plans. We had already started getting easements because there's a lot of them that we have to get for this project.

And environmental actually, I think, jumped in and said, "Hold on, there could be a problem." So we set up a meeting with them, stopped getting easements and went from there. So that's that's kind of how we were. Typically that happens when you submit to Tekk and and everybody does their review, but I think SEC reached out to them just to take a look and once they did, we put all stop on easement acquisition and and called them in for a meeting. That's when we found out. Okay, other questions? this list of banks and such as that uh we haven't go back to them.

We do not because we redesigned and lowered everything below the creek so we we are not impounding water. Other questions?

Okay, we'll put that on the agenda. Item four is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with the city of Leverne for the Blair Road project gas relocation project. So this is part of the road widening project Lever is doing. The big piece is Waldron Road, but within that they're they're realigning some stuff on Blair Road, which impacts our 6-in gas going up Waldron and the 4 in coming down Blair. Um Mr. Peach worked with Leverne's attorney to come up with this agreement. They have have bid the project and the fiscal impact of this is $272,111. question about this gas relocation.

So, they're going to do all the work and we're paying them to remove our line. It is within the It is within the project. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Other questions? Okay. We'll move on to item five, which is approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with James and Bush Construction Incorporated relative to the Enan Springs Waterline Replacement Project.

Yep. So, this is one where we've had multiple leaks on Enan Springs from Old Nashville Highway down to Mason Tucker. Um Thomas and Hutton did the design, uh bid it out. We did have a million dollars in the capital budget for this year. Uh came back and the cost was $315,614 to Bush Construction. Uh Bush is typically they're our uh gas contractor under contract for now. They branched out into water. So, uh, Ryan with Thomas and Hutton checked their references and everything looked good. And this will be 120day project for them to complete. Does that mean road closures?

That's exactly my next question. The only time we will have to close the road is when we tie in up close to Old Nashville, I think. Is that right, Ryan? Question. Mason Tucker. Sorry, I had the wrong end. You said there was a million dollars budgeted. So, does that mean there's 700,000 you're not going to use? I'm going to use it on the next item. Okay. I was going to say there's Thank you. That's right. Yeah. Go ahead. Um, okay. So, any questions on this? Okay. We'll move on to item six, which is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor [clears throat] to execute an agreement with Jarrett Builders Incorporated relative to the go golf course waterline extension and connection.

Yep. So, uh, the reason this got started, we were working with the airport. They were doing some doing work on one of their runways and, you know, we found out that the water line comes from the base right in front of their runway and feeds the golf course. So, we need to eliminate that issue and and cut the water line off. So, what we're going to do, we'll go on uh to Sam Ridley and tie into the 24 uh run it over to the golf course, tie it in that way, set a meter. Uh, the back nine is already metered. Uh, this will meter the front nine and disconnect the line across the airport authority, which makes everybody happy. And the cost for this was $26,72. And again, we were way over budget on the last one, so we can easily cover the difference here.

I have two questions. First, does that mean we were getting free water before it? It's not free water, but technically yes. Okay. Technically, yes. And so now we're gonna not be getting free water. Okay. Second item. This is fresh water, right? Not sewer water. Not correct. Not uh not reclaim water. Fresh water. That is correct. Okay. So, we have a sprinkler system problem on the reclaim side. And we've had many conversations about putting in a filter. Correct. Since we're going to Sam Ridley and putting in something at Sam Ridley, is this a good time to do that filtration at the same time?

So, here's where we're at with the filter on the reuse. So, what happened was when we repainted the tank, they sandlasted the inside and outside. Some of the sand got down in a low part of the piping that we didn't realize was there. When we turned the reuse on back onto the golf course, it pulled that sound pulled that sand into the heads. Okay. So, we do have one filter there. We're putting an additional filter in. Staff is still trying to get pricing to do that. They have now reached out to a second company who will have to come out and look because it's a special filter, a certain kind of filter, and the the grid of the filter has to be a certain size to stop this from stopping up the head. So, uh, hopefully soon we will have that in and done and Scott will be happy and everybody will be happy. And

Jarrett Builders can't do that as part of this project. No, that's not their wheelhouse. The filter would come think water was either. Yeah. [laughter] Apparently, it is now. Uh, the filter would is a specialty filter that would come and and you know, we've been back and forth uh for the last several months. Yes, we have the filter. Yes, we're working on pricing. We can't we can't get communication back on the pricing. The guy that was handling it left the company. Now we're trying to deal with somebody else. So, they're reaching out to Bar Environmental who has done a lot of filter stuff at the wastewater plant to come in and take a look and get us pricing.

Okay. I'm just trying to push to get that before spring so we don't have the same problem where sir we kill all our greens. Right. Understand. Mike, do they ever pull water out of the creek? They did, but I don't know, Scott, are the pump's still operational? They do have that ability to do that. It was put in like 40 years ago or something. I know they're still using it or not. I remember. We don't need it. The airport's been giving us all this water all this time. I was going to say it was free. [laughter] Well, technically it came from us. It just went through the airport. So, I'm [laughter] here. It was on the airport's meter.

Yeah, that's right. Um any other any other trouble you all want to get us in before we move on to item seven? Um so we will move on to item seven which is approval of the fire department administrative policies and procedures manual. Cameron, how are you? Not bad. How about you? Great.

Good evening, mayor and council. Uh this item is in regards to the uh new fire department policies and procedures manual. Uh what this is, it's a newly developed administrative uh policy that is specific to the fire department and it is uh designed to work in con conjunction with the uh with the town handbook, the uh various um policies uh different industry standards, things like that that we use. Uh we developed this uh handbook through uh peer-led uh committees, senior staff, industry best practices, uh things of that nature. Uh some of the things uh that this is going to address are going to be uh a better definition of our organizational structure, our chain of command, standardizes our terminology, our roles, responsibilities, uh establishes a formal process for updating our policy and uh revising any of our policies. Uh it ensures consistent application between all of our three shifts and all of our divisions. Uh it's going to kind of outline our job requirements, certifications, our uh promotional standards, uh define our training and uh physical fitness standards, uh professional conduct expectations. um gives our personnel a clear uh guidance on uh attendance uh leave PTO scheduling uh overtime standards uh addresses our uniform and grooming standards to ensure uh consistency uh and uh uniformity across all shifts. Uh it will help set our standard for daily operations of our uh stations, equipment, things like that. Uh it gives us a uh defined onduty injury uh reporting process uh to help promote employee safety uh procedures like that.

And it's going to uh give a guideline for the use of department vehicles uh vehicles and resources. Uh we also address the uh social media uh communication uh public conduct uh things that'll kind of strengthen our public trust uh public image uh and then kind of an overview. It's going to align our uh appearance expectations with kind of our public safety image uh for the community. It's going to promote fairness, transparency, and accountability, and then strengthen alignment with town policies and expectations. And uh both town attorney uh Jeff Peach and HR director Jeff Craig have uh reviewed this uh and had no uh comments to it.

Questions for Cameron on this? [clears throat] Yeah, that was going to be my question when I was reading it. Uh no neck and face tattoos. That jumped out at me. Then the next question was going to be has HR and legal reviewed it you said they have. Yes sir. We uh we collaborated with them uh with the draft uh see if we need to make any revisions before we brought it for council approval.

Other questions? Cameron, where are you guys in regards to staffing? Are y'all uh are are y'all fully staffed or am I maybe putting you on the spot? Sorry. uh we are not right at this time but we have uh submitted 10 personnel uh they're in the process with HR and once we get those staff on then we will be at at full staff and they're at uh various stages of going through the psychological testing uh things HR requirements but is there is there a study out there and I can't remember y'all's organization that we get a lot of the studies from um

MTAS And I thought there was one specific other than MTAS that we did with you all but maybe not. Um that look at population growth as to the numbers that we need to have. Uh MTAS does factor in part of that. That was part of our uh 22 MTAS study I believe was the last one. That was one of the factors that they had used into it. Um but I don't know how often uh they do it or if we have to recommend for them to come to another study to base it off of it. Okay. Okay.

Mayor, if I can one of the things that we we looked at, um we'll we'll talk about this a lot more and certainly be showing this to to the council, but that was part of our uh plan of services um project that that myself and Mr. Spearman just worked on and submitted just earlier this month. So, I'm looking forward to showing you that. And what some of the stuff that is in the fire department's portion of that it it does look at MTAS recommendations. It does look at ISO recommendations and it does look at international firefighters association. Did I give that correctly? Okay. uh all three of those to come up with kind of a standard of how to look at growth over you know on an annual basis to determine whether or not we need it is time to uh you know increase level of service.

Um and I'm assuming same for police department. Yes, they they've done a similar analysis and come up with a methodology for analyzing that as well. That's something that be talking about through the budget process of of what they foresee on a forecast like that. Could you send us those just so we can be reviewing that too? Oh, yes, sure. Certainly, that'd be great. If you don't mind sending us that. Okay. Any questions for Cameron?

17.3 tattoos. It says vulgar tattoos are prohibited, but they must be covered. Yeah. Yes, sir. Um we uh we can't dictate what somebody's had. So if if they do have something that you know prior to employment, [clears throat] we would have a mechanism that they would have to remain covered. Uh things like that. The these are kind of in reflection to what the uh the town policy uh already states. It's kind of uh we didn't change uh to make anything different from the town policy. It was kind of uh to reflect what was already in there that wasn't maybe specific in the fire department.

Going to have to cover your tattoo, Mary Esther. I don't got one. Um I I don't I don't know where it was. I didn't write it down at the time, but it was talking about um updating this uh policy here. And what it said was, uh, well, it it just talked about, okay, we're approving this, right? And then it says that it can be changed by the chief or maybe the town manager. Uh,

should it not have to come back before us? I mean, Jeff, I guess that's your question. So the reason and not all places do that but the reason that I have the police department and the fire department bring their standing operating procedures what I would call it uh to you is because as a legislative body you have immunity uh as decision makers as whereas uh an unelected director does not have immunity. So uh will it come back to you? Yes. But it does not state that in the documents. That's just something that I recommend that we always bring it back to council for those policies so that we have immunity as decision makers.

But I don't think it says [cough] [clears throat] So does it need to say it in this document? I don't think so. But if you'd like it to, I'll be more than happy to end it. I just wonder when we're not sitting up here and you're not sitting in that seat, do we want to make sure that councils that come after us have that authority over it of approving or not approving whatever they want to change in the handbook?

Well, there's also some caveats where the chief can make policy at at that moment where we wouldn't have to wait for two months or what have you either. But um but I mean I don't have a problem putting that in there. I've always been an advocate for bringing policies to the town council because of that reason. It's just that the SOPs it's not required with the police either. It's just something that I've always done. What's your recommendation counselor? Uh it's an easy fix. I can put it in there before the council meeting. one Senate says. That's right.

How do you all feel about it? Do you care one way or the other? I mean, if it's going to be one way or the other, why not put it in there? I mean, just it covers everything. So, I think if you're going to put it there, I hate to say it, I think it's going to be put in the police departments, too. Well, and because the fire department put theirs all together at once, but the police already had one, and they've just been making updates because of of accreditation issues. So, you know, that's why you see kind of peacemeal with the police departments. And so, I we can add that there. They'll be bringing items all the time. So, I can always throw that in pretty. So, you said something I want to make sure I'm understanding clearly. You said the SOPs that the chiefs can make changes to. Is that what you said?

Well, they can make policy is what I'm saying. They can make policy. Uh like something comes up that was not dealt with in here, the chief as a director can make policy. It's just that if we want that policy to have more protections in litigation, then the legislative body is the only one that has them. Okay. And so that would cover those items to the sentence that you're going to add to both. Yes. Okay. I had one one comment too on looking at the um organizational chart. I didn't see the town manager or the council on that chart. [snorts]

I I believe this chart it's just specific to to the fire department and then the you know the director over the uh the fire chief it would it would follow the the overall chain of command that's in the the town policy other questions one more just if I could real quick within the the budget document the organizational chart does show that and ends there at the fire department which strictly to the fire department. Okay. All line personnel are required to participate in a minimum of 60 minutes of physical exercise per duty day.

Yes, sir. That that's a kind of an industry standard for uh it it's any type of physical exercise. Um the majority of our personnel are already uh going to uh either the town gym, the gyms that they're stationed. Uh it can be as simple as as walking uh as much as a full workout as as their time allows. But we ask that the 60 minutes to maintain due the physical nature of the job uh to to keep up with the the demands of the job that they stay in some semblance of a physical shape to perform. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. He was just worried it was going to be required of counsel as well. You're exactly right. [laughter] I I didn't

I knew what you were thinking. I knew it. I probably wouldn't. Okay. Item eight is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute a federal contract with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD for fiscal year 2025 CDBG entitlement funds for a new playground at Rosenwald Hilltop Park. Good evening, council.

Are you out? Um, so yeah, this is just a grant agreement with HUD for the fiscal year of 2025 uh for the entitlement fund. At the moment, this is not a formal approval of the contract. This is just an agreement that say that the town of Smyrna will uh adhere to the federal government policies. Um he'll let me know at this point after this we can start the procurement process to see uh what what company would like to do the playground and also we need to do the environmental review. Um, but after that, uh, we will be clear to get the actual final contract and then, uh, we hope to have maybe the entire thing completed in maybe March, but that'll just depend on however whatever is going on in Washington at the same time.

Questions for Dennis. Okay, two things. Um, the name the way it is in the subject line is backwards. It's Hilltop Rosenwall instead of Rosen Wall Hilltop. Um, but it is correct down here in the body in the background. And the second thing is how do you choose a contractor? How does that get chosen when you go to that stage? Right. So I'm not familiar with the uh procurement process at the moment. Uh Mike at parks and wreck is going uh through that.

I can address that. We've looked at um the procurement regulations and I believe it says that we need to follow our own. And if that's the case, the most really economical way is to look at existing contracts for playground providers and use those cooperative opportunities uh to to to move the project along quickly. Okay, other questions? Yeah, this guy, thank you for continuing to find these funds for us. We we appreciate that. Absolutely. Well, I was kind of actually thinking about that talking about our brush truck stuff. I was wondering if there was anything out there that we might be able to start looking at for purchasing another brush truck. Jerome,

another grant for a brush truck. That's right. That's right. I mean, honestly, there might be some kind of environmental That's what I was wondering is is there something out there? Are the CMAC grants not is that not what they're all re revolved around? I've never I've never had any experience with I'm not saying there's not. Oh, that there's not. Might be worth looking at. Oh, I'll I'll scrape and I'll find something. Promise. Thank you, sir. Right check. We'll call it the dipsy brush. [laughter] I've got plenty of trees. I could keep them busy. We'll give it the dipsy gra. Yeah. Item nine is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute amendment number one with Gresham Smith relative to the Rock Spring relative to Rock Springs Road. Hey, Charles.

Hi, Mayor and Council. Uh, just give a little background. Uh the original contract for this was to like I said the whole p you know purposes for you know increased capacity at old Nashville and Rock Springs intersection. The original contract was broken into two phases. Phase one was from Needm Drive to Austin Lee Drive. We put in an optional phase two for survey just in case we needed that in order to get the functional design for lanage and tapers uh to work. So this amendment what we're looking at doing since we've done the functionals from needm up to Austin Lee we do not need that phase two from Austin Lee up to Cedar Grove road. So we were going to take that money from the survey and roll it into our new design amendment here that will finish design and right away for the phase one. And this is to keep concentration on the main element of getting the work at the intersection because if we go that extra half mile uh from Austin Lee up to Cedar Grove, we're going to increase our rightway expenses. And also there's a 24 inch water line that would have to be relocated. So that's the purpose of uh not going into the phase two at this time.

Charles and I had quite an extensive conversation today about this, but what questions are there from council on this? I've got a couple questions. So you talked about expense. It's only going to cost more later. So prices don't go down. So, if we don't do phase two now, it's just going to cost more later. But the other piece is um in the traffic study that I finally found from 2019 from Austin Lee to Cedar Grove was an F rating in 2019. So, by not doing this now and putting it to another project, how much longer before it gets done? When is phase two going to get done?

Right now, I don't have that program. Like I said, I'm trying to work on the intersection first because it already is estimated at 9 million because I when I put it in for the statewide partnership program, I sent it to T dot and they did an estimate for me and that's when it came back at 9 million. So, just trying to keep scope of the project. I mean, you can always come back and pick up phase two uh whenever we think we're at that point, but the intersection project is going to be tough with right away and utilities. So, I'm trying to keep it a little bit more narrow to keep that portion moving so move going.

I feel like that's kind of what we did with Sam Ridley and Old Nashville Highway intersection and we're six years later just now starting on it. This is already an F six years ago. I don't think we can wait another four years. So, I understand, right? I don't agree with this change. I think we should continue with the original project and do as much as we can. Yeah. But you it begs the question when will uh Sam Ridley and Old Nashville Highway be finished because you darn sure don't want both of these projects going on at the same time. Sam really on Nashville schedule be done by the end of the year. Well, end of this year. This year. This year. Yeah. Happen either way. I thought it was next year for some reason. This is that's going to happen either way. What he's taking out has nothing to do with the interchange except Well, I'm just talking about having two projects going at the same time.

But I'm saying that's going to happen either way. This project in our conversation today wouldn't be starting for another about three years. Correct. Two to three years because like I said, the rightway utilities on this project are going to be substantial time. I went through there today and just looked up and it was like Yes. uh especially the one pole there on the corner of right there at Dollar General. Are there any underground out there? Water. There's uh water lines, gas lines, and a Atmas high pressure gas line. Where's the water line that's going to have to be relocated? Now, that runs down Rock Springs Road. So, so just down Rock Springs Road.

Down Rock Springs Road. Once you get past Austin Lee, it's right behind the sidewalk. So if you go from there and widen out, you will be over top of that water line. So that water line would have to be relocated and it's a 24 in high 24 24 to the hospital. So Steve, I mean I mean that's going to have to be done,

right? We can break it up into two. we can go ahead and continue this and just make that phase two and leave that survey going on. And then I was just keeping it in within my current budget for this year to go ahead and get the final design and rightway design started on this first intersection part. We can get that started in next year's budget. Uh kind of do that as a phase two from Austin Lee out to Cedar Grove. I I hear you. The only problem is when we approve this, we thought we were doing it in this year's budget. So now we pull it out and put it in next year's budget. We're just kicking it down the road another year. Was that because cost findings, sir? Was that because of your cost findings? Yes.

No. No. This amendment is to add a Well, yeah. This one is to bring it back in that I'm uh by doing that I'm moving up my design trying to move it up more now to get that design and right away design moving now instead of waiting into next fiscal year by taking that phase two out I could take that money but if we want to continue with that and I'll just see where my budget money for this year I may overrun the project. Yeah. So the the money for phase two has not been spent. It's just sitting there, right? So, all this amendment is is to take that money that never was used and put it into additional scope, right?

So, it's not about cost overrun. It's just a second phase that hasn't ever started and there's funds available. So, it's really about budget, right? Um, but it's just going to all we're doing is instead of doing it this year, we're going to do it next year, which just delays it further. I don't disagree with what you're saying, but my question is, is that going to slow down old Nashville highway? I would still divi. You can go ahead and do it. When you get to construction, you can still split the project. I mean, you can go ahead and do that survey and have that and get that started. When you get to your construction and rightaway limits, then you can stop at Austin Lee and make that your phase one. And then you can make that

I was thinking is we're talk we're talking about just engineering planning at this point, right? It doesn't make sense to put this off when we got to have this. Is there anything else after our conversation today? Is there anything else that could speed not the phase two portion but the phase one the the actual intersection itself up from what it currently is or with all [clears throat] of the movement of the utilities and all

uh only to have them come back with the design proposal and not and not using that phase two money. we can redo that contract that okay, we're just going to come out with a straight amendment for design and right away for the phase one and leave that uh phase 2 survey in the original contract moving on. That would just be uh redoing the contract proposal. But how much do you think that would speed up the process? It's not it's not going to change anything. Like I said, I just get you like you know, Council Sullivan was saying, I get you just that much further on phase two,

but at this point, my question is at this point there's nothing we can do to speed the process of this. No, we're doing that because we're this is locally funded at this point. I haven't received any grants uh went on this way because we can't wait six years and try to get funding for this for T DOT. So right later on when we get to construction uh at that point we can see if we can get construction funding but through the other part uh we just couldn't wait to try to get that we had this on you know the statewide programs and G&RC and different ones and we haven't had any funding options yet.

So I guess my question I think this what you're trying to get to is if we're not waiting on any T dot funding then why does this take two to three years to get done? What can we do to get the construction done sooner since it's all locally funded? It's just rightway utilities because like I said, there's going to have to be rightway purchased. Uh it's very tight through there if we have to make any utility moves. Doing it ourselves, we can move at a quicker pace that we do not have to wait for the notice to proceed from T dot or anyone. So we can move faster but just the scope of the project is uh going to be timeconuming with the utilities and the rightway. It

it is kind of tight through there specifically. Yes, it's very tight as it is and you're trying to add another turn lane on no Nashville highway on the Rock Springs and you're also adding additional left turn lanes on both ends of Rock Springs coming into Old Nashville. Uh is going to be very tight. So there's nothing as a council we can do that would help speed this along. It is just project driven approve the the funding and keeping the design contracts moving. Okay. Dave, do you have do you have concern if we don't move forward with doing this and leaving leaving phase one and phase two as is?

Yeah, I'll certainly. Yeah, I'd want to talk to finance a little bit to make sure from a financial perspective that this isn't going to hurt us. It's not a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things. But before I I commit to that in a public meeting, I just would like to talk to her a little bit more about that. So, my recommendation would be to um maybe move this on. Let me provide that update to council in the meantime and then we can we'll have a if if we need to make an an amendment to this in some fashion. We can certainly do that and then you'll be informed by the time we have the meeting next week. Okay. Mike's got good with that. I've got got a couple things. Charles only

he never does let me use his money. [laughter] Only construction cost estimate is a little bit over 9 million. Yes, sir. And they've got included allowances for 357 357 and then construction contingencies for like 1.12 million which together is basically 1.5 million. Is Gresham Smith's design fee being based on that estimate? No. Okay. And to the next question, the engineering inspections listed as 555,000. Yes, sir.

And in the agreement is 477 um,000. So I guess the cost estimate and the agreement kind of aren't right. Well, actually this is T DOT's uh estimate that they did when we did the submittal, but we're not into the construction engineering inspection. Uh like I said, that'll be a separate contract at that time and that will be based upon final construction plans uh when we get to that point. So right now it is just a

and then aggression scope of work and I'm I'm kind of confused on this. They've got a whole laundry list of additional services that include roadway design and engineering, drainage, traffic signal. What are we getting for this design fee or this for was no for survey and functional this amendment, right? And that that's our functional that uh we have that just does the lane layout. Well, we need to explain that to council that we've got a whole another layer coming after that.

Yeah. Yeah. This first one was for survey design. This amendment one is for the actual design up to rightway plans. So that's what this amendment one is adding on. It's not the full-blown design where we can bid it out. No, you'll have to go to construction plans. We're just getting up to rightway plans now. So, there's going to be we're moving in stages on this because they don't know what they're going to run into to make a give a proposal on that. That's why we moved in from survey functionals into design right away and then we'll go into construction. But if we're using local funds, yes,

is it necessary to do each one of those steps? Functional then design. Why can't we collectively do a concept and then go directly into design? Yeah, you got to go in like I said, we don't have to hit all the T dot steps, but we do have to get into design up to right away so we can at least purchase the right. Right. And that's usually and that's usually like 85% plans and then construction you're another 15% when you're getting your items down.

Yeah. Just for what we're paying and what we're getting seems you know there's whole additional listing of additional services which you're telling me will be in the full-blown design. Right. And they usually add additional services just to have it in the contract. If that comes up, then we go on that. We pay as we go on that is a line item billable. They put that in there as kind of a contingency in case we do run into something else where they need another special. Any idea what their full-blown design cost will be?

No, that's why we're taking it step by step as we're moving through the process to know what we have so we can get proposals that we're not having to do a lot of amendment to it. It's going to be stretched out, guys. And that's what that's was my question. Are there things that we can do that move the project along faster? Right. I believe so. I do.

Okay. So, help me understand that. Like Charles said, there's a survey, then a [clears throat] rideway. But the way we're doing, I would just ask for to develop rideway acquisition documents for the first phase and then go into full-blown design.

Well, like I said, we'll do that once we near the end. Then they will have a better idea of what the final design for construction plans will be. We'll have that in place so they keep moving. And it's not like we got to stop and wait. They will overlap just like we're doing here. We're finishing up phase one and we're getting this contract amendment while they're still finishing up the functionals that were overlapping to keep it moving. We don't have to have that hard stop. We'll overlap contracts. A lot of times, and this just from personal experience and understand the T dot process, but when we were doing it with local funds, we would go ahead and dive in to design design the project and develop the um rightway acquisition exhibits off of that and description.

And that would get this what this amendment here would do would get us through design right away up to that portion up to that port, but not full design. not full because that's get you like 85%. And then you would once you get close to the end of that, you see what you're up against as far as your construction, then they would present another contract amendment to finish out design construction plans. Just take your tea dot hat off and put on your local funding.

It just makes it easier on the cons. It just makes it easier on the consultant to better bid their services because that's why we broke it up survey and functional just so they know. And like I said, if we tried to bid this out all the way up to design, construction plans in one large contract, they would bid high because of unknown. Unknown cost you money. So this way by taking it, they know what they have and they know what they're going to need to finish that extra out. It's three contracts, but it's just as seamless because they're going to overlap. There's not a gap in between. [clears throat] So, I've got a question I guess for Jerome because uh he had a business of Thomas Hut over here and he's my my question to him would be if that's how you all did it, did you ever run into any issues that he's trying to correct by doing it in three contracts?

I mean, what he's saying makes sense stepwise, but if you're trying to save time, you basically know what you have designed from point A to point B. you know, there's going to be rideway acquisitions based on your survey and your concept layout. And um I just don't want us to get stuck in the steps of following a T dot process when it's not a T dot job, which I wouldn't, like I said, we're not we don't have to complete right away before we can move into construction design. We can move into that a full-blown design based on just a survey from the surveyor. Well, that's my question.

And then we developed rightaway documents from those. But did you ever get into a point where you got you had to make corrections to those because you did it up front? No. Okay. And I think that's what you're trying to stop, right? You want to make sure we take it in phases so that there's a lot in that intersection, right? Uh there's a lot of unknowns. But during the survey, the survey locates all those utilities. all the all the utilities come out and locate and then that's picked up in the survey. So you've got all that in the survey and then when you get into your design it's about okay which ones are those are going to have to be relocated.

Yeah. I'd much rather go in design and then develop the rideway documents after that because you know what you're dealing with. Yeah, that's what I would be doing. I've got that. And like I said, we can go we can ask for the okay the full thing out to construction plans. Uh and do it that way. I don't want to dictate how you're doing it. I'm just trying to throw out ideas. How much time talking about the way you're discussing it? How much time would that would you save with that? You're going to save six months. Are you going to end up spending more money in case there is

in my opinion? No. No. It's a it's a process that a lot of firms do because they follow the T dot process, you know, right? It's uh um sewer lines we did. We didn't we didn't develop um rightway documents on those until the full-blown design's done because you know what you're dealing with after you do the full-blown design. If you're 20 ft deep, you know how much construction easement you're going to need, how much width.

So that's all I'm saying. I don't want us to get locked up on what you functional plans and then also, okay, we're through with functional and we've developed rideway, then go in to design, which in my mind, you have more of an issue than once you get in full-blown design of adjusting your rideway. So, since this is probably above six of our pay grades that are sitting at this table, I'm going to That's what I was going to say. If y'all could have some conversation. I'm just trying to look at ways to speed it up based on what I'm hearing. I don't I don't disagree. So, would you be opposed to that?

Circumvent, right? Yeah. Yeah, actually I mean the main thing to speed it up is to keep the scope more condensed and just going to Austin and not going out that extra.56 miles. So that's going to be your biggest time. Wait, wait, wait. No, I don't agree with that. But we'll concentrate our design efforts on phase one and keep that one tracking first. Yeah, that's fine. But not what you said was not [snorts] focus on two at all. I I since you can split these out, they're really not tied together.

Will not be your primary focus. Your primary focus going to be on one and you can bring two along as you know the survey. You can go ahead cuz that's subbed out anyway. You can bring that along and start those design plans, but keep your main focus on that first one and keep it moving along. And then like I said, we can bring the phase two. You can be bringing it on up too, you know, if you want to budget for, you know, both phases at the same time. Okay. So, I my my thought is if we're going to break projects into phase and we're not going to stick with those phases, then we might as well do separate projects.

That's the part that's frustrating to me is a year ago we said we're going to do this. And now we're I don't know, however many months, eight, nine months in and now we're going to break something out and not do it. And it's it's just frustrating to me because I've already told people we're doing X, okay? And now we're not. And so if we're gonna if that's the plan and and we did that same thing with Sam Ridley and Old Nashville Highway. We originally talked about it all being included and then we broke Old Nashville Highway out, right? And now we're years down the road. We even told people we would not stop until we incre improved that intersection, but we did and so it's just frustrating because that's not what's happening. Yeah.

Well, Dave, I I think you hear [clears throat] where we're coming from and what we're kind of Yeah. And I think what we want what we're looking at one is being cost conscious on recognizing the costs of what [clears throat] we're what we're labeling as phase two to ensure that we can at least do phase one on the heels of the Sam Ridley Old Nashville Highway project.

Correct. the phase that doesn't necessarily mean that the work for phase two needs to stop and wait obviously for the completion of a phase one intersection of Old Nashville and and Rock Springs Road, which I think uh council council member that's your that's your your concern. So, how can we include the survey work for phase two to continue on with moving down that corridor? And then the other the other part is does the phasing of this of this project make the most sense in terms of making sure that it moves along as quickly as possible. Yeah, it just it seems like to me we had a contract for surveying for both phases. Do that contract just like we approved it. If there's additional work you want done, that should be just that should be another contract

instead of going back and amending this contract and taking stuff out. So just like you said, we can run multiple contracts overlapping each other, right? we can just make this amendment one

that way nothing's changing phase one and phase two continue down the survey we have survey results at the end of that project if there's [snorts] a if we're wanting to add design now or add other stuff that's that's an additional scope or additional project and it kind of seems like we're kind of going back and changing what we originally approved because we got a project in place and we just want to amend it rather than contract it and it might get us in trouble I don't know the the other piece one last thing is engineering on the T dot uh quote was 555, which Jerome mentioned earlier. This amendment, if we approved it, is 477 of that 555. We still don't even have final design. So, when you're talking about saving money, we're we're going to be way over the $9 million estimate at this rate. It's not going to be cheaper. It's going to be quite a bit more. I mean, what would final what's the next design going to cost? 100,000, 200,000?

I'd say it's going to be more in your 200 range. Yeah. I mean, so we're already day we wait. We're at six or $700,000 and T DOT's estimate was only55. When was that estimate, Charles? July 16th, 2025. Yeah. But here's the other thing. We also have to make sure Dave with finance is I understand, but I'm just talking about, you know, that we're saying we're doing this to make sure we save money and meet budget numbers, but we're way over even T dot's estimate. Short-term money. Yeah. Might have to be spent to save long-term money. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know what we're wanting and you're are going to need to look to see and if finances are there then you're going to we'll take this off the agenda moving forward.

Y because there'll be nothing we'll have to amend. Look on your face. Right. We would have to Right. We'll just have to rework that amendment and bring it back uh at the next workshop.

Okay. Item 10 is approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute amendment number two with energy land and infrastructure relative to the Lee Road phase one. Right on this amendment is for design changes due to the potential of the Rutherford County school property coming on. We didn't our current contract uh design moved into that uh area. So, what we want to do is stop our design at the school property because we're not for sure what theirs is going to look like at this point. And we're also had some hydraulic issues that we had to uh address. And also, we're going to go ahead and add the sidewalk on both sides of the roadway and not just on the development side. If I can expand on that a little bit.

We got this amendment just about and we might have even put it gotten this on the agenda already is when we got the traffic study for the Lee Road schools. So, uh, we included that in the agenda item for you and and the public to see and it's substantial. So, um, while we I I do think and I know what conversation we just had, I I do think we need to continue with the design that we we currently have with the modifications that that Charles talked about and and is asking for this evening, but I think we also have to have a conversation about the remaining portion of of this roadway and and how we how we want to uh address that because not Not only is it some of our annex roadway, but it also is some county roadway. And then of course, as Charles said, some of the responsibility of this will be the school board based off of, you know, the the traffic study recommendations that they've made.

I have some real concerns about the school project out there and us making sure that we have that road ready when that school comes to be. Um, I think Jerome was the only one that wasn't on here when we did Rocky when Enan Springs Road West and getting out there and trying to have that open when Rocky Fork um came out there. We do not want to be in that same position. And I did look at the traffic study. It concerns me the traffic study was not was not done when school was in session and that they said that that would not have a lot of impact. There wasn't another school around,

right? And you can't tell me you can't tell me that Steuart's Creek doesn't make an impact on that road when school is in session. [clears throat] So, but I don't think we can sit back and wait for the county or the county school board. I I I think we're gonna have to to do our part. Can somebody tell me on the map the the green road is city limits, the blue is not? Or is it the other way around or is that not related at all? Right. The green will it breaks at the current city limits? Yeah. But which one's the city limits? Which side? Uh to the left to the west. So back towards Oak Meadows and all the wood. Do you see the colors? Blue and green. Yes, sir. Which one's which? Green is ours.

The perfect That's what I'm trying to get to. Right. And then the school property comes in there right at the green blue line. That's where that uh comes in. You have that new enclave at Lee Road that just came on. So we have annexed a little bit more of the road out to that point. But uh like I said, the school property is right there at the green blue break. You add to that the intersection that is the intersection we've talked about for forever. the roundabout that for the roundabout. But I'm telling y'all, and y'all already know this. People sitting in this audience and people driving down that road, they're not going to know where green and blue stops. No, I I drive it.

They're going to say they're going to say the town of Smyrna did not do the road going to prepare for that school coming. So that one of the conversations I had with Dave earlier today about this was um my my thought process was that we basically annex the rest of the road and do it right the first time because we're not going to get the county government to get they're not going to have the extra money laying around to do this right now. Um even if we could get them to partner the county schools going to do their part from the school but they're not going to come all the way down to that intersection. And since we already have been allocating space in front of Ga Greystone for this road, then it seems like we should go ahead and do the work and build it the way it should be done now.

And where does the connector go from there? It's actually right just to the left of the intersection there at Lee Road and Rocky Fork. The corridor is just right there and it cuts through part of Fox Meadows. It cuts through there. So it's it goes through Fox Meadows, doesn't it? It cuts off a corner of it. Fox it's on the edge of Fox Meadows. Well, in Fox Meadows, the intersection that's presently there will suffice for the new road. Also, if we put a roundabout there as this traffic study, we that would be our contention. Hey, Charles. I was looking for the pointer.

Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh um that's why like I said the mayor was saying if we took it on we would make sure that it works for our long-term benefit with that Mchuan connector that we take that in account. If the county's doing it they may just we're not going to look that we're just going to fix the intersection uh and then we had to come out in however many years and rebuild it all because it doesn't align with our current quarter. Thank you Kevin. was. Yes, he was. I mean, I I can imagine what they would probably do is even if we just tried to fix it now, it's going to be a red light and some turning. That's it. Give me that thing. Um,

got your click up there, Charles. But here's the other thing. And Kevin or Charles, you may know with Popular Hill, the county helped Murphy'sboro with a portion of that. What is it that they helped them do? They may have supplied some money, but I think the county road department built the road. I believe they actually built the road on that. So that's Kevin, I believe that's correct.

I guess here's my thing. But I guess here's my thing. I think we need to whatever Murphy'sboro received, I think we need to ask for the same thing, but I think it needs to be done how we want it done. I would agree that we take the lead on it on design and then go back to the schools and the county and ask for funding on it since we are taking on the school part and we'll be taking on the county part. But guys, we can't drag our heels on this.

Well, I'd like to discuss the traffic impact. I don't know if that's now is the correct time to do it. Um, just reviewing that, they recommend a roundabout at Lee Road, Rocky Fort, and that awkward intersection that we've all talked about needs a roundabout. They've also talked about a roundabout at the entrance to the school off of Lee Road. So, where is that? That's where the green and blue, green, and blue meet.

I don't know. Tom and I talked about that. We don't know how that works. Well, that's what traffic impact studies recommending, right? That that was done. The other question I have, would a back entrance off of the school property owned to Rocky Fork there not make sense also to alleviate some of that one way in, one way out traffic? Yes, it would if the school can get it. Well, talking about back gate.

Yeah, they the school that don't [laughter] that that won't go through a subdivision. But but here's the thing. I totally agree because what are we having to do with Rocky Fork right now? We're having to do Spring Hill Drive because there was no second entrance. And so I I'm in total agreement that there has to be a second

right if I back entrance. So, we we we've had conversations with Betrayal about this project preliminarily and um they recognize and the traffic impact study obviously also recognizes that they're going to need a secondary means of egress and so you are correct though, mayor, right now they don't own any property to get to that to that road. So, that's something I know that they're they're looking at and trying to work towards. If they'll get there, I don't know. Um but we we they recognize their issue. Yeah. And and the other thing, you know, in the traffic impact study, they looked at Cooks Lane and Lee Road, but weren't making any recommendations for that at all.

No. And that would be part of something that we've already got going on on our Cooks Lane park from Naran uh farms down that we're going to work on that intersection be part of our construction project. So, even though they didn't mention that, we'll go ahead and be making that improvement there and putting in a left turn lane. And and then then the traffic impact study also says after improvements are done, I think it's on page 20, we're still having levels of service of C and D

during the AM peak movements. Mayor, back to your comment. They didn't include the traffic counts, the turning counts when they didn't include it when school was in progress because there was wasn't a nearby school. They need to go revisit that. Well, say it wouldn't have an impact, right? Yeah. So, hopefully we can include everything in our design if we're going to take lead on it and then ask the county for the funding. I I think we will be sorry if we don't take the lead on it. I I think we'll be in a real shape

since we're going to be the ultimate owner of it at the point, like said, we may go back and reook at that traffic study and have it, you know, relook at that and do it again. I'll agree with you on that. But, uh, like I said, that's that's where we're right now is how do we want to mayor and council, how y'all want to move forward with that? I think we have no choice but to move forward with looking at taking the lead on this and taking into account the issues that we have with all of that out there. Um in addition to I mean how Stewart's Creek affects all of this on top of it. So

yeah, and and just put this in context, the green really was about making roadway improvements because of existing development out there, having no knowledge that the school board was going to be sticking a school, two schools most likely, a high school and a middle school on that road. So now with that information at least we are ahead of the game looking out west and we will look now at what the best way to move forward with the remaining portion of that is ensuring that we're making consideration for the Mchuan connector project that we've has been discussed several for for many many years but I want to analyze and I I'll have this conversation with Charles and and Tom is it What's the best option? Well, obviously I think we need to move forward um with item number with this item um coming up on the agenda, but do we add this to the that existing contract to where you would see another amendment? Do we need to look at another consultant for the other side of that roadway? We'll look at that internally and come back with a recommendation um as soon as possible.

So, do we need to leave this on the agenda for next time and we'll come back and add to it? Because right now we know we've got to do that no matter what. Correct. Okay. Am I Am I speaking out attorney Charles? Is that right? And yeah, where we're at now that will be that's why we're cutting it off at the school so we're not moving on down. So we're going to pull our plans in a little bit so we don't get into that school uh zone, but we still need to move ahead on the other where the development's already up there all the way up to Montgomery Way. So yeah, this amendment is good to go. That will be a separate contract.

I just want to make sure staff hears loud and clear. We do not have time to drag our feet on this. We have got to stay on this or we're going to be in a world of hurt. School's supposed to open in two and a half years. Well, it'll take Well, there's some back and forth. Take us two years to do. I'd rather be on the safe than sorry. Even if this ends up not being that time, even if the school ends up not being that timeline, I'd rather us be ahead of it than behind it. For our citizens out there and the future developments that are going on out there,

what we don't know is which school will be prioritized first. However, from the time that they are released to do design, it's approximately 2.8 years from that from that time frame. So, worst case scenario, it's 2.8 eight years away, which does put us in a very tight timeline um for for to do those improvements. So, yeah. Okay. Okay. Questions on this one? Okay. Um item 11, Charles, have you taken enough of a beating? You headed back? I'll be back later.

Okay. Okay. Item 11, approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute a contract with SNW Contracting Company LLC for construction of pedestrian buttons at intersection of Old Nashville Highway and Hazlewood. Come on up, Charles.

Yeah, [laughter] cutting up and just went on. Uh yes, this is our uh uh part of our um ADA assessment of the town. We looked at this intersection. There's u all legs have a sidewalk on it and uh we've had multiple requests for pedestrian buttons to be put out there. We went out to we did a design and went out to bid for adding this pedestrian buttons. So I think the the lowest responsive bidder was SNW at about $105,000. We have $350,000 in the budget to do the entire project. So 105 will take care of the pedestrian buttons, but there's also going to be costs including uh striping and concrete work for some raised islands out there as well. That's going to take uh cost us a little bit more than the 105,000.

So questions about we're not doing the striping and pedestrian crossings at the same time, but how long of a gap is there going to be between that? Well, we will do it simultaneously because we'll be using our annual contractors to do that work. So we don't have to go out to bid for it. We'll just follow on that contract. So it's not that we're not doing it. It's just that we're not doing it within this contract. Contract. Yes. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Okay. Questions for Tom? Yes. We've done that. We've used them several times and they were about half the stencil.

Okay. We'll move on to item 12, which is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute a quote from CDWG for a three-year renewal of the Google Workspace Agreement. Carl, happy new year. Ah, happy new year. Good evening, Mayor and Council and your highness. Um, [laughter]

so this request is for a renewal of our uh contract for Google Workspace, which is our collaboration productivity suite. Um, I am very pleased with this quote because when I started negotiating with Google about nine months ago, they said because they were bundling Gemini, which is their new AI engine within the tools, there'd be a 20% price increase. We actually got a quote at the exact same rates we've paid over the last three years. Uh, which is unheard of in technology right now. So, at the end of this agreement, we'll have had six years at the exact same rates, which is to me a bit remarkable, but I'm very pleased to bring it forward.

Questions for Carl on this. Okay, we'll put that on the agenda and move on to our last item that would fall under the consent agenda, which is approval of and authorization of a list of items to be auctioned through online surplus sale for gov deals. Sierra. All right. Good evening, mayor and council. Um, the staff seeks permission to conduct an online auction to sell surplus items. The auction will be advertised in the Murphy'sboro Post on the town's website and channel 3. All surplus items will be sold through Govde Deals online auction company. And just for Jerome, the dates of the auction are January 20th to the 27th.

Look in my garage. Uh I find too many traffic signals. [laughter] Yeah, I've already scoped the cars out. What about the typewriter? Did you check out the typewriter? No, I can't type, so [laughter] I don't need that. Good to know. Um questions for for Sierra on any of these items? Steve, none. Okay, then we will put those on the agenda. Council, remember items 1 through 13 are consent. And if there's any items that you have questions for between now and um the meeting, if you can try to get those answered next before next week.

Mayor, I may pull an item up if that's okay. Okay. Seems like we had quite a bit of discussion there on on the one related to Rock Springs. So, might need to pull on the Yeah, but I thought that's the one that we that may go away. Well, it it may, but Right. So, if it doesn't go away, you're going to take it off consent. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Item 14, consideration of an ordinance relative to a budget amendment for fiscal year 2026. Sierra.

Okay. These are our usual mid-year budget amendments. The bulk of these items are funding the purchase of police vehicles and the completion of two different IT projects that were budgeted and begun in FY25 but will be completed in FY26. Um the offsetting amendments to these increases in in expenses are increasing in revenue which is um primarily consisting of interest earned resulting from the one-year contract extension with First Horizon and offsetting decreases to expenses primarily consisting in reduction in our retirement matching. So, I had a question about the assumption [clears throat] of the police cars that they went with the five officers that went I think it was five officers that went with the grant.

And I just had the question of why did we make that assumption with such a large amount of money rather than checking to make sure?

Well, to be honest, they they asked for five police officers. They asked for five patrol cars. Every police officer comes with a patrol car. So it was assumed uh you know that that those were one and the same. So, um there was no indication of of that these were replacement vehicles, but uh one of the things that we've we've that I've done even since that budget is put a little bit more ownership within our uh our fleet department to provide input on the on the recommendations for vehicles that that you'll see in this year's budget. So they'll have that input, be able to tell us whether or not these are replacements if they approve them and and the are they new vehicles and that sort of thing

because I thought we were doing the replacement vehicles with the police department now on a consistent basis. Are we not? Sorry. Yes. And is it five a year? Yeah, it just depends. Okay. Okay. I I was just curious with it being such a large sum of money why that we missed it. Yeah.

Okay. Okay, other questions on this. Okay, then we will put that on the agenda and move on to item 15, which is consideration of an ordinance relative to the annexation in PUB zoning of property on tax map 11, parcel 5.00 requested by Fall Creek Commerce LLC containing 225.25 acres. The property is located on Mona Road east of I840. Kevin.

Yes, mayor and council. This is the request that you all have seen several times, but this is uh has been deferred several times. And so, um this is property u it's located on Mona Road immediately east of I840. It's about 610 of a mile south of the SR State Route 452 um intersection with of Mona Road and State Route 452. Um land use plan for this request is the 840 gateway character area which would support hospitality, retail, restaurant, highdensity residential and industrial warehousing uses. Uh surrounding zoning is RM and Rutherford County. Um the town would be providing all services to this area upon annexation except for water which would be provided by consolidate utility district. Um the uh put that is in your packet there has been revised a bit to reflect some of the recommendations of the planning commission when they looked at this when you all sent this back to the planning commission. Um but I'll go through with the the highlights of that is about 34.3 acres are designated to be developed utilizing the C2 district requirements remaining 190.95 acres designated to be developed utilizing the I2 district guidelines. Um again it's been revised based on the discussion at the workshop as well as again the planning commission recommendation the most recent recommendation uh for the area that is to be developed of C2 standards all provisions of the C2 district would apply except for the specific prohibition of the following uses um specialized tobacco or smoke shop including a vape shop any business that devotes more than 25% of his floor area to the sale tobacco products storage facilities adult oriented establishments auto towing, mobile home park and residential activity use with the exception of those allowed by right or special exception which in the C2 zone is primarily like nursing homes and things of that nature. Uh maximum

[snorts] square footage allowed for this area be 350,000 ft. That's the building square footage for the area to be developed with I2 standards. All provisions would apply with the request uh with the request that the height limit be 60 ft in le of the 50ft limit. Uh and the uses of airports, air cargo terminals, helports, and aircraft dealers not be allowed. Uh maximum square footage in that area is 2.5 million square ft. Uh no pole signs would be allowed within the development. Um the major thoroughfare plan does show a future minor arterial connecting Bill France Boulevard to Hickory Grove Road and eventually to West Jefferson Pike. Uh construction of the portion of this roadway which crosses this parcel would be required as a part of this development and is shown on the concept plan. Um as an extension of an existing county road, Culture, which is the county road name is Culture Court. Um as a part of this request, staff did recommend annexation of approximately one mile the existing rideway of State Route 266 Jefferson Pike and approximately 4.2 two miles of the existing rideway of Mona Road to allow for the annexation to be contiguous to the existing town limits. Uh sewer would be provided per separate agreement uh but would not be extended to serve any properties outside of Rutherford County. Uh developer has proposed donation of land for a potential fire station uh which would need to be evaluated potentially again the actual location of that still needs to be evaluated by the fire department. Um we did uh prov prepare more in-depth look on the provision of services and and did include that. Nothing has changed on that since you all we looked at that the first time. Um the again the most recent PUD plan has been included uh as well as the traffic study. Um the planning commission the original request was recommended 740 against. This revised request was heard by the planning commission at the

November meeting. Uh and the commission did recommend approval 641 against um at that with that vote with three conditions. No truck traffic interim road south of the of the development. The interior roadway parallel to IE40 and roadway providing access off Mona is to be completed prior to obtaining permits for phase three. Um those two roads shall connect together. Um, and then that to add a landscape buffer of 100 feet along the edges of the property for any boundary for an existing residence is within a th00and feet of the property boundary. And again, those the PUD that's in your packet now does reflect u has been revised to reflect those meeting those conditions. So I want um that's what I have. I know there's been a quite a bit of work done on the water sewer agreement and I'll let Mr. Peach and others to address those comments.

So, we've been discussing this golly, has it been a year already? Getting close.

Yeah. Um, it was deferred last time um for two reasons that I remember. One was the agreement with CUD and the second thing was Councilman Dempsey asked for their traffic study engineer to come and have discussion with us about their traffic study. So, is there anything else that you all remember as the reason we deferred it last time? Okay, Jeff, where are we with the CUD agreement? So, we have the signed agreement from CUD and the developer. And are you comfortable with the agreement and any changes that were made by CUD?

Uh, yes. The changes were not really relative to the town. So, they were in regards to CUD themselves. Okay. Um, so at this point, are you all good with hearing from the traffic study engineer about their about their study? Good. Yes. Okay, perfect.

Hi, good evening, Mayor and Council. Jason Weaver with GM Civil, 2559 Southwest Great Pine Parkway in Grapevine, Texas. Uh I guess if you want questions and I'll respond uh however however you want to to go about it and we'll have a dialogue back and forth. Y

I guess my first question is um I think we made it pretty clear that our biggest concern was Jefferson Pike and Mona and why was there no traffic study done for there? Yes, ma'am. So, when we started looking at this project earlier last year, um back in March, we had a coordination meeting with T Dot, Smyrna, Rutherford County, and Wilson County to talk about the overall project. And uh the results of that pro meeting were primarily focusing what was the impact for all the intersections and what's going on with Bill France over the life of the project. So, that was kind of what started the where we our starting point for the study. Uh then we then we started working with Rutherford County on our zoning packet for that because of the portions of the property that weren't going to be annexed within the town of Smyrna. Uh we had a uh a traffic scoping meeting with Rutherford County and their traffic engineer Jeff Judy with uh Neil Schaefer uh Greg Judy and during that time we went through and developed basically the distribution patterns that he agreed with with our traffic engineers uh and also reviewed the the trip generation collectively for the entire development. Um so because of that and we're our focus was you know with Bill France primarily from Rutherford County and and Greg his concerns uh that corridor was the focus that he wanted us to you know concentrate on. So that's how we developed the study. It wasn't something that we just ignored Jefferson Pike. It just we weren't asked to do it at that time. So we're more than open to do that. uh we will go obtain traffic counts on uh on Mona, you know, and and at the intersection of Jefferson Pike, get a good baseline for what's occurring there today. And we'll work with Charles and and Tom and in our in the revision of our study when we make that first

site plan submitt, and we could start tracking it, you know, as the development occurs, which is what we've always said we would do with every subsequent site plan. We would analyze, you know, we can obtain new traffic counts, especially as each building, you know, comes on. We'll have a better idea versus the typical trip generation stuff that you can apply and we make our best engineering judgments, right, of like, oh, cars are going to go 10% of the cars are going to go south on Mona and or 0% of the cars will because given the proximity of our connection at Mona to Bill, France, I mean, typically drivers tend to try to use the most direct routes possible, right? And so because of that, Greg actually looked at it and he said, "I don't want you to put any traffic going south. I want to see what the worst impact is at that intersection at Mona and and Bill France if everybody went there." And so that was kind of how it came to be. So we don't have a problem at all. I mean, we will definitely amend any studies and and if we need to get, you know, intermediate counts, you know, at different locations along Moda, we'll definitely do it. So, I mean, we've looked at um you know, T DOT had some traffic counts they obtained back in May of 23 uh and it was just south of Alen Barrett there and there was about 2,700 vehicles that day. 98.6% of them were cars and pickup trucks. So, you know, there there isn't a ton of, you know, semi-truckss that go down there. I'm not saying that done. There was four that they counted during that day that that occurred. Everything else was more your single unit trucks, your Amazon's, your, you know, uh, dump trucks, your cement mixers, those type of deals. There was about 35 of those that occurred that day. Uh, but everything else was a typical passenger vehicle.

So, one of the concerns that we've heard from quite a few of [snorts] the neighbors that are out there is um the truck traffic coming out that way as opposed to going on Bill France. So what is there that you all are going to do to make sure that additional truck traffic because I think we have to be honest it's not not happening now we know that it is we're hearing that agree right so what are you what is the remedy for that from you all

well I think in our putt packet we've shown what that intersection uh what what will restrict trucks to be able to permit them to go south I mean we can't control if a a truck misses the turn you know and in and wants to go south unless we come up with some other type of configuration which we can look at. We can look at a a roundabout configuration at that intersection. Uh we we've done one uh on another industrial project that was actually in northern Mississippi out near Memphis. Uh it was the same way where a roundabout was occurred where if a truck did come there, they could continue and go back north and it restricted that movement to just a passenger type vehicle to be able to continue south. So there's there's some other things that we can look at with staff, you know, to to help, you know, promote that. And we're Hillwood's definitely more than open to do that because again, we're we're concerned. We've had plenty of meetings with all the residents and, you know, as far as traffic on, you know, Mona and on Palace Chapel, you know, we're we're committed to, you know, trying to do our best to, you know, not not impact them with this development.

Yeah, I think um that's going to be a challenge obviously because we still need like fire trucks to go that way and that kind of stuff, right? Right. Yeah. So, I mean, we we'll have to, you know, we can come up with some creative ways, you know, I mean, there's there's ways that you can try to restrict it as much as possible, right? Um, and I and I think given the fact how we're, you know, trying to um per our discussions, you know, at the planning commission meeting last time and how we've accelerated that connection to create that loop back up to Coulter Court. Yeah.

You know, I I think that'll help focus a lot of traffic back that direction, too. you know, I I mean, again, we can do the best that we can and come up with ways to mitigate it, but again, we'll we'll analyze it and if there if there's something that demonstrates that we're having an impact, especially, you know, if there's more employees that happen to be going south, you know, and there's an impact there and it says we need to do some improvements at Jefferson and Mona, then, you know, that's, you know, we'll have to handle it at that time. So yeah, he what he's talking about at planning, we were talking about the internal roads that weren't going to be finished and um they were going to be in different phases essentially. Correct. And we asked him to make sure that was done at the very beginning so that it would encourage folks to go out Bill France.

The one prior to the building, I can't remember exactly which building, six or seven or something like that. Yeah. Other questions?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I thought we were going to have a presentation of the traffic impact study tonight. So, [clears throat] we don't know what's going on with Mona Road at Jefferson Pike for one and two, I was wanting this presentation so that the public could see it as well because we're getting calls, we're getting emails from people that live out there and they're they're concerned this is going to change the whole concept of this area. It's going to go from a rural community once utilities get put out there. We've already got an email about uh property owner wanting to annex in and subdivide his property. So, that's going to happen if this if this project goes through. Yes, sir.

So, that that I was hoping we could address at least the traffic portion of it tonight. Well, obviously when we provided it to staff and obviously we've had conversations back and forth with Charles, you know, so hey, what were the concerns? They they've seen the result of the study, which again, but it doesn't include Mona and Jefferson. It does not. I agree. You know, and and again, we I don't have a problem coming back and right now. I mean, we can we can debate as from an engineering standpoint with staff and if do we show that 10% of the traffic goes south? I mean, you know, it's it's a subjective thing at this point. I mean, I I don't think that, you know, that percentage is going to

Well, it's not really the percentage. It's the type of traffic that's going to be on. Well, if we're restricting trucks and it's just passenger vehicles that go there. I mean, that's I mean, we're committed to do that. We we do not want our trucks going south. I mean, we we're we are committed to, you know, put those type of uh conditions in to not allow a truck to go south out of our development. And I think, you know, we've we're we're we're steadfast today. Show us and present it. That's that's all we're asking. Yes, sir. Because one of our at our last meeting, that was the one thing that we asked for is a presentation to be able to understand what the traffic study looked like. So, that was also, you know, my expectation of what you were going to provide to us tonight.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, again, and if we misunderstood that, you know, apologize. I mean, I think in our PUD packet, I mean, we did have some traffic, you know, data that was in there that summarized what our results were, uh, and obviously, you know, show what our, you know, what we were planning to do at that intersection to to help, [snorts] you know, uh, restrict any trucks going to the south. Uh but you know yeah again if we wouldn't have any data to present going south because of the fact that the traffic study that we that we prepared was you know coordinated with Rutherford County and staff didn't ask us to do anything more as part of our

when you came when we talked about this at our last meeting I thought my understanding was from Mr. Ranki coming in here. These were some of the concerns that we presented to him about Mona Road in the area down there. So, he could have come back to you and let you know since you were going to be the one presenting this presentation that we thought we were going to get this evening so that you could have prepared that these areas were a concern for the town of Smyrna, not just what you were dealing with with Rutherford County.

Yes, ma'am. No, understood. And I think you know I I I guess the way we took that was hey will you are you guys going to actually analyze this and and and make this you know a condition of your site plan submitt so you know what the impacts are and I think that's what we were anticipating that yeah we're agreeing that we will do that uh to demonstrate that. I mean I guess you know when we make that first site plan submitt I mean you're you're going to see what that impact is for that first building and we can track it through the stage of this development. So if there's something that triggers, you know, with that first first building, then okay, that's going to be a condition. We've already voted on annexation, correct? Have that? No, we haven't. No, we have not.

I mean, not now. When you submit your site plans? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. Before we get to that point, right? Yeah. Okay. With all due respect, sir, what I heard you tell us was that uh we'll watch it and we'll let you know when the cows get out of the barn.

I if that came across that way, I apologize. I don't think that's our intent at all that we you know we we're we will coordinate with staff and again we will provide whatever studies that are necessary throughout the whole process you know and and again you know this was something that we had time to address because part of it too that timing you know school being out and whatnot I mean it was probably difficult to actually get you know accurate counts you know at that time I know you mentioned that with the the previous you know discussion earlier this this this evening I mean, you know, we definitely want to get counts at at a at a time that, you know, reflects what the daily traffic is. So, you know, it would probably be until now that we could have probably started getting that within the next coming weeks. So,

other questions or comments?

Yeah, I've just Mayor I've got a few things. My my biggest concern with this is we've already I've said this numerous times extended out Ammoville Road five miles to the southwest. Now we're looking at extending to the norththeast 5 miles. Are we stretching ourselves too thin to keep up with our infrastructure? I know we have a lot of infrastructure needs. Um, we're opening up a whole new corridor in this area and it's going to be predominantly warehouses and with warehouses come trucks, which is extremely hard on [snorts] the infrastructure. So, if if we vote on this and approve it, we've got to realize that we've got to put a lot of resources out there in the roadways and not get behind the eightball like we have in the Ammoville Road area. And that's that's my biggest concern. We're going to open up a whole new corridor. Now, looking at the other way, financial sense, I've read the uh financial impact study. I do know that we've listed $38 million up front that we're going to need to put in. Will we recover that downstream? Sure. So, I'm I'm I'm mixed on us opening up that whole corridor and it exploding versus the financial gain and return we're going to get on it. I'm I'm mixed on that.

And [snorts] I totally understand where you're coming from. I don't think the 38 I think the 38 million was if it was the east and west side together Kevin and it's over the 25 years over the total of the project any of my staff can I'm getting nods I'm getting I can't see nods so yes yes

yes so um but I also think we have to weigh the $40 million [clears throat] of impact but I'm not disagreeing with what that you're saying Dave in regard regards to infrastructure, police, fire, roads, utilities. Is staff comfortable that we would be okay if council chose to move forward with this?

If council move decided to move forward, the utility infrastructure that we currently have would support the project. Um it would be a significant project to um to oversee. Uh al although they're going to do the work, we're still involved in the design and the right ofway acquisition and and those sorts of things. Um Mr. Parker has talked to the council about that. Um about how we would how we would uh move that workload. we would outsource some of it on the on the other project that we're doing out to the west side and and this we would oversee directly. Um stop for one second with that [clears throat]

if that is a concern in regards to amount of time that we have to spend to oversee that project and we're having to have outside people come to do that legally. Could we ask the developer to pay for that? I honestly don't know the answer to that question off the top. If that's one of the roadblocks, but but but that we choose who it is. We're still going to want some internal oversight in in terms of in terms of that. And I think that's really where it's coming from. We were going to do CI services on the um on the on excuse me, uh Fall Creek, not Fall Creek. Um

Stewart Creek. Stewart Stewart Creek. Stewart Creek. Thank you. Yeah. So we would regardless of this project, right? So um but Jeff, could we legally ask for that? If he changed the agreement to say that, you could. Okay. So that's talking about utilities. Utilities. So what about police, fire, and roads? So roads, we've looked at uh Mona Road. I believe it had a rating of a of a B if I'm correct. Had a rating of a B. So from that perspective, the road is okay for now, unless we wanted to do or needed to do something uh to expand that roadway, adding

two foot 4ft shoulders um which is something that I know the community was um concerned about. Um four I think the conversation was if there was 4ft shoulders be an opportunity for trucks to park on the road. So two foot shoulders were preferred. Um that's 4.9 miles there. I think will be paying for it. Yeah. 4.2. 4.2. Okay. And then one mile on Jefferson spending. Yep. To have done the road for the for the fora road. But as of right now, the road is that would be if we chose to do that. it it we wouldn't be we wouldn't be annexing a road that needs an immediate attention where it's in horrible shape and we've got to mill and reserve all these

trucks come out of the complex tear the road up. Sure. Yeah.

Uh police and fire um that's going to be based off of demand as that area grows. And so the police and fire look that that was when we looked at that plan of services uh exhibit that we provided to you. who is really looking at a buildout of that area. So, um as that area builds out, yeah, that's that's going to be the cost involved and that's going to be the resources needed to uh respond to that area. But in the interim, you know, we have uh the fire station there on Jefferson Pike, which would respond to the area and and police would need to respond to that area as well uh within the existing zone until the the volume of of of services demanded some more dedicated zones or or a fire station out in that area.

So, we did look at the fire, but did we look at police as well? I don't remember. I don't remember the number. What was the number on timing to get if they had there was eight minutes on fire? I remember that fire. I don't know that we looked at actual number of minutes in regards to to police getting versus two to three what's standard on fire. Yeah. Um and like I said, my big concern is we're we're getting ready to change this whole whole area and and we know once sewer and utilities get out there, it will pop like popcorn. And are we are we ready for that when we when it's popping like popcorn on the uh west side?

I think we got a lot of citizens on the west side of town that we've got to continually take care of. I mean, we look at the roads. We talked a lot about the roads tonight. I mean, the Rocky Fork area talking about putting more schools out there, right? They're going to be wanting to put build more subdivisions out there. Not that we thought it would change because of the school. It'll just well once Dirt Creek sir gets in, it'll be all the way down. But then in addition to that, you know, we look at the uh complications with I24 and you know, we know that if we see a possibility and and we think we can put some money toward a an intersection out there, then, you know, we're going to need to come up with that money such as Almville Road or such as um

the interchange uh Rocky Fork even Springs. I got a little tickle. Can you wait when do we have any other questions in No, I'd just like to see a presentation. Thank you. Yeah, Jerome, I have to agree. I thought we were going to get a presentation tonight, too. I'm a little bit disappointed on that. So, whether it was lack of communication or what, right?

And just talking about planning in general, I mean, we've gone through a couple of what have been deemed lollipop annexations before. This would be the third one that I know of. And I you know the rest of them have worked out but you know it's by the hardest and some of it is pretty u strenuous on the staff I think and and I would much rather see a plan for that large area right there between um Mona Road and 840 and what's going to happen between there and Jefferson Pike. Um,

all right. I'm done. I agree with you. I think we it need there needs to be a plan developed because we're once all the utilities go out there, we have no control over how fast it's going to develop. So, I think we need to try to get ahead of it before we get caught up in it and with what's going on on the other side of town. I I just want to see a land use plan for that area. As a matter of fact, correct. I agree. Well, our our our ability is through allowing the annexation or not cuz it's nothing out there is is annexed. So, um, anything else, council?

You know, I was just going to bring up something when Joe Gurley approached the microphone earlier this evening. He was talking about that used to be a pig trail out there and you put three schools in a multi-million dollar park in a location and watch it popcorn. And so to Drum's point, once it hits, it hits. And that's what's happened out there on the west side. Everybody wants a piece of living here as well. We can't lock the door on them, you know. And so, uh, they just want what we have. And so, it's, uh, it's interesting to me with the growth that we have and the new schools that we have coming in. These are the things that are challenges to us. These are the things we got to get right.

Okay. Other questions? Okay, we'll move on to item 16, which is consideration of an ordinance relative to the reasonzoning of tax map 28J group A parcel 1.00 to go from R3 to C4. It's requested by Tracy Mayolo. The property requested to be reszoned contains approximately 71100s of an acre and is located at 1191 Rock Springs Road. And this is a second reading, Kevin.

Yes, Baron Council. This is a piece of property that is directly adjacent to the um uh property that we looked at and was reszoned last month uh for the same request of R3 to C4. Um so it's again was directly next door. Uh it's um about 950 ft east of the intersection with Spring Hill Drive. Uh again, land use plan would support this as it is part of our Samly character area. Uh surrounding zoning is mix of R3, C2 and C4. Uh the planning commission did review this request. It'd recommend approval unanimously. No changes? I think it's changed since first reading. No matter

this is the one that is beside the house that we approved last month and it kind of finishes off that whole little area right there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Any questions on this? buffer of the uh there [clears throat] is the natural buffer of the creek behind it. Yes. Okay. We'll put that on the agenda and move on to item 17 which is consideration of an ordinance amending title one general administration section 1-104 order of business of the municipal code relative to public comment at meetings. This is a second reading. Amber, you taking this?

Yes, ma'am. I'm uh so there's no changes to this one. This will be up for a second reading. It's essentially just changing the order of business like it says to move the public comment period from the beginning of the meeting prior to discussion of business items to after new business items. Um, a couple caveats with this. The way to sign up for public comment will remain in place. So, that policy to sign up at least 24 hours in advance will will remain. Um, if you are going to speak relative to an item that's listed on the agenda, you will now speak at the time that the agenda item is discussed. Um, if you are speaking on a topic that's not listed on the agenda, you would fall under that public comment period which will now take place after new business uh within the meeting. So, those are the the two caveats um to this this change within the ordinance.

Okay, questions for Amber? We've had quite a bit of discussion on this. Mayor, the only other um thing that I wanted to clarify is I am only doing this for council meetings. Um do we want to do this for workshop meetings as well or do we want to keep the workshop meeting public comment period at the beginning like we did tonight or how do you guys want to do I was strictly doing it for regular council meetings. I don't think you think workshop and council be consistent. Yes. It'd be kind of confusing if it was,

but I don't want to see us yet do it. I don't want to see us yet do it for other boards and committees yet. Let's see how it works for us first and let us kind of be the guinea pigs for it. Right. And and then So, is there anything Okay. Be asleep by now. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Okay. So, we'll move on to item 18. Consideration of an ordinance amending the Smyrna Municipal Code in addition to what? Oh, title five, chapter 2, relative to the privilege and business taxes. Hey, Ben.

Good evening. Uh, this would, uh, this ordinance would amend the code to allow us to start, uh, assessing a late fee for the minimal business tax. So, uh, the girls down at the treasury approached our office and asked if they could charge a penalty and there was nothing, um, explicit that would allow them to do that. So that's what this does is just allows them instead because people would be able to pay six, eight months late with impunity. So uh this this and it, you know, gives some incentive to pay on time. Questions for Ben on this?

Ben, I had a question. I was kind of confused about the 10,000 revenue versus 100,000 revenue. So the state uh promulgated what is a minimal tax for the business. So, it originally was $10,000 and below. If you uh earn 10,000 or below, then the municipalities collect that tax. Okay? Well, they changed it fairly recently to change that threshold up to 100,000. So, now the threshold is a whole lot higher. So, therefore, there's a lot more businesses that fall under that umbrella. So, we're doing a a lot more work trying to collect all this stuff. And, you know, we can't penalize them for being late.

If it's over 100,000, then it goes through the state. the state state collects that anything under the minimum tax is now 100,000 below and it's on us to collect. Thank you. Are we good with this one? Yep. Okay, we'll put that on the agenda. Item 19 is consideration of an ordinance amending the 25 2025 2026 fiscal year fee schedule to add a late penalty for delinquent business privilege taxes. So, I'm assuming we're just adding this to our fee schedule. It's the companion uh ordinance that just change actually the first one authorized the late fee and this one implements it. Questions on this?

Okay, we'll move on to item 20 which is consideration of a resolution in support of a new air traffic control tower at the Smyrna airport. Um Evan, would you mind coming and talking a little bit about the need for the um or whoever you would like for you? Who whoever you Paul whoever. Um okay. And just for Amber's record, will you state your name and address and if you live in the town limits? Uh Paul Lamb, 402 Sandy Court. And uh we're definitely in the town of Smart. That's right.

Uh first [clears throat] like to say thank you for the support of the uh of the airport. We've got a lot of things going and uh uh council member Rquel went up the uh went up the tower in her high heels. [laughter] So what this does uh Evan had met with our congressional delegations in Washington uh and we really have some good support with those folks up there and one of the things that they uh ask us to do is to to gather support for the tower. The tower is 70 plus years old and uh and it doesn't have an elevator, does it? So uh what we're trying to do is get a a resolution of support uh we're talk, you know, the the the airport is is self-supporting, but we don't have $21 million to uh to build the um uh the control tower. So, we're hoping to get that in the uh appropriations budget and uh uh Congressman Dar Le has asked he's kind of taken the lead of this and ask us get support. Rutherford County is going to do this uh uh Thursday night and uh we're getting other businesses on the airport to to to show support for this tower. It's really needed and this uh this airport is is a crown jewel in this area. So, and we really appreciate your support and and look forward to uh to getting that tower built.

Great. Um I I don't think there'll be anybody who would oppose this next week in moving this forward. And um we want to do whatever we can do to help move this project forward. Question. Sure. Elevator going to be installed now. We're definitely going to have an elevator [laughter] cuz it's going to be a 100 foot tower instead of a 80 foot tower. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Um and I didn't do one of you want to talk about the award the exciting award that we won. You've got Oh, never mind. I'm sorry. Wait. She said we've got it for next No, no, no, no. She said we've got it next week and we'll just wait. I don't want to steal Amber's Thunder. Does that work? Okay, we'll talk about it next week. Um item 21 is consideration of an amendment to the bylaws of the Sister City Relations Committee.

Thank you, mayor. I'll take this one. Um we have a subcommittee that reviews expenses. um and also the sister city committee um wanted to make some changes as well. So I'm going to go through those uh and what's being presented to you. The first one is um looking at the bylaws and I think this is a remnants from years ago where the sister city committee needed to bring a report in front of the council uh to to show what their expenses were, what their activities were for the year. But that was before we had the the the subcommittee to look over their finances. And so reviewing that and understanding where that had come from, we're making the recommendation that the report go to the subcommittee at this point. So we are the ones responsible for the approval of their their expenses. We should be the ones to look at those on the report. Um the other one is uh to clarify the dollar amount that they that the committee is authorized to allocate or expend um in a fiscal quarter which is for routine necessary and directly related business expenses of the sister city program. Um those also that threshold being um $1,500 also does need to be uh provided in a report to the subcommittee at the next regular meeting um that that we would have still expenses over $1,500 need to be approved by the subcommittee and that typically happens when we review their budget. Uh the last change that this would also have is just a change in the age of a chaperone taking that age from 30 to 27. Uh the reason why we looked at that I think had to do something but there was it was kind of twofold. one, we have a committee member who's that age, right? And so they would not be able to be a chaperone. And I think the other one was to align that with I think like an insurance

if if you remember. That's correct. Like you can I think a person should be under their parents up until a certain age. Yes, that was and then at 27 I think they got to go under their under their own insurance. So that was one of the other reasons. Yep. So to recap the three the three changes are changing the age requirement for being a chaperone, clarifying the expenditure limit under the authority of the committee and then um three making it so that their reporting requirement comes to the subcommittee questions on this.

Just quick up kind of an update of what we gave that committee. Um at the beginning of the year we had $87,000 in that account. Um through the fundraising throughout the year and sending 20 uh kids and chaperones to uh to Japan, we still had $87,000 left in that account. So we uh there was a lot of money that was raised by by that group. Uh so uh and then this year they will not be traveling. So that that account will go up uh even more. But the reason uh for the 1,500 most of the time they don't need it uh because we know of things that are coming up uh but for an most of the time it it happens when we do like a spaghetti dinner uh and we decide say in January we're going to do it uh we're going to do it in February. So it we want to be able to go ahead and get those materials for that. However, we knew we were going to do it uh this year. So, when we had our last meeting, we've already asked for that money already. So, we won't even have to go back this year for it. But, it just gave a little bit of a um a buffer for things that might come up that we're just not expecting.

Questions for Jerry or anybody else? Okay, then we will move on to item 22, discussion relative to the renaming of the bridge on Morton Lane. Jerome, I know this was one that you had asked, so can you take this?

Thank you, Mayor. The um Mr. Garly approached me several months ago and I went and talked to Dave about it and I had mixed emotions about, you know, naming bridges and all that. But as we got into the history of what his family, you know, um the property and he referred to it as a pig lane. And so I think the history of the area and uh where it's not really designating, you know, a a person, it's more of a historical bridge. I I decided to bring that to Dave and the council to see what your thoughts on it are. And um um I do recognize that some bridges in town, there's people that they deserve to be named after. And I thought this was kind of middle of the road where it wasn't really, you know, any one person but a family. And the property has a historic significance to the park and to the school. We even talked about Dave and I naming a walking trail in the park or or some kind of feature maybe just to give the history of Morton Lane and and the girly uh family. And um so I'm just asking you guys to consider it.

When we got the the um email that had all of the history, there was a ton of it. I did not know. I mean, I had no clue. And uh to be honest with you, when Joe, first of all, I so appreciate Joe and their family and what they've done for the county. But um as he was speaking and he started naming the other families that were out there, that kind of gave me a little bit of pause as to do we name one over the other. But then the other thing, his sis, did you know Barbara, his sister? No, she just passed away. She just passed away. Yeah.

She was um she over on Poplerwood, didn't she? On the back side of the school. and she was a 4 extension agent and so into education. And I thought, how do we get this history across to and also honor them as well? And um maybe the way is through a marker at the park designating that because my only concern is what was it? He asked the Gurly family farm memorial bridge. The sign would be there, but nobody would know.

Well, if we had that marker in the park that referenced the bridge and how it was named, I mean, that'd be a good stopping point around the walking trail to stop, have a bench, read it, and um and just show the significance of that family in that area. Basically, we wouldn't have a roadway from um Ammaville Road to uh Amavville Rocky Fort if they hadn't granted the rightway to the county.

Mike Mike Moss, I'm sorry I didn't I'm not meaning to put you on the spot, but I am. Can you come up with the trail at Cedar Stone? That's going to be with the walking trail at Cedar Stone that's going to be included. Are we going to do the same thing there that we've done at the other parks where we do the markers that talk about the dis the different historical significance?

We could. We typically don't in a when it's in a inside of a park. If it's a greenway and you're passing several historical areas or something that's natural resources like the lake, we do. But it's no problem to do that for the guries. Uh if y'all decide to do that, obviously the history's there. Uh or anybody else that may be families in that area. It's easy to do. We're actually working on some to replace the panels on the greenway. Uh we actually put it in our capital budget, but we may do some before then. So it it's doable. We can find the right locations and you you know, if it's a history of that property, you want it to be seen by a lot of people. There's several places where you have a lot of foot traffic that might work for that if that's the way you decide to go. You know,

I just I mean, to me, this is stuff that we don't want to lose and that we want to make sure that that people understand what the history of the property, what came before them, you know? Yeah. So, when you say additional blacks and other families, are you talking about like other families that had farms out in that area or what are y'all talking about as far as I I think we're just throwing out I think we're throwing stuff out as to what area of some town. Yeah. Yeah. or in the park if there's other families around. That'd be up to you guys or whatever we decided on that. But that does give you the opportunity. You were talking about the Smith family living up the road. If you want to do something up that way, you got that opportunity where the trail

when Mr. Gurley brought up the different families that were out there. It's just hard for me. How do you pick one over another that that had more significance? Well, they they dedicated the rideway for the roadway, which in turn led to the bridge being built, you know. So, I think if we name the bridge the Gurley Family Farm Memorial Bridge, do a little historic marker and then somewhere else along the uh trail if there's um other family farms in the area, recognize them as well or on up the roadway.

Sure. Yeah, we can make it happen whatever y'all whatever direction you want to go. Great. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I promise I won't be in here asking name bridges uh all over town. Well, and I think that has to be I think that has to be a concern. What happens if another family comes and says and that's why mixed emotions, right? And says, "My family did X. I want this road or this bridge." and and we've we've just typically not as a council done that. Well, to Jerome's point, you know, if you don't take a bridge and do something with it, somebody eventually will anyway.

Somebody will make a bridge. Yeah. Something anyway. I mean, you know, at some point that's going to happen. [cough and clears throat] And if there's a historical relevance to it, then why not make it, you know, while a president is Mike still? Can you come back to the microphone? I'd like him. I me either. I I don't disagree. [clears throat] Um me and Mike had a conversation probably eight years ago. We even made a little field trip and I was want to ask him if he remembers that. the old uh metal trussle bridge. Yes.

Across um Stewart's Creek behind Burger King, right? We had talked years ago about trying to get that incorporated into the park design some way. Yes. And I think it's still there. Okay. So, just throwing that out there. What is this? I don't know. It's the bridge that went over to the safari campground. It's like going to Tridenton. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's right far from the monkeyw woman bridge. [laughter] We're going to name that. It's already close to that. That's that's been named for many years. Yes, I've heard that pedestrian bridge or something.

Yes. It's funny you say that, but I can inform Dave kind of where that's at and if y'all want to move forward. You know, last we talked about it was It has been a while on the bridge or on this. Yeah, that that old metal. Oh, I've always thought it was Yeah. was Yeah. But yeah. Um I brought it up about a year and a half ago to our current account two years ago with our current account manager and I don't know. I want to think Look at Tom back there grinning.

He looked into it or something and decided that it was not cost effective to move the thing. But at what cost effectiveness is history? I can't answer the question. So what if Wait, what if we put that on another since we're already 3 hours and 15 minutes into a meeting? Why don't we look at discussing that at another meeting?

But Raquel, I don't disagree with something you said is are we setting a precedence in regards to a family member coming and asking? But we have no committee that's been set up for designation of naming of bridges or roads or bridge over there on Sam Davis bridge middle of town but there's no but there's no pre there's no there's no there's nothing that was set up as to what does that look like. So, well, and we got a stretch of road in front of the um old place there for Grady. And then, but that's state,

right? Right. And the um Kent also has a state as well. She was on the state roads. It's Oh, I know. It's not our Mayor Spivey's got right memorial highway before. I bet we can get you one. Yeah. [laughter] going to land. So, yeah.

Council, are you comfortable with moving forward with this? Would you like to see a committee put in place to look at what guidelines would be in regards to naming things? Do you want to do something that recognizes this family in the park to give more detail? How is it you'd like to move forward? I don't care if you put it on the agenda. I could vote on it one way or the other, but um I think we should probably maybe look at doing something in the park for sure. And um I don't know. I'm not a big fan of naming stuff. So I don't really want a committee to how we're going to name stuff because we're just say we're just inviting it more.

But if you're naming something in the park, somebody else is going to want to come and name related to that. I am not against this. No, I'm saying that but I am all about process and setting a standard so that everybody gets treated equally. So that that's my concern. That park specifically being related to the girly property is what I'm saying. We're not naming something after we're just putting a plaque up discussing the history. I'm okay with that. Okay. Um I don't know if I would support naming the bridge after them or not. Um I just had a question I asked Jerry because I thought he might know. But why was the road named Morton Lane if it was the Girly's Driveway and the Girly's Bridge? Why wasn't it named Girly Lane?

I think a James Morton on the first section of it. Then the rest of the road went across the That's the problem, right? So where does it become Morton versus Gurly property? Right. That that's the whole problem that we're running into. Um, I I don't I'm not trying to take anything away from the Gurley family, but you know, we did buy all of that land. And um, so it's not like it was a donated bridge or anything either. We got to figure out a way to

I would make it work some. We got to figure out a way to decide how we deal with this issue with this family as well as other families going forward that may come to us with some historical significance in our town. That's my only concern. Just put it up for a vote. Keep it on the agenda. Let people vote on it. The only thing I hate about that is if people are, as Raquel says, against the process and vote against it, it's going to seem as if it's a vote against the girly family when it's not against the girly family in in any by any means.

I just think it's a slippery slope. I mean, I I can I talked to HG recently. There's cemetery in my subdivision. Constance Hardman wrote the declaration to form Rutherford County and he's buried in my cemeter in my subdivision and we don't have a street, a bridge, a building, anything named after him. Hardman's Mill was also his his mill was Gregory Mill. He started it. It was originally Hardman's Mill and it got changed to Gregory's Mill. We've got a we got a park named after the third family. We we've got a plaque u Nash is it Nash Cemetery on Florida Springs. Yeah. that they raised the money for and did. Yeah. So, what do we want to do?

I mean, we can leave it on the agenda, I guess, if you want to, but I I don't I don't like the concept. I think if I think we should have more conversations about what we're going to do going forward or if we're going to do this going forward before we make a decision. That's what I really think. Well, that's for Kel's point. There should be a process. Yeah. so that everybody has equal input and equal share of doing those things, right? So if we set a precedent and do it this way one time and another way another time,

that's confusing to all of us. We need to have some sort of idea about how it needs to look. If that's placards, I think that solves the issue. Uh bridge naming, I'm okay. I think I told Jerome, I don't have a big dog in this hunt really, but um I kind of see why you might want to do placards in lie of bridges. I kind of see that because the precedent it sets, but I'm like Steve. You can put it on the agenda and we can talk about it some more. I don't have a I don't have a worry one way or the other to be honest. So, if there's concerns about process and precedence, do we want to let staff look at what other communities are doing in regards to naming of things and bring that back to

I've got no issue with that with at a workshop? That's my recommendation. Okay. Yeah. So staff, if you could review and let us know what others are com what other communities are doing regarding naming of X and come back to us January 29th if you think you can get it done by then. If you can't get it done I mean I don't know this is something that's got to be done within 30 days. I mean, I think when you feel like you've gathered the information when you can come in, no rush. Yeah. It's just main thing was get out there and discuss it.

Well, and I don't want Joe or the girly family to think this is anything in regards to a knock on him or his family at all. Right. Yeah. I would really like to have more of a historical marker signifying their contribution to the community and the park and everything that spells it out. That spells it out. Not just a sign that says Girly Family Bridge. That doesn't mean anything to anybody except them. The little placer there that gives the history would be a companion to that. Yeah, I would I would love to see something more like that my per personally, but yeah.

Okay. So, um we'll move on to our final item. Uh the citizens academy update. Todd, I hope you don't have an hourong presentation. Well, I do have 20 slides, but uh [laughter] he's very poorer.

So much for renaming it. I was going to rename it the Spearman Memorial Citizens Academy, but forget that part. Um we just wanted to Mayor and Council, we just want to give you an update for the Citizens Academy. Um one thing we have a nice cool little logo that uh thanks to Heather and Patrick, they created us a nice little logo. Um but remember, we want to remind everybody we're about halfway through the application pro process and we have several applications already coming in. The purpose of this academy academy is to educate, engage and empower. It's to educate the citizens. Transparency lets the citizens see and have civil engagement. Um uh engage them, have communication, open communications between the citizens and empower, encourage informed participation. Uh we hope that there's future board members and there's future um uh representative boards and councils that we have um on this in this group. And we've broken it down into eight sessions. The eight sessions will be over nine weeks. Classes will be from 6:00 to 9 roughly. Um, but it could be a little bit earlier, could be a little bit later because we do have some field trips planned. Um, we're going to the water treatment facility. We'll go to a fireh hall, criminal justice building. Um, I will say staff has been very very excited. We have a lot of uh interactive activities that they planned. And I think I've told you before the uh staff at the event center is very excited to show people what they do. And that's one thing that we we're finding that uh uh all the staff is excited for this. One other thing that we're doing is to prepare for this. We've also set up we call it a beta group focus group. And so we're having the uh presenters will present to a focus group and get feedback for that to make sure that I you know when you're talking about utilities and you have a million gallons per day or so many gallons per day, some people may not know the acronyms and stuff. So, just to run this through our little beta group, test group, however you want to call it. And it actually worked out to our favor because some of the people that we're going to have in it are new employees that really do not know much about the town. So, they're

going to participate in the focus group to be able to get to see faces and people and know what we do on top of what we normally do for orientation. But, I just wanted to encourage if you have people that you wish to go to the uh citizens academy to please encourage them to go to our website. Um it's on the bottom right of the web page, front of the web page for to apply top

on top, excuse me. And um we already have like I said several applications that are coming in and it's a it's a wide group of people from retired persons to people that are you newly into the town and stuff. So we're excited about it and we just want to give you an update. That's where we are. And um like I said, if you have people that are interested, please push them towards the application and um let them participate in this activity with us. How many how many applicants are you taking at a time?

Um we're hoping to go around 20. And I'll tell you the reason it's 20 is because we do have several field trips um that we're taking them and and logistics on trying to moving people from moving participants from one area to another is not we got some other cool activities like the golf course. You may get to hit a bucket of balls at the golf course. The event center staff's going to show you how to roll a napkin roll and they're going to make designs, show you how to do designs and stuff and all that kind of stuff. So, is council eligible for this? I mean, actually, you have the first night. Council will be in the first night. I want to take the whole course. I was thinking about too just to help.

Can we do that without being so we don't take up other people's numbers who's driving to the water treatment plant? I'm just kidding. Absolutely. Absolutely. and and as part of go back to the schedule um you guys have the whole first first night and again what we like about it is it's an opportunity for um for Mr. San Tucci and for the council and for all of us to this is what we this is what we're doing this is who we are this is where we are um so anytime you would like to engage I think that's the purpose of this is to engagement empower and educate and um by all means you're well well wanted to come to it

perfect thanks Todd any other presentations tonight from no one. Yeah. Oh, wait. Charles is raising his hand. A Charles. [laughter] Come on up, Charles. I'd like to begin this by saying I was asked to present this. So, okay.

Just for my fellow directors. Uh to give you a quick road update. Sam really at Lowry Street. Uh like I said, this is a T DOT project. The project's going to add three new signals on Lowry Street. There will be two at each of the ramps that come on and off of uh Sam Ridley and there also be a new signal there at Jefferson Pike. Uh the signal poles foundations have been poured and the lane closure on Lowry Street has been removed. So we do have all that lanage open. The contractor has signal installations scheduled for April the 1st of this year and the project is scheduled to be completed by April of this year. Uh,

will you make sure the barrels in front of Taco Bell that go along with that? Will you either, if they're not needed, can you ask them to be picked up or if they are needed, can you ask them to stand them back up because they're all turned over?

Right. I'll get with Ton inspector on that to see, like I said, if that if they'll have to do any lane closures once they come in with the signals. But, uh, I will have them, like I said, dress up their traffic control. We'll do. Uh next is Sewward's Landing up on Sam Ridley. This is a developer project uh in coordination with T DOT. Uh the project's going to add a right turn lane from the Lowry Street Bridge all the way down to Mllo College where it will become a right turn only onto Mllo. Uh a new signal will be installed between Lowry and Mllo into the new uh development, the the Source Landing development. Uh we'll add an additional lane on MLO uh so it'll have a dedicated right through and left turn lane and the contractor has mass arms scheduled for April 10th of this year and the project is to be completed by June July of this year. Sam really at Old Nashville Highway. This is a T DOT local manage project. Uh we'll add two through lanes and double left turn lanes on all four legs of the intersection. uh will fix the drainage issues in the intersections which you see out there now is what they're putting in now is the storm pipe up by the CVS across. So that will fix that. It will be a companion one on the opposite side that will drain that corner down towards Walgreens. The contractor is back on site this week after being off during the holidays to remove the traffic control and lane closure. So, we are active again and we're scheduled to be completed by December of this year.

Questions for Charles? [cough] Um, [clears throat] the rest of Front Street, is that yours or is that Tom? Uh, Tom's the lead on that. Was Tom coming up after you? [laughter] Not unless requested. I believe that was the answer. Well, I mean, we're fixing to start on it again, right? I mean, there's still some Well, that was let Dave Dave and I had some conversations. We do we do have uh some more uh crosswalks to do, right?

But uh what I want to do, we've been gathering all of the contact information for the businesses in that district. So, what I'd like to do is meet with them first. Now, the new year's pass, we'll we'll go ahead and get that scheduled. uh meet with them, talk to them about what we need to do and then talk to them about ways in which we can get that done peacemeailed all at once and what that will look like. Can you tell me there were eight or nine other eight or nine? Yeah. Crossworks still to be done. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I still haven't counted eight or nine while I'm out there, but that's what I've been told. Well, I was wondering that too, but [laughter]

yeah. Um, but so once once I do that and I get the feedback from from the business community down there, then I'll come back uh to you all and let you know what um what the plan will look like and how that how that will look. I actually haven't had a big opportunity to talk to Tom about that yet. But Tom, that's what we're going to do. So, thank you, sir. You got it. Other questions. Okay, Christie,

you're good. Cameron, Dennis, Scott, anybody else on the back row? No. Okay. Any No. No. No. Casey. Okay. Mike. Next. [clears throat] No. No. Kevin, you good? Todd, Heather, Chief, Amber Lou.

Yes. Only because I was asked uh to share this. So, I had to sit in on um well, I didn't have to, but I I was I was invited to sit in on the Smyrna Charity Assistance Fund board meeting back in November. I had to sit in for Beth, who had a a death in the family. So was happy to do so and actually really ended up enjoying uh sitting in and learning about that board. But I received an email after and I've asked Beth to also share this um with the board members. But uh one of the uh grants that was awarded um was to Great Mercy Outreach Ministry and the founder and executive director, Bosco Tansen, sent an email thanking uh the SPA Charity Assistance Fund board uh for awarding them $1,500 to support their food pantry program. He went on to say that they are especially grateful that these funds will help cover transportation costs, allowing them to continue delivering food to families in need across Smyrna and surrounding communities. Um the support enables them to serve with greater consistency and reach and it means so much to them uh and to those that they serve within the town of Smyrna for the town standing with them. Uh they thanked us again for partnership and generosity. So just wanted to share that. Great. Okay.

I have a few things. Yes. First of all, I want to thank Charles for that update because I did ask him for to give that to the So, it was your fault.

Yes. Um on January 20 uh excuse me, 14th, uh our our building and codes department will be hosting a event at the event center. This will be uh to provide homebuilders and developers with an update to um some the 2024 ICC code update. And so I just want to let the council know that we'll be doing that. We are implementing these changes along with Rutherford County, Murphy'sboro, and some others in the area. Um so we'll have that dialogue. going to be a great opportunity for us to have some Q&A uh with with those folks as well as we're going to be making sure to give them a presentation on our sign code requirements and restrictions uh so that we can also introduce the new uh sign plaza program uh that we'll be rolling out. We want to make sure that they have a good understanding of of what that is as well. Uh the event center is been repainted and I encourage you to go take a look at it. They did a [clears throat] really great job. It looks uh very fresh and clean and I just appreciate everybody's participation um in that. And so it's I think it's a really good opportunity for the town to um to take a look at that facility.

Serving lunch again tomorrow. Uh yes. Yes, they will. Mhm. So if you can get over there just go take a peek Thursday. HG. Yep.

I I would I would encourage you to do that. Um, and then I wanted to just let the council know that last week, uh, me, Mike Moss, and Todd took a field trip in the woods. Um, we, uh, let me explain. We, there is a piece of property next to the park property that we are acquiring that was on the agenda just a a few weeks ago, last month, over by Independent Hill. there are some property owners there that have now at least verbally said, "Hey, we we'd be interested in in selling this to the town." So, we went out there and took a look at it. And um while the I will say this, I think it is worth at least getting an appraisal on to see um if it would be worth coming back to just show that to to the council. Um because being adjacent to to what there is, it is some beautiful land out there.

Was it level with dirt? No. rock.

There are some level areas. All right. Now, I don't know what you could do with it, but I think for the I, you know, let's let's go and let's just see what what it it appraises for and if if that makes makes sense. I don't want to miss that opportunity. We know land out there is moving quickly and and park space is a valuable commodity. So, I I'll explore that and I'll I'll come back and let you all know how that works out. Other than that, I have one slide which is I appreciate it once again uh talking about Mike. He's he's put up these signs throughout our parks so that we can not only still promote the My Simra app, which allows residents to go in and um inform us of any issues that they see out in our community that we need to address. Um but what I like is that the these are placed within the park so that we can, you know, is the bathroom dirty? Is it out of toilet paper? All those sorts of things can be used for for that app. And so, uh we've got those in our park areas. I just want to make sure that when that we're when that we're people are using that that staff is doing everything they can to move those along as quickly and give as much information as they can in regards to descriptions. I think I know citizens get frustrated when they make a send one in and it's either not replied to or it takes a long time or they don't necessarily get the best feedback as to what they what it needs to do to be fixed. [clears throat]

That's all I have. Jeffrey, nothing for me. Jerome.

Yes, mayor. I have a slide. uh shop with the cop event. The Smyrna Police Department enjoyed the recent shop with the cop event hosted by the Fraternal Order of Police. Each year, Smyrna Police Department officers participate in the event benefiting local children in need of assistance and that's during Christmas time. Right, Chief? uh Smyrna Police Department is pleased to participate in this event annually and looks forward to next year. So I know that you guys do the um thing at tootses, you know, to raise money then ask the uh community to make donations and and I think that's a very good program. Thank thank you for what you're doing.

Great slide as well. So, Roundabout Smyrna. Discover Roundabout Smyrna, your go-to destination for arts, culture, and connection in the heart of Smyrna. Stay connected with the community calendar. Meet local makers and experience the energy that brings Smyrna to life. There's always something happening at Roundabout Smyrna. Smyrna, where entertainment, art, and culture come together. To learn more about Roundabout Smyrna, there is a website, www.roundabouts.com. So, this website has all of the latest arts and cultural related um activities in the town of Smyrna. So, if you're looking for something to do, go look us up and come out and get involved. Thank you,

G.

I hope everybody had a very nice Christmas and uh starting off the new year good. We're going to help keep Smyrna Litter free through 2026. And um you know, one of the ways we're going to do that is with the recycling. And you can also recycle your Christmas tree. We will accept live trees for recycling now through January 19th at Lee Victory Recreation Park, 110 Sam Ridley Parkway East. Uh thanks to Carol's Tree Service, they're going to chip those and repurpose them and put them on our disc golf course and nature trails. Um, be sure you drer when you take yours out there, be sure you take off all the ornaments, tensimal and decorations before you drop it off.

I've got one of those popups that you just pop it back in the box [laughter] any problem. Well, just for posterity sake there. It's it's um it's located [clears throat] in the football field parking lot back in the back. Thank you, Jerry. Wait, where's your crown? It's right here. Have you eat Have you eaten all the beanie weenies out of the can already? We're going to survive tonight, right?

Okay. In December, the Rotary Club of Smyrna made a generous donation to the senior Smyrna Senior Activity Center. Contribution supports the operating budget and helps fund a new bus for the center, ensuring continued access to programs and transportation uh for our seniors. Rotary Club does a a fantastic job. They uh uh this money came from uh the wings of freed freedom fish fry and uh it comes it's done every year and uh the money just basically stays in this area. So uh support that every time you get a chance and but uh we do thank the Rotary uh for what they do around town here. Uh I've got a son's got a birthday next week, Tyler. Uh happy birthday and he's may be watching. Not sure, but uh his son uh Davis said he was going to be watching, but I got a feeling he's probably in bed by now. So, um

probably good thing to watch you at that. [laughter] So, anyway, um thank you for the uh for the honor of of being the king. So, that's all I got. You haven't played that. That's right. [laughter] Jerry, thanks for being a good sport. All right. It was for a good cause. That's it. Was that's right, Steve.

Um I also have a slide for National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, Chief and all of your guys on National Law Enforcement Day. Extend our gratitude uh to all the men and women in the in the blue for their dedication, professionalism, and service. Um not just our Smyrna police officers, but my son also is a Metro Police officer. And uh I guess Brit's retired now, so I don't think he counts anymore. But um uh we appreciate everything they do and uh if you see them out uh January 9th, which is uh Friday, I guess. Um pick up their lunch or buy them a coffee, do something nice for them. Um I don't have anything else. Oh, wait. I do. I'm sorry. I had a I got a birthday present this year, which y'all remember me talking about of a grandson born the day before my birthday. Uh I had another great present. I had a Christmas present this year that a grandson born on Christmas Eve. So, uh we have a third grandson and welcome Kingston Ray into the family and uh they're both doing well at home. Um enjoying big brother Kendrick is loving it. So, congratulations to Kevin and Kennedy and um my wife cuz she's really excited about grandkids.

So are you to be honest. Well, but they're all boys. That makes it a little funner, right? Cuz you get to rough house a little more. That's not true. Yeah. But Mark,

I have a slide, but HQ's really already already covered it with his comments about Jerome's tinsel on the tree and stuff, so we're going to kind of skip by. You can see there. Um, real quick, uh, happy birthday to my grandson, 12 years old. And, uh, I want to say thank you to everybody in the room, plus the directors and everybody tonight. We started at four o'clock today. We're still here. Thank you for hanging in there with us. All you guys got families at home and all that stuff and we know that. So, I appreciate all of you. Um, uh, I want to say something about somebody we lost in the community. Uh, Rhonda Allen. And, uh, Rhonda was a servant to this community from the from the get-go. Rhonda was a county commissioner. She served on a lot of boards and committees and, uh, was just a real genuine Smyrna person. If you knew Rhonda, you'd smile anytime you ever saw her. She'd bring it right back to you. So, uh, to Mike and the boys and the family, we give our condolences to all of them. Uh, we, some of us attended the funeral a little little over a couple weeks ago. And one of the things I took from the funeral, Rhonda actually spoke by video in the funeral. You talk about impactful. I've never been to a funeral where the person that was no longer with us spoke. And uh it hit me a little bit, but one of the things she said that I'll remember as she's always reminding us, this is what Rhonda said. You'll never regret being kind. That's something I took away from there. I wish the world had more kindness in it. People just treated one another with a lot more love and respect. And we'll leave it there.

Okay. I also have a slide and um the excellence in construction and step award. We in December star uh Smyrna Fire Station 4 was honored with the associated builders and constructors excellence in construction eagle award recognizing outstanding craftsmanship and quality and I think we all would agree that our fire station 4 out on Jefferson Pike absolutely deserves that award. So thank you. Um and we were excited to receive that. Um, talking about Rhonda, the last conversation we had quite a long one and and she was discussing her illness and um and all um but then I got a text not too long after that and she said, "I'm updating my prayer list. What is it you need me to pray for you?" And I thought somebody going through a terminal illness knowing that she was getting ready to pass away, but she was still thinking about me, my family, and our community because she said, "What does the community need?" So, um, Barbara Davenport is another one. Joe Gurley's sister passed away and she's one you always wanted on your team. If you had a project to do, she would help you get that done. So, um, two really good ones that that we have lost. Council, is there anything else? You sure you don't want to stay longer?

If we don't, then we are adjourned.