Town Council - workshop

Good evening and welcome to our town council workshop for August to set our September agenda, I mean for our September meeting. And before we move into our items for discussion, I'm gonna ask Mark Adkins to do our prayer and John Lear to do our pledge, if you'll stand with us.

Father, thank you once again for everything that you give to us each and every day. We take so much for granted, especially in our personal lives and in our town. Father, just continue to watch over us both. Continue to bless each and take care of those that serve the town. All of our employees and those that put their lives in harm's way, Father. We appreciate them all and we ask your blessings on them all. Father, we also lift up a special prayer for an iconic person, Dolly Parton, who we lost this week. What a Tennessean she was. What a humanitarian she was. And the way she loved on everybody and got love in return. Father, we need more of that. I pray for amazing grace. Go with us now. Lead, guide, and direct us in all we do.

Amen.

We will move into our items for discussion tonight. We have 14 items plus public comment. Items 1 through 11 are proposed consent agenda items. So item 1 is approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with Southern Cathodic Protection Company for annual testing of the Smyrna Natural Gas Cathodic Protection System. Mark?

Evening, Mayor. Standing there for Mike, he wasn't able to make it here tonight. This is for our annual cathodic protection survey that has to be done in September and October. So this is just to prove the contract to have the techs come in, walk the system with our techs, and just look for the integrity of the system, see if there's any faults that we need to correct.

Questions for Mark on this? We will put that on the agenda and move on to item two, which is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute a contract to conduct work needed by the utilities department for the SCADA controls and instrumentation.

This is for, we're switching vendors from MR systems to prime controls, and they're going to be our troubleshooting vendor to help us with the SCADA for controls at the water plant. the sewer plant and our surrounding booster stations and lift stations. So this is just, uh, we'll call, um, we'll call troubleshooting support from those from that vendor when we need help with the controls.

Okay. Questions on this. Okay. We'll move on to item three, which is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with Motorola for dispatch console service and maintenance. Oh, we're tag-teaming. Yes, ma'am. If I'd have seen you sitting over there, I would have made you do the pledge. It's all right. Okay.

So this is the annual agreement with Motorola to repair and maintain all of our fixed radio consulates throughout the town.

So not only police departments.

It's throughout the, well, I don't know how many other departments have radio. I'm sorry.

I'm thinking of the next one.

Well, even if there are other radio consulates in the utilities may have some.

Okay. Questions for James on this? Okay. Item four is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with NASHCOM to service our all police radios.

So NASHCOM is a Motorola authorized service provider, and this covers 197 radios throughout the town, including all of our mobiles, anything that's not covered under the manufacturer warranty.

Questions on this?

So if, um, so it used to come in as one big contract and we were able to kind of look at that and figure out that if we split it out, it saves about five grand, saves us about five grand a year. Okay.

Questions on this. Okay, we'll move on to item five, which is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute a contract with TNT Group to provide cleaning services under the janitorial services contract to town buildings. Tom?

Thank you, Mayor, Council. Our janitorial services contract is due to expire on October 1st. and we ran it to bid. We had several respondents and then we evaluated them based on their cost as well as references and qualifications based on the analysis of the team that evaluated the respondents. We have ranked TNT Group as the top respondent and are recommending them for approval of the contract for janitorial services that covers Town Hall, SOAC, water treatment, wastewater treatment plant, and Justice Center.

Questions about the janitorial services?

Completely different company than last year.

I'm sorry, what?

Completely different company than last year. Yes, sir.

So... I guess T&T Group was the eighth lowest bidder. We had seven lower bidders than that. If you don't mind, explain how they were evaluated and who the evaluation team was.

What we had discussed before when Rex and I had discussed evaluating a janitorial service contract several years ago is that you didn't want to give the most points to the lowest bidder. You were looking at three different criteria there. One of them, 50 percent, I think 50 points was based on fee, and so we would award more points to someone who came in that middle group. Taking the one who was lowest probably isn't going to do the best job. The one who is going to be the most expensive would probably be doing about the same job as ones closer to the middle. So the ones who came in around that middle range of of the respondents was given the most points on something like that to try to make it as objective as possible. Then we looked at references, qualifications, things like that. Our group scored them individually and then we returned those scores individually so we called several of the references together, asked questions and got some answers from them and found out the quality of work that they do provide and then we again went back and individually scored them based on those phone calls and then the scores came out as you see in front of you at the proposal evaluation.

And then who evaluated? Was there a committee? Yes, there was a committee. Who was that? Myself, Autumn Collins, and Barbara Berlin. Okay. And I've just got a question on what you said about taking the middle bidder and assigning the most favorable points to them based on the bids. Is that a precedent that we're going to be setting with other bids where we take the center bid and look at them more favorably than The higher or the lower?

No, that's not a precedent we're setting.

There's gonna be some contracts typically in your janitorial, your landscape maintenance, those types of trades where low bids historically do not pan out to have the quality that you're looking for. So that is a practice of evaluation on price that so long as you're transparent about that within the bid documents up front, which we were, that is completely acceptable. They're not in Senate to be the low bidder. Well, and again, this is not a low bid situation. So when you do an RFP, you want to be able to. But that's explained in the RFP. Yes, yes, yes.

That's it.

Moving on to item six is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute a maintenance agreement with Rutherford County Schools for construction of a fence in the right of way of Bulldog Drive.

So the Smyrna High School, with the Kroger going in right across the road from them, had requested a fence to be installed in the right-of-way of Bulldog. And so the contractor agreed, and Kroger agreed to install the fence. The challenge is that the right-of-way of Bulldog is right up against, close to the back of curb of the parking spaces for the school. So they couldn't install it on school property because then it would be in the parking spaces. So they had asked us if they could put the fence in the right-of-way at Bulldog. We agreed to that. Then Kyle prepared this document to see in front of you for a maintenance agreement indicating that Rutherford County Schools would be responsible for maintaining the fence in our right-of-way.

And they are aware of this. We made them aware of this. Yes. Okay. Questions on this?

What type do you mean?

Yes. I think a six-foot chain link fence. Okay.

Other questions? Item 7, approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with CSX Transportation Incorporated for design services for a pedestrian crossing at Enon Springs Road as part of the Lowry Street Phase 3 project.

So, as part of Lowry Street Phase 3, we are looking at pedestrian signals at the intersection of Lowry and Enon Springs and extending the sidewalk to CSX right-of-way and in doing so we'll be providing a cross connection across the sidewalk similar to what we did at Washington Street. This is a contract with CSX so that they can do the design on their part to be able to prepare construction plans to be able to make that crossing.

You anticipated having sidewalks and pedestrian crossing arms. Yes, sir. Similar to what we have downtown. Yes, sir. When you move from the railroad crossing up to Lowry Street, Do you know how severe that's going to be right there, to put a sidewalk in right there?

It's going to be a challenge. There's definitely a challenge with the slope going up and turning. In the past, in certain situations, I've asked TDOT about They have an ADA coordinator, and I've asked them about situations where it's an existing roadway and the slope, if it has to meet ADA requirements. They said no in situations with roadways that are already sloped too steep, that they'll allow that to go on. That was at the intersection of Genie and Old Nashville Highway, where the cross slope is greater than a 2% on the crosswalk.

Would you like a real challenge? Put a right turn lane in there.

That would be a challenge. I've got enough challenges. I think it should be on both sides of the road because there's sidewalk on both sides of Enos Springs coming through there.

On that design, Tom. Do we know what the deliverable date is that they'll finish that and get it to us? I'm not aware of it. I look for it.

Yeah, I'm not aware of the deliverable date.

So once the design is done, will we then contract or put out a bid for the contractor to design it, or we have to use someone at CSX?

So CSX will be designing their component of it and then working with our engineer who's designing the remaining portion of the sidewalk, and it will be integrated together so that once it gets approval, we get into construction phase, all of that should go out as one bid.

for contributions and it'll be bid sorry and it I guess I'm asking is the bid for any particular developer, or did a CSX require us to use certain persons?

Well, that's a great question, because CSX will do their portion across the tracks like they did at Washington Street, so they'll pour the section in between the tracks and then so many feet, I think it's 10 feet each side of the track, and then they'll be installing the gate arms as well. Okay. And then we would do the remaining portion. Okay.

Other questions? Item 8 is approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute a no-cost agreement between the town of Smyrna and the Tennessee Department of Transportation for the town to access TDOT CCTV.

Yeah, so this is just our annual contract with TDOT that allows us, and it's no cost associated with it. It gives us access to their cameras along I-24 in case of an accident or issue like that.

Questions on this? Okay. Item nine is approval of the terms of an authorization for the mayor to execute an agreement with HDR incorporated for the design of the improvements to Lee road from Bermuda chase through the intersection of Lee road, Rocky fork road and seminary road.

All right. So as a part of the project that we're, Rutherford County Schools is purchasing about 150 acres of property for potentially two to up to three schools. We're going to need to make some improvements to Lee Road as well as the intersection with many different roads intersecting a seminary, Rocky Fork and Lee Road. So this design contract This is just to take it through right-of-way. So this doesn't take it to full construction plans. This takes us up to right-of-way. So we'll know with these construction plans how much right-of-way and easements we're going to need to obtain from surrounding property owners, be able to obtain that, and then be able to finish out the construction plan once we get pretty close to being finished with right-of-way acquisition. They'll finish out the construction plans, and we'll be able to go to bid on it this month. They're anticipating a 10-month turnaround from the time that we give them a signed contract for a notice to proceed. Take approximately 10 months before those right-of-way plans are ready to go, and then we'll be in right-of-way phase with this project.

Dave, what is the plan? I know we've had discussion with the school board in regards to, and we've kind of gotten a verbal commitment that they will help us with that. What are our plans moving forward to get an actual agreement on paper for that?

Yeah, I think at this point we haven't gotten an indication from the school board of when and if really those schools will be built. While staff is committed to participating in the financing of this project, we feel that we don't have the time to sit around and wait for them. Their traffic impact study does indicate some of these improvements, and so we would want to ensure that those are their responsibility. And so as we move forward with this design contract, we wanna make sure that the things in that traffic impact study are separated out, so to speak, so that those design costs can be borne on the school board.

It's not the one that the traffic study was done when they were out of school.

So they still need to redo their, their traffic study.

And are we having discussions with Trey on getting that redone?

We have.

Okay. Okay. Okay. And, um, We're taking into account everything in regards to the intersection as well as the new road that we're looking at going to while we're doing this. Yes, yeah.

We're going to be coordinating those together, MECU and Connection. That's going to be one of my questions.

I know we've got the overall aerial here with red lines, but kind of explain the limits of this project, Tom, overall.

So I don't know if we can bring that up on the screen, what you're looking at, but from what I remember, the red lines represent the extent of this contract and where we're looking to do improvements in like tie-in locations right and then uh the orange line represents where the the connector rather the mckeon connector the rocky fortune connector is going to go so that's how the overlap is just in that section so this is going to go

through the intersection of Lee and Rocky Fork and on to seminary here. Now, are we incorporating that intersection for improvements with this right-of-way set of plans and in the future with design? You're talking about the Lee Seminary, Rocky Fork?

Yeah, the weird intersection. Yeah, that's one that's most likely going to take a very large roundabout, exactly. And that's why we have to go so far out on Seminary and Rocky Fork, each direction, because we're going to be going pretty far back to realign those roads to bring them in on a 90 degree angle to the new roundabout. We are, sorry, go ahead.

I've already had somebody reach out to me about, you know, roundabout and high school kids. And some of the roundabouts are designed around Tennessee are really too small. They don't have the diameter. And so I just wanted to pass that on. Hopefully, we've got enough room there to do adequate roundabout.

Oh, yeah. That roundabout, I believe, even in the current traffic impact study that they had recommended a roundabout there, correct?

Yeah, schools traffic impact study. Yeah. When the other school wasn't in session.

Didn't I talk about two roundabouts? I figured the other one was down at the school.

Yes, that's the recommendation that the school's traffic study made was since there's only one connection, there's only one roadway connection that those two or three schools can make, they were projecting a roundabout to help traffic flow out of the schools.

The last time that we talked to Trey, I thought they were looking for a, a second entrance in and out. Was that not what the discussion was that day?

Yes, it was. I just don't know if they've gotten the access to that.

Yeah. Let's do one of the other subdivisions that wasn't another piece of property.

Okay. Um, just for future Is there a way with maps and stuff that we have on here, if we're talking about it, we can have it to be ready to go up there just so it makes it easier for those in the audience and at home to see? That'd be great. Okay. Other questions? Okay, we'll move on to item 10, which is approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to execute a contract with the regional transit authority and commuter bus service between Nashville, Davidson County and the town of Smyrna. And Amanda and Amanda, how are y'all? Y'all come forward and just for Miss Amber, if you'll state your name. Amber, do you need them to do address? Please.

Hello, Amanda Vandergrift. I'm the Deputy CEO for Finance and Administration at WeGo Public Transit, who manages the contract for the Regional Transit Authority.

Will you just give me WeGo's address for the record, please?

430 Myatt Drive. Okay. Thank you.

Great.

And I'm Amanda Clulland, the Director of Legislative Relations for WeGo Public Transit. Thank you.

And we like to only hire Amanda's that we go. So you get both of us today. And I guess my slides are teed up here. Okay, great. Oh, awesome. so we have been in conversations and this actually is where you guys have been hosting us to have conversations with the rutherford county corridor committee for the regional transit authority so just a little background on what we've been talking about more broadly and what has been generally the approach for each of our corridors we operate a number of different corridors across the region and focusing in on the 84X and the 86X, which are the services that we provide in Rutherford County. All of our corridors must be self-sufficient financially. So that's something that's been approved by the RTA board as a way we are able to fund and provide our services each year. So the Rutherford County corridors, the 84X and the 86X are self-sufficient. And our annual partner contributions, including Smyrna's partner contribution, is based on our actual costs to provide the service in Rutherford County. So each year, our finance team takes the total cost of service, we net out fair box revenue, we net out federal funding, which is actually a big piece of how we fund service in Rutherford County, and then we net out state funding. And then we get that final amount, which is then divvied between all of the partners in the corridors, according to what's agreed to in the Rutherford County Corridor Committee. In the most recent past, we have seen some pretty significant cost increases. I think many of you are feeling that in many areas. It's also being felt that we go on RTA services, but we have not increased our contributions virtually across the board for several years. And really, we were getting to a point where we were eating into reserves very substantially. So Smyrna was one of our partners of many that were eating into your reserves rather than funding the total cost of service. And in 2026, we ultimately ended up hitting a point where we couldn't do that anymore and reserves were virtually depleted. So we started having conversations with the committee on the Rutherford side to say okay, are we able to increase contributions or do we need to have a conversation about what the service will look like in the future in this corridor because we are hitting the limit. So that conversation was started a couple of years ago and we've had a couple of years of conversation like slowly increasing contributions, meeting service needs for 26 and in 27 we also agreed to generally dollar amount to continue service in 27 but the ultimate goal is that we want to think about what this service looks like in the future. What does regional service look like in Rutherford County? How much does that cost? How does it fit into the choice lanes? So that's been part of our conversation with the corridor committee over the past couple of years. So the 86X, our current service, goes to La Verne and Smyrna from downtown Nashville, and our 84X goes from downtown to Murfreesboro and MTSU, so we're focusing on both of those corridors. When we talk about the Rutherford services and how we're funded today Actually, this is a very unique circumstance where you are able unlike most of our peers around the country To fund your regional bus service with federal dollars. So that big blue line That's all federal congestion mitigation funding that is not allowed for most everyone else in the country This corridor is one of the unique corridors that can do that provided the money's provided by TDOT, and the money isn't rescinded by future federal legislation. But right now, we have the funds up until 2030 to be able to provide most of the funding to support this service, which again is just, it's a really great opportunity in this corridor to have. And Rutherford partners account for about 13% of the 86X total costs, and about 12% of the 84X. So for you guys, it's the 86X. You can see Smart is the Dark skinny bar on the left side here. So just a small portion of the total cost of what it takes to operate that 86x service But ultimately we're able to shift most of it to the federal side Davidson County portion Davidson County provides funding for both the 86x and the 84 is it about 5% the little sliver I Yes, that looks right.

So that's the purple.

The purple, that's right. So they provide the predominant funding on the partner side. So the 84X today currently operates 12 round trips, around 42 service hours per day, around 100 passengers per day. The 86X, which serves Smyrna and La Verne, averages about 30 rides per day. We have 15 services hours daily. And we have a 3 a.m. and a 4 p.m. trip. So that's our current state. And we talked a little bit in the committees about, in the quarter committee meeting, about combining those two and looking at ways to maybe reduce the overall partner contribution, but also be able to continue some form of regional transit service here as the choice lanes are being Constructed and then think about how we potentially may fit into the future choice lanes in this corridor And potentially keep using those federal dollars to fund service on the choice lanes So that is a possibility in this corridor that unlike any of our other RTA bus corridors this one in particular has a future operating condition that could be funded fully by federal support and is, you know, the dedicated right of way. So our meetings over 2025 and 2026, we talked about our reserves depleting, everything I just talked about. We talked about our need for increasing our subsidies to continue our existing services as they are today. the need to increase our contributions for 26, which we were able to do, and in 27, which we were able to do. And in those, that was not just for us to continue service, but also to hopefully start growing our reserves back, because most of our partners, you all are fully depleted as of this year. And then also just talking about inflation and the realities of the market and each year our costs are going to go up and we're going to probably need to increase our asks each year to account for that. And then looked at funding scenarios because one of the things that brought us to the table to talk was MTSU, which was our big funding partner for the 84X. unfortunately decided they weren't going to continue as partners. And if they weren't going to continue as partners, that really changed the calculation of what our other partners would need to put in to continue service. Luckily, to fast forward to where we are today, they actually joined in as partners right at the last minute this year. So that allowed us to kind of delay our decision to make some big changes and gave us the ability to kind of do some more thinking. on how the service looks in the long term. We talked together about combining the services and piloting a WeGo link zone. And so we would essentially, in this scenario, remove the 86X, keep the 84X, put all of our focus on that, and then provide a WeGoLink zone, which I'm not sure if anyone here has used a WeGoLink zone, and I can talk a little more about what that looks like, but a WeGoLink zone which would provide connections using Uber to our park and ride, so they could get to and from downtown Nashville, $2 a ride to and from the park and ride. So that's an option to be able to connect folks, and then also how do we start talking about what this looks like with the choice lanes, because that's the ultimate goal here.

So if I'm understanding correctly, if you combine the 84 and the 86, essentially the 86 would disappear, and that would be the part that comes over to Highway 41. So essentially the route would only be on I-24 at that point.

Correct. And in that scenario, we would put forward a pilot we go link zone that would connect people. But we found through our onboard surveys, I have a slide on that in a moment, but we found through our onboard surveys where we went out and talked to the riders who are using the service today in Smyrna, that most of them are driving anyway. So they probably wouldn't, we think that they probably would probably still continue to drive over to the new park and ride and then take the service from there. So not as major of an impact for Smyrna. I think La Verne has a few more riders who are, it'd be more of a lifeline service. And so We Go Link would provide that Connection to folks who don't have transportation who are still trying to use our services to get downtown to opportunities So we also could because of the way geofencing works with we go link we could tie rides taken to and from Smyrna specifically and Base this on usage and Laverne as well and we still need to talk to Laverne about how that would look But ultimately yeah, we would connect folks into the 84 X trunk in this proposal.

So you could still connect to the people out of Smyrna, even though the majority of them drive, they would still have an access to the link that you're talking about, the ones who don't?

Yes, ma'am. If you choose to advance that pilot, that would be the proposal. I know many of them already might drive to the stop and have that access even if we combine services, but for the ones who aren't, you'd have that option too.

So essentially it would move the stop from Stars and Strikes, where it's at now, over to the park and ride at I-24 St. Regal.

The Waldron Road park and ride, yes.

So they would now have to drive, Smyrna would have to drive to Waldron Road.

Yes, but they would be backtracking with any of the other options, so we found that to be probably the best, most likely option for Smyrna and Laverne. Also, that is an existing park and ride, and we have been in conversations with TDOT on improving that park and ride with better signage, bus stops, And that's something we can do in the short term before we institute any kind of change.

Okay. Amanda, so hypothetically speaking, if 84 stays alive, let's say, and 86 goes away, you'll have MTSU back in as a partner. Can you tell any of us what the capacity is for those rides? And will that affect anybody potentially missing a ride because it's full or whatever? Because you're kind of getting away with, you're doing away with one of them. And then what the choice lanes in the future makes you think might affect the riders or not?

Yeah, I think the best indication for us is what we heard from our onboard surveys. And a lot of them, and I can fast forward to that actually. Let's see. So here we go. Our onboard surveys, a lot of folks said, and they are only writing a few days a week, but they wanted additional trip time options, right? So we're hearing, we want more options. We want to be able to connect downtown easier. Um, we don't know until we do this and it's going to have to of course go through our title six assessment and our public, uh, comment period. And we're going to be kind of refining this as we plan to roll it out. But yes, there will be probably some folks who are impacted more than others, which is why I think the We Go Link Zone is an important piece for us to propose because it will help capture anyone who may be impacted the most or where it's more of a lifeline service for them.

Thank you. I would be, you said you could do it. I don't know if it's in here, but I would be interested to know how many of those are Smyrna versus Laverne. Because honestly, the way I'm looking at this is if you get rid of the 86, you're not stopping in Smyrna at all. So I'm not even sure why we would partner, right? The only reason would be because of the citizens in Smyrna that are using it. And I need to know what that number is, right? Because with no stop in Smyrna, you're essentially just driving down 24. You could say Nolensville needs to partner too. You could say, you know, Mount Juliet needs to partner. Anybody that could access 24 should be doing the same partnership. So why is Smyrna a partner and Nolensville not? You see my point. By not stopping in Smyrna at all and kind of forcing our citizens to drive to Laverne to catch it, I'm not sure what value really we get for the money. So I need to understand how many Smyrna users really use it.

Oh, we can provide that information from our onboard survey. You can kind of see here, we did anonymize it in this graphic, but you can see, um, some of the regular writers when and where they live or where they're taking, not where they live. It's where they're taking, um, the stock from, we tried to anonymize it and, uh, where they're going. Um, so a lot of the folks in Smyrna, we think. will still choose to use the service, uh, because they're driving already. So that'll just get them closer.

They may. I just think that that's, if you're going into Nashville, that's about 25% of your commute right there already coming down. Sam Ridley to Walden road is the most likely route, not the way you have it there. And I think that Sergeant strikes to there's probably going to add 20 or 25 minutes to their, to their commute to the bus. Um, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't go that way. I go a different way, but. My thought is if I'm driving that far, it starts opening up a couple more miles down the interstate, so I might as well just keep going.

Understood. So you're saying, let me just make sure, on the numbers, you want to see the actual numbers, not the percentages. Right. Because I can see the percentages, but it doesn't tell us if that's 10 or 100 or 200 people that took the survey.

Yeah, and I'm not even worried about the survey. I want to know how many are riding. And I think you can probably get that with cellular data, right?

I don't think that we can.

Geofencing, you can't get the number?

Most of our information comes from surveys.

So maybe Dave or Todd, is Todd here? Maybe we can use Placer and point in time and see what kind of activity we're seeing at Stars and Strikes at the times of the bus stop.

And not to jump ahead, but I had the same concern that you just voiced about, well, if the single stop is going to be in La Verne, what's the value for us? So that's when the conversation about this WeGoLink came about, because we still want to make sure that those citizens who do rely on the bus have a way to access it. But the other part of that is, is that the ridership right now is so low because of the limited options that are available for that, for our current route. it's, I might mix this up three times in the morning and four times in the afternoon, as opposed to the 12 round trip, um, routes that they have on the larger route. So the thought is, is that with more options, hopefully there's more folks from Smyrna who will use it. And that could potentially justify, you know, uh, our continued participation.

I guess my logic is they would be using it already, right? If, If Smyrna citizens were willing to drive to Waldron to get more options, they would already be doing that.

But there's not, there's not a bus stop at Waldron right now.

I don't think it's, it's there, but it's not. well signed which this would be part of this proposal would be improving signage improving amenities right now it's it's just a parking lot can you describe what's located down there i mean that whole intersection right there's a yeah she's got a picture of it let me get a picture for you i'm going the wrong way aren't i

So do they currently come here to Smyrna to catch the bus, the ones that would be down at Waldron? Yes. If that's not the exit, if that's not the stop right now, they have to go somewhere to get on the bus.

You're talking about the ones that are currently using it. I'm talking about, Dave was saying that because the 84 line has more time options, that more ridership might increase because they have more options. Those options are already there and ridership might increase is what I'm saying. So I don't think that's going to have an impact at all.

Actually, I may add to that and say there may be Smyrna residents already writing it like that because of the options.

Yeah, but my point is I don't think it's going to increase, right? They may already, but I don't know that it's going to increase. If that option's available and they're not already doing it, I don't – taking a route away, I don't know why they would start. And then my last comment around that was the – You had said earlier that most of the folks that were catching the bus at Stars and Strikes are actually driving to Stars and Strikes. So I'm not sure the link program provides much for us, except for your survey data will tell us that, right? But it doesn't, because they're already driving to the stop. If they're going to catch the bus, they can drive to the next stop. So why would they use the link if they're not?

But most of them, because there are still some. That's what I'm saying. There are still some that don't drive or have to go walk to the actual bus stop.

That may be true, but if that's two or 20, right, we need to know that detail.

think that's one thing that I like about the pilot and the we go link zone in general is that we can design it how you prefer so if you only want to put you know a thousand dollars towards it you can do that and we can cap it that way and we can only invoice you for the rides that start and stop in Smyrna I would assume based on what we've seen in downtown and where we operate a lot of our, we go link zones that the ramp up is going to take some time. So you might not see a major amount of usage, but you can still have that as an option that people can use for the folks in Smyrna that are using it as a lifeline service. There are still some, it's just most of the lifeline users are Laverne in the, uh, um, onboard survey.

Okay.

Okay. So the We Go Link Zone and how it works, we have a partnership with Uber where they provide a voucher. We reimburse that voucher up to $8. This is in MTA's side. So this is something that's not been done on the RTA side and something we could craft on the RTA side. The customer pays the first $2. We pay up to $8, a total of 10, and most rides are under that. with the way these zones are designed. If it goes any higher, the customer pays that. It must either stop or end at a designated bus stop. And you also could access other taxi options if you prefer. Most of our rides are through Uber. For the WeGoLink pilot zone, we'd really talk with you guys about how you want to structure it, if you want to structure it, if there's a desire, what price point you're interested in, cap you would want if you want a cap what kind of cost share would there be do you want everyone to pay two dollars we can talk about that because we have a couple of zones that are free in davidson county for various reasons what the hours of operations would be and then for rta once we get a green light if we get a green light from you and laverne on this we would then need to create a contracting mechanism with rta because we're doing all of this on the mta side So this would be brand new pilot for RTA, which will help us maybe test this concept in a regional setting. And you can see the Waldron road park and ride. And I just wanna mention too, again, we have the choice lanes coming in in the future, and this would be connecting into a potential future park and ride on the choice lanes corridor. which makes this corridor very unique compared to our other regional bus services that we operate. Sure.

Just so I understand, maybe it's the one before that, the WeGo link, the one before, yeah. So the customer pays the first two, and I understand we could adjust that. WeGo pays the next eight, and then anything above that, the customer pays. Is that right?

Yes, that's correct.

So essentially, WeGo's... supplementing eight dollars so i just did a quick uber from here to the walton road parking ride it's 18.94 right now so that means that they would be paying 10 to 11 dollars to drive to walton road even with this program well we don't have to design it the same way and it very well may be different i understand but this with this plan that's what it would cost so I'm just not sure if you could drive your own car, why would you pay 11 and switch cars? I don't know. Okay. Okay, thanks. Keep going.

And this is one where we need to talk about if this is a reality, like what the price might be, what's reasonable. Uber availability here may be a little different, I imagine it is, than in Davidson County. So we'd need to price that into your overall cap that you're willing to pay for and just treat it as a pilot. If it doesn't work, doesn't work, we move on. If it works, then maybe you decide to invest in it each year. But it would be up to you through an MOU with us if that's of interest. And I made it to my next steps here. So we do want to know if it is a desire or possible interest to Smyrna and La Verne to continue down the path of potentially making this a reality as a pilot. We still need to talk to La Verne as well to make sure that they're interested, but you guys could move forward with or without La Verne through an MOU because we can geofence rides. Ultimately, if it's a yes, we'd execute an MOU with you based on what you would like. And we'd then start working through the contractual issues with RTA to get WeGoLink set up and establish a policy with the RTA board. We are also right now working on those improvements I mentioned to the Waldron Road Park and Ride. So that's advancing. and our combined service would begin, thanks to MTSU coming in at the last minute, our combined service is now shifting back to begin next fiscal year. So we have a little more time to talk about what this corridor looks like in the future. It starts in July. So we have some time. Not a ton of time, but some time.

My question was, how many miles do you get with Uber? you know, $10, and Steve answered that.

Yeah, it was only six miles, and it's $20.

Our development is occurring on the west side of I-24 at Alleyville Road. That's where the future development's going right now. So I think somewhere along your analysis surveys or something, you probably do need to take a hard look at the Choice Lanes parking ride location there. Because I kind of agree. I mean, if I'm in my car and I've got to pay the choice lane, get off, park my car, get on the bus, I'm heading on to Nashville in my car. So I think in order to promote the riding of the bus we go, you're going to have to make it convenient.

Thank you. Ty?

You said you discussed combining or getting rid of the 86X. Is there a timeline on when that might happen or if that will happen?

Yes, we are moving forward with plans to do it at the beginning of next fiscal year to combine. Smyrna and Laverne will have fully depleted their reserves. MTSU may or may not continue. There's a lot of unknowns and to have that stability is really important. So based on our conversations, it would be July 1st of 27.

Our vote tonight is not about our vote tonight is about the contractual money to keep it the way it currently is. And to do the 17,632, which is the 23,000 plus using the remainder of our reserves. And so this is not something that we have to decide tonight. So I just want to make sure everybody. But I do think some of the numbers you're asking for will play into our decision making. So I think we're going to have to bring that back at another workshop once we have more information.

I think we need a lot of conversation amongst the council about the value, whether or not it makes sense for us if 86X goes away. I'm going to be honest, if we're not using WeGoLink, the town could provide our own supplement to those folks that need to take an Uber to Walden Road and not contribute here at all. For giving $20,000 to WeGo, that'll pay for a lot of Uber trips.

Just so you know, and I understand we have to think about us first, but that also affects what's going on with the others, just like when MTSU pulled out, that we had to...

I mean, I understand that, but the others are the ones getting the benefit. And I'm not disagreeing, but I just want to make sure everybody understands. In this plan, Laverne and Smyrna are paying the same thing.

The other line, if NTSU is gone, we're still going to pay more than $20,000.

But Amanda, help me remember, if the line goes away, we cannot get that CMAQ funding back. Isn't that correct?

If the 84X goes away, which this would... kick off more discussions about that because other partners will need to increase. Yes, CMAQ by definition would not be eligible to be used on this corridor in perpetuity, including future choice lanes operations.

And I know in the discussions with our partners, it was about only having to make one stop at La Verne. With the possibility of us pulling out, is there a possibility of stopping at Smyrna and stopping at La Verne possibly to keep us included?

We can absolutely talk about that with our service design lead, Katie, who was in those meetings. I think she originally looked at it as a way to streamline as much as we can service, and every stop we add adds time. talking about reliability and making sure we make it a viable service. So there would be trade-offs there, but we can talk about that as an option in the meetings.

And if you're trying to streamline, what would be wrong with streamlining Laverne to come to Smyrna?

so if we were to have a stop and when we were looking at this let me go back to this one's the opposite direction the three stop exactly that is the big piece is we don't want people to have to backtrack right um so you would essentially be backtracking most of your folks would be backtracking away from nashville if we were to pick Almaville, Almaville road park and ride. And then Sam Ridley, um, as well, types of heavy traffic, you can backtrack from Laverne smart.

That's a whole lot quicker than, but I'm not even sure. I mean, I don't know where the profile is.

It's backtracking, but a lot of folks in Laverne.

We'd probably have less. I'd rather not fight Walden Road. It'd probably be easier to come to Sam Ridley and come down to there than to come down Walden Road.

So why don't we, you know now what concerns of the council are that you can take back to our corridor committee to have discussion about. Absolutely. You can also get us numbers for number of ridership of Smyrna residents. that will give us the ability to have discussion over. And when do we really need to have a decision back to you all so y'all can move forward one way or another with us or without us?

For the WeGoLink zone in particular, by the end of this calendar year would be really kind of, we need to do a lot of back behind the scenes contractual work to make this a reality. When do you think you can get us the numbers? That's something we can pull from the onboard survey, so I could get that to you in the next week.

Then we probably need to make sure that we get it on another workshop agenda to have more discussion about.

So I do have a question regarding numbers.

So you're going to get us the numbers related to the number of Smyrna riders. But do any of the La Verne riders actually come to the Stars and Strikes to catch the bus? Because I'd like to know how many in La Verne actually come to Smyrna.

I can inquire on our onboard survey if we covered that detail. Okay. Not sure if we did.

Does your survey get their home address or anything like that, or is it just where they pick up the bus?

So we purposefully asked them not to provide their home address so we can anonymize it. So we picked, say, two intersecting roads near where they're coming from with this survey.

Where they're coming from, not where they're catching the bus.

Where they're coming from. Okay.

That might still tell you. And then I think you also said your data would also tell us how many users maybe don't drive to the stop.

Yes.

So that would tell us how many the WeGoLink might impact one way or the other.

Oh, of yours? Yes. Yes, okay, because this is a total breakdown, but yes, we can do that. Okay, other questions?

I have one, and I'm sorry to ask you this, but are we ever going to get mass transit?

Um, I guess you mean regional transit light rail, maybe light rail. Um, it's not currently in the, uh, most recent approved plan for choose how you move. It's a focus on bus rapid transit, but it did include a regional connectors and regional partnerships. So, um, light rail, I'm going to put my old hat on where I was a consultant before this, but light rail is very expensive. So we talk about costs of bus service like this, and we're talking more about millions, several millions. So it would have to be funded through some sort of

I'm going to be honest. I'd be more willing to pay several millions for something people use than less money for something they don't use.

So this has been bandied around for many, many, many, many years. It's just not growing any things.

Well, it's just one of these days. It's going to have to come up, and it's going to be more expensive then than today. Costs grow each year.

But I don't think it's fair for a band. No, I know. I know.

I mean, you know, I knew when I asked the question where it was going to go. Yeah. So I just...

So we appreciate the presentation and thank you for being willing to answer questions. Sounds like hopefully we've provided more questions that you all can give us information back so we can continue to be discussing what we're gonna do for next fiscal year regarding service. And then hopefully we'll also get some more information from MTSU, but I don't even know if that's really gonna matter if they contribute or not from the aspect of, because they've moved the stop from MTSU now to the new station for Murfreesboro, correct?

And that opens in October, so that's also a change. It's very likely that MTSU If they stay in, it would reduce their contribution. And it's very hard when they come in the last minute for us to make decisions. So it's definitely something that we don't want to be banking on as a committee.

And just so you know, with MTSU, they found that they did not have many students using, and it was people from Murfreesboro coming and parking and using their stop.

It's the same conversation I'm having. They're moving the stop from MTSU. They don't have a lot of students, so why should they contribute, right? Right. They're having the exact same conversation that I'm asking about. Right.

Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. Item 11, approval of the terms of and authorization for the mayor to approve hardware and software renewal quotes to extend support for the town's current transaction processing system.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. This request is coming with great relief to me. If you remember at the budget retreat, we had quite a conversation around the rising hardware costs due to the chip shortages and the challenges we had with our current system because the hardware vendors sold the software to a different party and they too were not playing well together. At that time, it didn't look like we would get an agreement done. However, we have done significant negotiation between us and the vendor partner we worked with on this. We have gotten both parties to agree to extend. The software vendor has decided to extend us three years, the hardware vendor for two years currently. which will get us at least two more years before we have to make the decision that started at $400,000 of hardware when we first quoted at $800,000 when we met with Dave and we got to $1.2 million worth of hardware before we hit the council retreat. The shortages are supposed to start ebbing in 2029 so, I'm just grateful that for $273,000 we'll be able to put this replacement off for at least two years, which was our original plan was to extend the support on this for that amount of time.

Questions for Carl on this?

Carl, how long is this software and hardware gonna be usable?

The hardware will be usable for at least the next two years. We could probably get another year out of it if we could get another year of hardware support out of the vendor. That's gonna be the challenge because Dell has a standard of providing their hardware for at least seven years. They're supporting it for seven years from the date of purchase. It'll be seven years old at that time. They actually had put an early termination and we're going to not support it beyond this next coming year. We got them to extend that out two more years to fulfill their agreement. which is how we were able to I guess put the pressure on them to do that and they've agreed to do that so we will get at least the two years out of that I would love to get one more if we can do that but we'll address that as we get closer to that period thank you other questions 2029 you're gonna be coming forward with either new hardware purchase either another extension or a new replacement but we will likely continue using the software that's under contract. So having that third year, we'll actually make that a strict hardware purchase that year. And then we'd do a soccer renewal. The next would help lessen the impact.

Got it.

Other questions? Okay. Item 12 is consideration of a resolution authorizing the implementation of an artificial intelligence policy to govern AI tools and use by the town employees and contractors.

So in one of the one-on-one sessions I had with Mr. Santucci, we discussed the need for creating a policy to govern the way we use AI in the town. And so we have come up with policy for your consideration and so just want to run through a quick presentation kind of giving you some background on what this is so why do we need an AI policy well one we have a lot of sensitive data whether it's our citizen data or employee data we have criminal justice data we have a lot of other things while we have a lot of public records we have a lot of things that are not and so we need to make sure that that sensitive data is protected We also have legal and open records requirements that need to be considered as we use AI tools and technologies. And then we want to make sure that we keep a human in the loop. So this is probably one of the most key features of any AI policy is requiring human oversight. We can't let AI just take, create reports and data and send them out as truth. They can... They can be generated where they look good, but they're not actually true. So we need a human to go through and verify all that. So that's why we're putting this policy in places to help take care of that. Who's gonna govern this policy? Well, it'll be my office and the town attorney's office. So we will partner together on this because there is a technological component to this. And data component to this but there's also the legal ramifications that could potentially go with this so we were gonna we will partner together on this and Work together as we move this policy forward The scope of this policy, who does it apply to? Well, basically it applies to anybody who wants to do business officially as the town of Smyrna. So it's all of our employees, our contractors, or any of our volunteers. So this will apply universally to anybody who is doing and putting out material that says this is from the town of Smyrna. Our core principles. So transparency. So one of the important things we want to do for our citizens is make sure that they know that if AI is doing a vast majority of the work on something, that they understand that that's part of the process. So we have set a threshold of about 50% that says really if whatever is being generated is more than 50% AI, then we need to put some sort of citation on the documents that says this has been generated by AI but has also been reviewed by whoever the department is in the town that has reviewed this. So privacy is also very important. So again, protecting the data that we have in the town and making sure that the reports are accurate. So privacy is important. Human oversight, we've already talked about. And equity and fairness. So one of the things is these tools can have biases built in, so you need to check that. So that's part of the human oversight, but we need to make sure that we're not using any system that would make automatic determinations and allowing that to happen that could potentially have any bias built in. Our usage guidelines, so privacy and records, again, these are common themes. We need to assume that all inputs are public records, but we also need to make sure that we keep the confidential data confidential. We want to use only town-issued accounts. We don't want people who have a personal, say, Jatch EPT or something license, they need to use their town accounts for doing this. Accuracy and truth, this is the human in the loop problem and this is where we need to make sure that we're doing the fact checking, that when it maybe references a report or references a document that we go back and make sure that that citation is accurate, that it's really pulling the data from there and representing it in the way that that article or report actually presented the data. And prohibited uses, this is just absolutely protecting that, you know, no final HR eligibility, no critical service will be delivered just on the basis of AI. So we have prohibited uses on that. We're going to do this through risk classification. So as we evaluate the tools, we've kind of broken it into three categories. And one is the low risk. Really a lot of the generative AI helping it prepare documents such as this presentation was used. You know, we have the medium risk ones, which are our public communications, those official statements that come out from the town. And then we have the high risk things that are anything that would be involved in our safety or critical systems, consider utilities, consider police, fire, the way they use systems. So those would be the high risk systems that we really need to take a deep look at and follow through. So from a procurement perspective, again, and the policy evolution, we're going to really just again go through the security and privacy review. The vendor AI documentation, we'll review that. We'll have meetings with the vendors to ensure that we understand exactly how their tools work, how they learn. Um, we will also, uh, make sure that state and local law are followed and that's why we have our friendly folks in the town as attorney's office helping us with that. And again, we're not going to do this for everything, but for medium and high risk, we definitely need to do that type of process. If it's a low risk tool, it's just something that'll come probably come through the it department. Uh, we'll validate it. We will be producing a list of approved tools for the town. Um, and we will have that moving forward. Um, From reporting compliance, we wanna make sure that the departments, if they can, keep a usage log of things that they're using generated AI for and what benefits the town is getting from that. That way we can review that and make sure that we're doing it. Policy violations, if we find any, they will be addressed and there could be disciplinary action that goes with that and those will be determined based on what the privacy violation is or policy violation is, excuse me, and how that would be enforced and that's something we would do not only with the town attorney's office but also human resources and then this is going to have an annual review because this is a very rapidly changing environment. AI is something that is changing on a daily basis so our policy will have to follow that as it evolves and so one of the things we'll have to do is make an update each year. For training and awareness, what we've done is we've reviewed a lot of training available out there. We've actually partnered with MTAS, and I want to thank Cindy Edmonds. She actually runs the CAIT system, as they call it, for MTAS, which is their online training system. We have a program that we've set up that has four classes that are within this program. We're going to have staff register for them. They will take these four classes. When they complete that, we'll get notification because their learning management system tracks everything. and will report back to us when staff has completed training, so we'll be able to make sure that everybody is getting their training done. And this will take place of this year's. Normally we send out an IT security training. This will be the IT security training this year. Because AI has been such a hot topic, we sent out a monthly training video. The last three months and next months are all AI-oriented because of our focus on that moving forward. So that is a quick high-level overview of what the policy is. Are there any questions I can answer?

Got a question about somewhere in there was mentioning this applies to the contractors, consultants, and third party vendors. How are we going to oversee that and assure that they're doing that and is there going to be a sign off

sheet you know it says hey we we've adhered to your policies in this report or whatever it may be so this is something we're going to be working with departments on if there are any ai components within their tools or the way they do that we'll have in their procurement contracts we'll have an ai we'll have a statement saying they must comply with the ai policy of the town So this will be something that we'll be making sure we have to include going forward if this body approves this policy. Yeah, I mean, it's not as much their word as we can also do background checks on what tools they're using. And this will all be part of the decision-making process as we look at using vendors or solutions moving forward. You know, a good example of that would be like what we do with Place Raya is, you know, Todd and I spent a vast amount of time once that came through the process from procurement that, you know, we looked a lot at what data did it use, how does it use the data, and really made, you know, decision that, you know, these were very safe because it's not town data and the way we, the way it uses the data is anonymous, the way it translates the data. So that is, you know, in the RMT system like for the roads where it does the analysis, that's another one that's got a lot of AI component.

Yeah, and I guess what AI spits out is just based on data. it has access to.

Correct.

And a lot of the data that we have here at Town Hall is really, I guess, confidential employee data, some other stuff that is not really subject to open records.

Correct. So, again, our open records data are things we could include in an AI tool within the scope for it to look at. There are other things that we absolutely would not allow. Right. That's why privacy is probably the quarterstone of what we're doing on that end. The human in the loop is the key factor in making sure that happens.

So you said that you're going to include an AI statement for the vendors or third-party contractors to make sure what they're using.

I haven't talked to Kyle about that yet because this has not come through as approved yet. But if it does, what we'll do is probably add that to the town as a standard addendum that we add to all contracts. It's probably something we could add in there that says they need to comply with our policy on AI tool use.

So the policy being that they are going to have to take the training or the policy?

Probably not that they have to take the training, but just that they have to read and understand our policy. Our doing this for all the employees is to make sure that our employees have the background to understand the policy and how to comply with the policy. for most contractors that are selling tools that have AI components, you are relying on, but very likely they are going to have the requisite training to understand what that policy is and what it mandates.

So then my next question has to do with the employees. So they're going to take a training, and is it going to be based on the training and awareness program that MTASC has?

Yes.

And so you're making that the monthly training that each of the employees, part-time, seasonal individuals take?

That will be the annual training for this year. So we will be doing that, and then we will be working with Jeff on our HR hiring process in the future to make sure new employees have to take that.

So I'm not following. So let me finish asking the question. So you said the annual training. So there's like four different sections according to the program. There's an 8-minute, a 38-minute, an 11-minute, and a 30-minute. All the employees are going to have to take all four sections, correct?

Yes, all employees take all four.

And then are they being offered, all four of them at the same time, or each month one of these is going to be offered until they are all completed.

This is one program that is offered one time and they will need to complete all four sections of that to complete the AI training. Yes, it's an online curriculum. So it actually says Town of Smyrna AI training is the link within MTAS. So it's actually got our name on it and it's those four classes are included in that curriculum. You take all four in sequence. And when you're done with that, that's when we get the notification that you've successfully completed the program.

Also part of my question is how long would the employees have to take it? And is it going to be annual? So say we approve this now, everybody would need to take it by the end of the year and then start the annual training again in January. And then what, they get 30 days to take the training?

So for all of our current employees, this will be mandated once for as their annual cybersecurity training for the year. And so they will need to take it by, say, the end of the year. Everybody will have to complete it. We will have new employees put this in their onboarding so that they take it so that way they will understand. It's not something that needs to be renewed unless we feel it needs to be renewed or we can also use our monthly training program, our videos, like we've been doing with a lot of the topics. We can put the reinforcements out through our monthly video program.

and someone in your office will confirm that everyone's taken this, or how are you monitoring this to see who has and has not taken it?

So Cindy Edmonds, who is working with me from MTAS, is going to provide us a report of those that have registered for and those that have completed the training, and we will just compare that against the employee list to follow who's taken the training.

So, Carl, it's sort of like the utilities training that we've had to take in the past. Correct. You finish it, there's a certificate, you're notified.

Absolutely.

And I get that, but it's like way less of us taking a utility test versus an AI test that can actually compromise the entire... Yeah, just the process. No. But the fact that everybody needs to take it, I think that's important because it could compromise something really important for the town. Oh, absolutely. And that's why we decided we really needed to do something official. Who's actually going to have oversight over this and be able to make sure that people comply. Correct. Okay.

Other questions?

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Item 13, consideration of an ordinance amending the fee schedule approved by Ordinance 26-26 regarding the adoption of certain new fees relative to the Planning Department pursuant to House Bill 0375, Senate Bill 0988. And Ordinance 26-33, this is a second reading.

Sierra? Good evening, Mayor and Council. So this is an update, a two-part update to our fee schedule that we just passed at the end of June. House Bill 0375 required extensive study of the fees related to development. It was determined that several fees currently exceed the actual cost, so both the FINAL PLAT AND PRELIMINARY PLAT SUBDIVISION FEES ARE NOW A FLAT FEE AND THE PER LOT PORTION HAS BEEN REMOVED. THE SECOND UPDATE IS FROM ORDINANCE NUMBER 2633 THAT WAS APPROVED AT THE JULY COUNCIL MEETING ESTABLISHING THE PROPERTY OWNER 30-DAY MOBILE FOOD VENDOR PERMIT.

QUESTIONS FOR SIERRA? THANK YOU, MA'AM. WE'LL PUT THAT ON THE AGENDA. Item 14, consideration of an ordinance amending Smyrna Municipal Code Title 12, Chapter 6, relative to an amendment to the residential code. This is a second reading. Hi.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. We've completed our state audit, and this is the last item to be resolved. This was a minor technical error having to do with the energy code. These changes will correct that and get us in compliance with our state audit.

Questions for Christy? Thank you, ma'am. Amber, any public comment tonight? Jeff Craig, anything? Heather?

No, ma'am.

Sir? Chief? Carl? Christy? Nothing? You good? No? John, you good? Tom? There's always one. You know it.

I was asked. I was told, you know, you're such a good speaker, Tom. I really wish you'd come speak about it. Dave told me that, but at least that's what I heard when he said it. But he did ask me to give an update on some projects. ITS system is fully operational. We're in burn-in phase right now, just kind of checking everything to make sure all the cameras are functioning. We're able to make adjustments to the signals out there. We just kind of give you an update on it. We got 62 total signals in town. There's 54 of them on the ITS system. There's a few of them that were put in by TDOT that we're going to be working with some developers on to get those connected into our system, as well as some radio communication. We're going to get some that are a little bit further out than where we have fiber available at, and ultimately get all 62 of them on our system. It is up and running. We're able to make timing changes as needed. We have 19 cameras around town. We share that with dispatch, and also we're working with IT department to make sure that PIO, town manager, assistant town manager has access to those cameras as needed during snowstorm events. I also want to mention Industrial Boulevard retaining walls almost complete. They've got the concrete parapet wall is getting ready to be poured. They're paving this week on it. They got the B mixed down, I think A mixed down and I think they put B mixed down today. as well and should be finishing that paving this week and guardrails can come in next week. Rock Spring Road sidewalks from downtown to Mason Tucker's complete and we're working to change over the traffic signal cabinet at Sam Ridley and Weekly Lane. Changing over a traffic signal cabinet at intersection of Sam Ridley and Weekly Lane. It was one with the yellow turn arrow that kept going off because the traffic signal cabinet or the cabin needed to be replaced and upgraded to a newer one.

What hours is someone sitting at the ITS console?

Jonathan is there from 6 a.m. to 2.30 or sometimes later, but typically it's 6 to 2.30, Monday through Friday. He also gets alerts from time to time after hours if there's an issue with the traffic signal, and he can open up his computer, take it home, and respond to it right then.

Would it not behoove us to have someone there at the console at afternoon rush hour?

We haven't really seen a need for that yet because the traffic demand isn't quite there, but ultimately we will eventually get to that point where we probably do need someone to come in kind of an afternoon shift.

I'd say that's something we probably need to look at putting in the budget.

Add some more people, that's fine by me.

Well, I think if it takes more people to keep traffic going, then I'm sure that's what the citizens want.

Okay. Over there by the old Hickory Falls, we tried to go through it a couple of years recently, and only about three or four cars get through it, and it changes back. I'm kind of like you. I think we need to look at it pretty soon. Okay.

I do have one question for you, Tom, while you're up here, the Amaville road traffic studies that we had about three or four, and then we had a third party consultant review those. Yeah. Kind of update me on where we're at with his review recommendations and implementation of the improvements that, that were from all those studies.

Yeah. Jason's been looking through those and all more information that he wanted.

Uh, I'll try. Um, I, I don't think I can answer one of the questions you just asked though, which was, um, where are we at in the process of this? Um, I know what the traffic studies recommended. I just don't know where we are in the process with this. So, um, uh, for, for all mobile, the, um, uh, saying and associates did a, did a review for us. And, um, uh, they had some, some questions about, about some of the, some of the recommendations that they had. Um, uh, they, they wanted, there was, there was some questions about drew street and, um, and, and burnt knob road, um, and how this would affect the I 40 westbound ramps on, um, um, The developers didn't offer any compensation for any traffic signal improvements. Let me get a better...

not like y'all don't have a thousand things to take care of.

So let me go over what, what, what I reviewed every traffic study today from, from, uh, that that's in that's it that we have from, from 2021 through, through today, the date, uh, on Ambleville road, um, Uh, the, the Stewart's Creek station fuel center, uh, is supposed to construct an eastbound left turn lane. And we know how that's all going on that one. That's the one that, that TDOT still working with them to get them in compliance for at Poplar wood. Um, uh, they, they, I'm sorry, the right turn lane, not the left turn lane westbound. Uh, they had originally asked for a left turn lane was denied. Yeah. Um, At the LifePoint residential development, there's a left turn lane and a southbound right lane that they requested. The items on Drew Street that were requested are going to be denied by TDOT, from what I understand. So they're going to have to redo. That's for the Linwood residential development. They're going to have to redo their traffic impact study to reflect that. or come talk to us about it. They have a right turn deceleration lane at Independent Hill Road that needs to happen. Queen Cliff and Lord have mercy. Briley Downs, yes. Um, uh, have some Linwood and Queen cliff have some overlap in their traffic impact studies that, that are, um, uh, uh, they can't have the same impact. They can't have the same improvement. It needs to, they need to, to, to, um, they need to reflect one another in the studies.

Um, and then didn't we have something at. Amabile Road, Rocky Fort Road. Was there going to be a signal there? That is part of an agreement. Yes, sir. Yeah. That's right across from Clear Creek.

Maybe you're going to get to this. I don't know. I thought we were doing our own study.

We are. We are. Okay. That's with GNRC. We're doing our own study for that. And then we have the Almaville Road study that's coming as well. This was a question that was asked. So where are we in the overall study?

I think what you're referring to is, just let me make sure I say the consultant's name correctly, Cyan? Who? Oh, Cyan. Cyan. Excuse me. Sane is the one that took all the traffic studies from that area and reviewed them for us, and that is the result.

And do we have that?

Yeah, we do.

Can you send us that? Sure.

And then the other question I have is we've talked about it, and I don't know that we've ever made any official decision, but extending the three lane from Seminary to Morton, and making a dedicated right turn off of rock off of amble road on the Morton. Um, we've talked about it. I don't know that we've ever had any further conversation. I don't know if that's in your study and what the recommendations for that area are, but I've witnessed that personally several times that backs up. I was backed up past one mile lane this week. And as soon as you get to Morton lane, there's no traffic. And so I think there's doesn't, I'm not an engineer, but I don't think it takes an engineer to see a right turn lane on the Morton that's free flowing can increase a lot of traffic.

A few of the studies that were in that area showed an inordinate amount of traffic making that right turn going to the school, going to those houses. I was, I was frankly shocked at how much, how much it drops off there. Um, uh, uh, a right turn lane is needed. But, but, but you have the utilities, you've got a lot of issues.

So can we, can we start that process and not wait on this overall corridor thing? Because I think that's a short term fix that will create, will create a whole lot of benefit. It helps poplar wood. It helps we're putting stop signs up there right now. It helps that area. And, uh, honestly, it just from one mile lane to Morton lane is kind of a nightmare at school time. And I think it would just that one, that one adjustment. could help a lot. It also shows that we're doing what we can do right now.

I think the bottleneck is from Morton Lane back towards Interstate. I know we've got that wide section from One Mile Lane out to the Interstate, but that section continues to back up during AM and PM peak. Any turn lane there, Morton, or even that one mile lane coming the opposite direction.

Yeah, in front of the gas station. If we just had one lane of traffic that was actually flowing and turns were able to happen, I think you'd make it a lot better. Tom, are you going to say something? no okay i don't have any questions about that or no i just would i don't know what i mean i i'm where are we at yeah i guess i'm formally asking can we start that process whatever that looks like uh can we have something come back to us to vote on it as a council or something because we've talking about it but i don't think we're i don't want to wait for all this other stuff to happen before we make that improvement

well it's something we can certainly consider within the budget process we've uh... asked t dot as a state road to find that project they have not uh... so we have turned to the federal side through uh... grant opportunity to this court or study which will hopefully lead to uh... that court or being constructed the way it needs to be in the long long run a smaller improvement at Morton lane to add an additional lane is something that we could add to the, you know, to a future consideration on a budget item for, you know, the next year.

Yeah, I guess that's, you know, what, what did it cost us to do it on our own? I know TDOT still got to prove it.

I think the biggest problem there is you have, um, you have some major transmission lines right there that are going to need to be moved. So I don't know what it costs now to move major transmission lines. It's been a while since I've, I've, I've had to estimate that, but last time it was, it was the millions of dollars to move transmission line. Is it CUD water? No, no. Um, uh, electrical. Oh, okay. They're hot. They're hot. They're high. Um, they're the, uh, three things. They're the real tall ones. So, Okay. And there's the neighborhood electricity, too.

Well, I agree with Steve. You know, somewhere we've got to start this process. You know, I know the corridor study is going to be a process, but there's like on right turn lanes, and I'm glad we've got all the fiber connecting the signals now. When I left, we had something. When I left, traffic was backed up from the interstate, almost a one-mile lane, The other evening, I think it was 5.05 when I came through there. Might have been yesterday when I came through there. That was backed up from the interstate all the way, almost one mile lane. And so at some time, we gotta address that next leg between one mile and Morton. And whether we wait on the corridor study to be done, we already know what the developer traffic impact studies have identified along Amaville and even had our third party to review that and basically either agree or disagree with what were in those impact studies. So, and I guess next question, where will the developers do those improvements to the, that the traffic impact studies identified?

They have milestones in there that are with each phase, and that's dependent upon approval processes.

So basically before or after they get, like, Phase I built, then they've got to do this?

It's generally after Phase I before Phase II is the way most of them read. Okay.

One of the elements we had to talk about is I-24 itself. and the failing grade that it currently has along with amable road being a state highway it's hard to get people to move fast on products like that and i know that we've worked and worked and worked we had a date at one time then it got pushed back and he got pushed back so i think that's a part of the problem not the whole problem we certainly have a traffic problem there but uh can you speak to that what do we know is there any updates from anybody that would tell us that uh federal and state or TDOT has made any progress on those discussions?

Are we talking the Smart Corridor project?

Well, I know about the Smart Corridor, but we've talked about Amable Road. The bridge and everything there is just a quagmire.

We actually have a meeting coming up. um, with commissioner and the new, um, to talk about those things. I think it's next week or the next one. I can't remember.

But vice mayor, if you're talking specifically about the interchange. Yes. Yeah. It's, it is included in the choice lane project.

I'm aware that that was talked about to be included. My question was the timing of that was that. 29 to 32 somewhere in that point. Probably. And so we're going to continue to have a problem there for at least that long. That's my point. So anything we can do to help the traffic along that corridor I think is going to be valuable to us.

I was just looking at Street View and talking about the transmission lines. They're on that side of the road, but it looks like you could expand on the other side and not have to worry about it. So I think there's a way around that. I mean, I'm also looking at it. There's a dedicated left turn lane there into the subdivision. There is. So maybe we could look at doing some restriping or something to get traffic flowing, make that a straight and a left turn, and dedicate the other lane as a right turn or something. It just seems like there's an option. There's opportunities there to improve it.

Another question related to this issue. What about the ITS system? Like how long have you looked at changing the signaling to allow for additional traffic to go through the lights that can help mitigate some of this backup?

So we've had two, three weeks now that we've gotten this. The school traffic has to be in before we can really start making time changes. Now that it's in, we're starting with Sam Ridley is where we're starting right now. that's just where I chose to start because it's the most cars in the town right now. I can look at it. Sure. We're modeling the entire city right now just to make sure that we can respond to these as quickly as possible. So we are doing all the intersections, including some of the stop-stop intersections. Wherever I have a count, wherever we have... Good data. It's going into this model so that we will be able to respond to this. It takes a little while, but I've noticed the Almaville I-24, especially in the afternoons, because that's the way I go home sometimes.

So knowing that these are some really priority-related places, will those actually go higher on your list?

Leave Victory is second, so that's part of Omelville Road, and then Lowry is third for me. We can always change priorities on this. I just had chosen those based off of counts and based off of how many people can you help as quickly as possible.

But now knowing that these are some of the concerns, and now school being back in, you can see how much of a delay it's creating. Yes, ma'am.

It's pretty bad. Okay. I see it, especially now with the cameras. You really do get to see it. Okay.

Other questions? Thank you, guys. Mike?

Sierra?

Amber?

Yes, ma'am, I have a slide. We are two weeks from tomorrow from the Top Gun night run. We have over 600 registered to date. So we have about 200 spots left that we can kind of accommodate. So there is kind of that push to get your registrations in if you have not already. we're ahead of where we were in registration this time last year and we sold it out. So usually in the last couple of weeks is when the bulk of the registrations come in. So even though I'm saying there's 200, we're averaging about 30 plus a day at this point. Um, so get them in, get them in quick. Um, in front of mayor, I don't know if we can pan out and show, um, the shirts that are hanging there. Maybe.

Are they listening? Is Patrick listening?

I'm not sure. I'll keep going. Come out and see.

Will you reach in there? Mark Parker, will you reach in there? There we go. There we go. There we go. All right. There we go.

So we got some of our swag in today. You'll see that hanging there. There are two colored shirts this year because we really wanted to recognize our honorees that sign up. And those are going to be our military members, so active duty or veterans members. and also our first responders. We would also like to invite everybody out to a tribute program, whether you're running or not, which will take place at the start line of the Top Gun Night Run at 6.30 p.m., and that will be a 25th anniversary tribute event honoring those military first responders and 9-11. That's all I got. Dave?

Just wanted to, I think we talked about this already, but we have our Smyrna Police Department Citizens Police Academy beginning September 8th. I believe we may be close to full registration. I'm not sure. There may still be an opportunity, but if you want to check to see if there's a slot available, you can reach out to... Officer Beverly at 615-459-6644. That's going to be from September 8th to November 3rd on Tuesday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m. Is that it?

That's it. Kyle?

Nothing tonight, Mayor.

Jerome?

Yeah, before I do my public service announcement, I've got a question for Kevin or Dave on the impact fee study. Where we're at with that? I know the consultant keeps extending the deadline.

Yeah, we received what I hope will be the final draft on Monday.

Okay.

So I'm still reviewing that. We have planning commission packets we're working on this week, amongst other things. We are working on that final review this week. It has taken longer. I'm not, I'm a little bit surprised. It's taken a little bit as long as it has, but at the same time, I'm also not as surprised just because we have a new consultant. Um, our consultant we've used for 27 years. Um, you know, they closed their business, they retired and all that. So we had to find someone new. And so, um, and we're working through the process.

You guys will review it. We'll go to the planning commission. Then he'll come to us.

Yeah. I've, um, I've talked to Kevin about this. Um, once he gets to look at that final review, we think it's in good shape at this point. Um, I'll go ahead and look at it too. So we'll be able to get that out to, to y'all here, here sooner than later.

Um, you know, reviewing the past, we have had the consultant come in and talk with us?

That is still our plan. We haven't scheduled that yet.

Can we do that at the joint meeting so planning can hear that as well?

We could certainly do that. Absolutely.

I think it's important for us to hear from the consultant.

When is the joint meeting? Before October workshop is the next scheduled one right now. But I think with the change in the consultant, it took a little time to get Everything ramped up, I think, a little bit. He had to familiarize himself with the community a little bit and those kind of things.

Can we get our hands on it before that joint work session?

I think once we get everything, we get a final review and we feel good about it. Absolutely.

I've got two public service announcements. The Rotary Club is having its 24th annual or 25th annual. I always get the annual thing mixed up. It's the 25th fish fry, but I think it's the 24th annual. HG, help me out on this.

I think you're right. Okay.

I'll record that, please. Anyway, September the 12th at the airport from 5 to 9, and we will also be honoring all the veterans and first responders. The Smyrna public service announcements, the 20th annual Depot Days, which will be on September 26th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Smyrna's historic Depot District. Enjoy great food, live music, local vendors, shopping, and family-friendly fine. Now, will we be having the car show that Friday evening? Oh, Steve's got that. Okay. That's all I have.

Okay. Yes, I have a slide as well. On last Saturday, we... helped to celebrate the community celebration for the 160th anniversary of Living Truth Christian Center, which was formerly Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, which started out as Grace Baptist Church. And so the mayor presented a proclamation to the church at the celebration on last Saturday. So we would like to say congratulations on this extraordinary milestone and thank them for inviting us out to celebrate with them. This actually was my home church growing up. I knew it as Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church for many, many years and it used to sit over on Monroe Street before it moved to its current location. So I was very excited to see that this celebration was taking place. So congratulations to them. And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

I have a slide also. I'm sure no one ever gets tired of hearing me say love where you live and to help keep Smart on Litter free. If you'll notice in the left-hand corner of the slide there, there's a Recycle Right Tennessee. If you go to your website and look at Recycle Right Tennessee, there's a very good... website on exactly how and where you can what you can recycle where you can recycle it needs to be a future for us it really gets down to it also shop local Jerome was talking about the depot days that is sponsored by the local organization called Simon the Smart Independent Merchants Association and you can they will aid you in finding a place to shop local for whatever you may need the last thing I've got is also a normal comment of mine tonight it's a little More meaningful, be kind. I guess over the last couple of days with Dolly Parton passing, if you look at be kind, in my estimation, that's probably one of the things which was foremost with Dolly. I never heard anybody say anything bad about her, and I never heard her say anything bad about anybody else. Be like Polly. Be kind. That's all I got.

Thanks. Jerry?

Okay. Every Saturday from 8 to 12 down at the depot is the Smyrna Depot Market, Farmer's Market. Got local vendors, fresh food, and... They have music, which starts at 9 o'clock. So if you come by around 10, you'll see me down there at the lemonade stand. They've got a guy there that makes great lemonade. So I used to go walk. And when I get through with that, we go get lemonade. So it's really a nice Saturday morning event. So if you get a chance, please go by before it shuts down later on this fall. That's all I've got.

Thank you. Not to interrupt or what have you, but Mike, when is the farmer's market moving?

I think it's October 3rd or whatever that Saturday is in there. They're going over to O'Rourke School Park. Right. Just let everybody know that's coming. Yeah. They'll run through November, mid-November.

Steve? I also have a slide to follow on to Jerome's Depot District program on Saturday. The Friday night before we have our annual car show. It's Friday, September 25th from 6 to 8.30 p.m. Cars need to be in place no later than 5.45 and you do have to stay until 8.30. It's always kind of funny to me to watch about 8.25 people start starting their cars up and turning on their headlights because they're ready to go. So you do have to stay till 8.30 and that's mostly for safety of all the pedestrians down there. We keep the street closed during that time so people can make their way around the area. It's a great time and the first 75 cars are admitted. Beyond that, there's just not much more capacity. Anything I missed, Mike?

Yeah.

So we're looking also at an overflow lot to help with additional entries.

Okay.

Excellent. All right. Um, I don't think I have anything else. I think that's it.

I do have a slide as well. A city barbecue. We were over there to cut their ribbon. this past week, and they also do an official rib cutting, which was a lot of fun. So they are open, and they're open for business. They are there inside Seward's Landing, one of the first businesses to open up in there. They welcome everybody, and their food was delicious that day. As Raquel mentioned, the 160th celebration that we took part of over at the Living Truth Christian Center, one of the things Apostle Howard said that really resonated with me as we're better together, and I believe that we are. And so I hope that people sometimes realize that we can do a lot more when we're together than when we're apart. I also attended the Spaghetti Lunch Campaign, and the senior citizens, our treasures as I like to call them, put on a great lunch, and there was a dinner provided as well. They are in the midst of a building campaign. They have seriously outgrown their building where they are, So they need funds and they'd be glad to accept your funds. You can send them or call them or visit them over at the senior center there by the library. Real quick, I talked to Kyle and Dave a little bit about this. I had a message sent to me about an issue inside of a subdivision. And so I've asked them to just study that issue a little bit more, maybe bring more information back to us. I won't go into it in all detail, uh, recreation vehicles and things taking place on a vacant lot in a subdivision. So we want to look at that and see if there's anything property rights that we have a resource for or not. But, uh, anyway, I thank you guys for taking those emails and those calls with me and talking through it a little bit, and we'll just see where that goes. Okay. Adam, my son turned 39, uh, yesterday. So happy birthday to my 39 year old baby. And man, I tell you, I'm getting old when I see him turning 39. Last but not least, a very dear friend of the community, especially the Laverne community. Many of you may have known LC and Sherry Green. Sherry was an alderman in Laverne, or alderwoman, I guess, in Laverne for about 20 years. I've known Sherry and LC since I was in my very young 20s. We all attended Miracle Baptist Church, and Laverne has lost a good one. They've lost a saint right there. And so she passed away recently. And Lene, Lakita, Rick, her children. I can't tell you how fond I was of Sherry. And Sherry loved everybody. Many up here probably met and knew Sherry. And she was a servant to her community. So I want to wish her family my condolences and continue to lift them up in prayer because they are a wonderful, wonderful family. And that's all I have.

Great, I have two slides tonight. First was the state of the town address, and I was pleased to be able to not only address our community, but also our employees who make everything we do here in the town possible. So thank you for everyone who attended the state of the town, whether it was citizens or for our employees, we appreciate what you do every day. Second, I want to thank the Rutherford County Chamber Diplomats for asking me to come out and speak last week. And we talked a little bit about C-Click Fix and different things that we have going on in the town. So I really appreciate and enjoy getting to talk to them because they definitely spread the word. So anything else tonight? Get signed up for the run. I hope when we come back next time, we will already have it cut off because we have it full. So if there is nothing else, then we are adjourned.