Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

This is our work session in preparation for our first meeting in June. We are live, by the way, everyone. And we are delighted to have a regional weekend. So that's why I'm going to call this. And for those of you who plan to attend the game, let's cheer on the Bulldogs. We are very fortunate today, Dr. McGee and former alderman Sumner Davis, who is the president of the school board at this point in time, he's just all these leadership roles, have come to give us an overview and talk about the aspects of the new Starkville High School. And so this is very informal. You all come on up and Let's hear about all the good stuff that y'all are doing. I see lots of dirt moving, so I don't even want to know how much dirt's having to be moved.

It's a lot.

I know it is. You can tell.

Before we do that, I know that's an important topic, but you could maybe just talk about some of the good work our teachers have been doing at school.

Well, I believe you made the paper. We've got SOCSD among the top 100 rising school districts right there.

We did. A lot of good work by our teachers across the district. I just want to kind of brag on that a little bit.

just got boys and girls all a couple of days ago, 10 years old yesterday.

So they're kind of taking a break and getting ready for the next school year. They'll be coming back in July too soon. So summer, summer has gotten a little short for the modified challenge. Our folks seem to like that pretty well. And so we I'll be starting up here again by the third week of July. As you know, our district has received an A rating in the Mississippi Department of Education for the last couple of years, and so we're excited about the work that our teachers have been doing, our students have been doing. Just finishing our state test this year, and so we'll receive those results back shortly. We've already received our kindergarten readiness assessment that Our pre-k years have scored above the state average, so we feel good that they're getting a good foundation there going into kindergarten next year. Received our third grade pre-k scores back, and our averages continue to rise every year. Our first nine pass rate for those students, so right at the state average with that, and so we're happy with that. And then we'll see the rest of the scores back. I think the day is June 21. We'll see kind of where we fall with all of our peer groups across the state of Mississippi. So eagerly anticipating them. We feel good about the benchmark data that we've been taking over the course of the year, tracking our students and looking at the work they're doing in the classroom. We're on target to be an A. also don't take the test so we've got to give it to the kids and let them kind of do it all we can do is coach him up and get ready they're about there for game day cut the lights on and hope everybody plays well so that's kind of kind of where we are with that process there i was recognized in a recent study by harvard and stanford it was one of the top 100 school districts across the nation so we think from california to new york is one of the top 100 districts on the rise they look at the NAEP score which is a national test that all districts take and kind of compare where we are to other districts across the nation and our district has continued to make great progress over the last couple of years very blessed to be recognized I think that's great for our community and great for our city to be able to recognize our teachers and students also there. Been very well in the extracurricular too. We've done some great things there. Just won a boys and girls basketball state championship at the same time. Won a football state championship a couple of years ago. We had 32 all-state choir members that had a choir in the theater. nationally recognized art students from Mr. Wark's art program down there. So we feel really good when you talk about pre-K through high school, not only academically, but in the extracurricular activities that our boys and girls do. Had four students last year graduate with their associate's degree a week before they got their high school diploma. I still have to figure that out. That's how we did. We had 200 dual credit courses. taking it to high school this year. So the students are taking a higher level course to try to prepare even before getting out of high school. So excited about all those opportunities that kids are doing and the school board is providing for the boys and girls from Boston District. Still got a lot of work to do. We had no idea. But we feel like we're getting better and getting better every year. And so we'll continue to work towards that.

Just so you know, you do have three yellow jackets sitting here at the table. There, there, and here. So we've got some history. We're very proud of being Starville High School graduates.

And we appreciate the support that the city has given us and the whole kids in our school board also. Because it takes a lot of work. I mean, you know, I... I've shared with you, I really believe that a strong public school dictates the way a community goes. You have good, strong public schools. Boys and girls are doing well in there. Not only building a good foundation there, but also a good foundation to work towards. We want every child to try to come out and be either college-ready or employable so that they can provide a living and needs for their family. We know that that seventh grader, in just a few years, you know, they'll be prepared to happen, too. And so we've got to get PSU prepared as they kind of . So we're excited. New high school coming up. That's part of what we're here to talk about today and kind of laying some foundation for that. Have started moving a little dirt out there. A little dirt. Got a lot more to go pretty soon. We kind of held off moving a whole lot until we could get school out. We just do the construction equipment back and forth with buses coming in and those type of things would be a little problematic. Now the kids are gone and buses are gone, there's still a little more work kind of going on. We did do the first site package. We bit out and it was just basically doing the dirt work, tree removal, that one that we're right on. had some work in the project for the next two or three years. And so we'll do the second site package, which will actually be big old brick and mortar. That'll be coming up towards the end of June. So get a dollar cost estimate on it then and kind of know where we are. So new building to allow, of course, we'll have some transition in some of our grades as we transition to a new high school out there. It'll be 9 through 12 on the campus out there near that time. And so as we transition there, we'll have to make some adjustments with our partnership school. Currently we have six and seven across our district. New Fine Arts Performing Arts Center. They'll see about 900 at the Performing Arts Center, which I think is really nice for our community currently. probably hold one of the largest venues as far as being able to have a place for people to go. Not only our kids to have theater and choir, but also an opportunity for the community also to have something to play in. Potentially use a new gymnasium, basketball, those type of things, classrooms, cafeterias, some CTE spaces. We're excited about that. We're still working on some final design plans, trying to get that finished up. Hopefully we'll have some renderings and things. A lot of work going on.

Absolutely, absolutely. So you're seeing that Fine Arts is a shared space?

Well, I think, you know, we always try to work with the city. We do with tennis and some other things. And I do think that there's opportunities there for people to use that at some point in time. If somebody has a, you know, I don't know, a city theater. Starville Community Theater. Yeah. We have orchestra and different things that might potentially use that down the road. Once we get in it, like I say, they'll see about 900. And we kind of got it where somebody decided they wanted to use it being used. It's able to kind of block everything off and just use that part of it so you wouldn't have really access to the screen. So we do think it'll be something the community can use once we kind of do that.

Do you all have some? dollar figures associated with I mean, that's always what's part of the discussion and the you know, part of what people are curious about.

So when you look at it, you've ever bought or built anything. I believe we all know that it's a little sometimes can be challenging to do that. And so we're working on some dollar figures now. What we've got is some comparable numbers of other schools that have been built. Of course, you won't live up this one until you get it out. Somebody looks at it and decides what they want to build it for. If you look at Lamar County down in Hattiesburg, they've opened three new schools down there in the last year, new high schools. And they've been averaging somewhere around $343, $347 a square foot. Anticipation that it might be a little higher in Starkville. Or is that $385, $400 a square foot? But again, you won't know that until- When are y'all gonna go out to bed? Facility part, as far as classrooms, gymnasium, fine arts, a lot of the fan halls. The bulk of it will be filled out at the end of June, so we'll know some numbers. We've still got a few modifications to get done, but if everybody gets the timeline like we're supposed to, hopefully in June.

And you're still looking at opening 2028 fall?

Yeah, June 2028 is our deadline. We've held hard on that. So we're pushing everybody to, you know, get all their ducks in a row so that we can, we said, hey, June 2028, we work back. Try to put a timeline together to make sure that works. So we're, this year's finishing ninth graders will be seniors, going in seniors to the new high school. So we'll technically have a 10th grade year, 11th grade year, and then potentially those boys and girls will be the first senior class in high school.

And your bonds have been issued, right? Or authorized? Not issued, authorized.

Correct.

Okay. All right. Any other questions? We got questions from the board members about all this? I think it's very exciting. I mean, obviously, it is overdue. Do you know what you're going to do with the old classroom?

We hope, again, with some reconfiguration of some of our grades, once we do that, we talk with the board and talk with them. Really, I would think by December, we would have a full plan of the shift of the shifting us in grades. Uh currently the old high school which is still a pretty good structure but when you get and now we have about 1200 students in high school. Uh it's just it's it's really really on the ground and just to be honest with you. Uh you can probably fit two grades in it pretty good. Maybe three. When you get four grades in it, it's just pretty great. Especially when you're talking about trying to feed them in a cafeteria and all those type of things. Um you It would lend itself, probably best, to a seventh and eighth grade school because of athletic facilities. That's typically when the boys and girls begin athletics in seventh grade. Partnership school, when it was built years ago, really didn't address a whole lot of extracurricular type things. A very small dressing room, it's not really a football field, a gym that's really not conducive to playing basketball at the end, those type things. He would probably need to settle over to the 7th and 8th grade so that I can use the football field, baseball field, softball field, basketball court there. And if we did that, it would cause some maybe big innovations in other ways. So hopefully we can put a plan out soon so that we can kind of year and a half of that so we can kind of know what direction we're going to go.

I know in social media, because I do pay attention to a good bit of it, that some of the questions were, you know, you're not going to move the, you know, you spend all that money on the baseball fields, the basketball, the football fields, the softball fields, et cetera. So that's where the games will be played, but you're going to have training areas or practice areas.

To that point, what people are talking about. What we as a board, the district D&L, and the current campus, spent about $6 million to redo track football, which also is soccer, baseball, softball, all of that. The new facility will have practice gyms for boys and girls basketball. It will have a competition gym for boys and girls basketball. The gym that's currently there, a partnership can be used for wrestling.

Did you get the crane ones? Which ones did you get? My blue ones, they're not yours. I know, now.

You're not muted now. Okay.

Sorry. You know, we currently, to Dr. McGee's point about the current high school space, when you talk about extracurriculars, boys and girls particularly, we're up against some Title IX issues as far as being able to provide space. When you start thinking about boys and girls basketball, volleyball, dance, cheer, all of these things, new facilities are going to allow us to do that. We're going to keep game facilities, to your point, out there. We were trying to recreate those game facilities after the new thing. The estimate we got back was about $60 million. So we spent approximately $6 million versus building new at $60 million. So we thought that was a wise decision. The new facilities should be able to handle all of our practice with the exception of baseball software, just because those facilities are good. But yeah, it's going to have athletic facilities. It's going to be able to address some of our potential Title IX issues that we're currently up against and all of that.

Are you anticipating, what are you anticipating budget-wise in terms of being able to manage with, without Tax increase? I mean, that's the elephant in the room, just in terms of when you're discussing these things.

I'm going to be honest with you. We're looking to see what our new values are going to be from the county after reappraisal. When we talk about, you know, that's going to have twofold. Obviously, the value of the mill is going to go up, which means our debt capacity, our ability to do debt is better. Nod, nod, nod. But, you know, y'all have got a 10% revenue cap. Oh, we're at 4%. Okay. So outside of new growth, when we get those new values, just our district maintenance fund, which is what we call our general fund levy. We're at the cap is we're counting 55 meals currently. But hey, even at 4% revenue cap, we're probably gonna have to drop that levy to stay within our 4% revenue cap. So it's it's a whole lot of moving parts to be able to say, how much is the taxing? A lot of that's dependent upon this new reappraisal.

Well, I think that that explanation is one of the things that needs to be out there, just so people understand that. Because it's complex. I mean, it allows you to say, you know, we can't go up so much, we may have to go down.

Right, exactly, on the levy, on the general fund levy. And then, of course... Well in the consolidation legislation that the state legislature passed what they did was they allowed our school district to issue bonds in the exact same way that city of Starkville is available to issue bonds which means that the board was able to declare its intent, advertise appropriately, and then if people petitioned, it would go to a vote, which is a process we use when we advertise and didn't have a single signature returned back in, not a one, to go to a vote. So we just followed the statute of provisions and actually the exact same procedure that y'all would potentially use here if you wanted to issue G8 bonds at the city.

I mean, if people didn't petition for those, a lot of people didn't know about it On the time I knew about this, when I really heard about this, when I got ready to read the memoranda, there was nobody else there. A lot of people said, why did nobody know about it? And we appointed three people from that school board. And a lot of board members, I don't know how many board members didn't know about it. I know, but I didn't know it. And it was the last minute when I heard it. So if nobody there to contest it, you can't do nothing but pass. How did that happen? how much the public was not fully involved that we'll finish building the high school?

Alderman Vaughn I don't really know how to answer that question because I mean we have open meetings public meetings just like you guys do we discussed all of this in our board meetings all of those votes were taken in a public session our minutes have been filed the same manner y'all's are I know that I've talked with Mayor Pro Tempore Perkins about it multiple times about potential tax implications I don't know how to tell you. I mean, look, we meet in public. We discuss things in public. We've had these discussions in public. We'd be happy to address any of these issues going forward. And we'll say, I'm sorry if people feel like they didn't know. Let's apologize to it. And we will make a, I promise you this, we as a board are going to make a concerted effort to try to be better at putting information out and inviting, obviously inviting people to participate in our meetings and come. But I really don't know how to answer that question.

Hold on, Sister, I saw your hand first.

I wanted to go back a little bit when you were talking about reassessments and the caps that are placed on what we can collect in terms of ad valorem taxes and all that and remind everybody that the numbers that we deal with are aggregate. And so those numbers are in aggregate. Some people will see larger individual reassessments and the impact to them may be greater. Some people will not see as much of an impact. And so we work in the aggregate and not based on individual properties.

well we don't know until they issue what we've got and what we're going to deal with Vice Mayor I saw your hand you did Mayor thank you very much let me say before I get started let me recognize the matter of protocol Mayor I'm a distinguished colleague I've spoken to the former governor for a while but I do want to recognize it's always appropriate in any session to recognize our Colleagues, whether the president or parents, I want to recognize the former gentleman from Ford, Alderman Walker. It's a pleasure to have you in our boardroom this morning. Just didn't want that moment to go by. You've made a great contribution to this city during your presence as a member of our board, Alderman. Mayor, thank you for that comment. Let me just briefly start. I have a question or two for the Honorable Superintendent. I do want to ask some questions to follow up to your comments, Mayor. Thank you for your questions this morning. I do want to start, since the gentleman from 7th was last, and I appreciate the questions from the gentleman from 7th, my distinguished colleague, and the response from my former colleague from 1 and 2. I do want to just briefly, I'm not going to ask any questions, I think it's been covered by the gentleman, but I do want to concur with his comments and additionally say that I am very disappointed that the public was not involved in any discussions and didn't have any meaningful or any input prior to this multi-million dollar This is a very great community and in order to have a very continuous health community we always need to involve all of the stakeholders, the parents, the organizations, all of us who live in this great community. that is engaged, they stay involved. And as the gentleman said, we have three appointed members to this very distinguished, consolidated board of trustees. And we clearly understand how the laws in this state work. We understand how the COVID needs to work.

We understand all that. We are very intellectually solid about that. But at the same time,

I know the mayor had to ask a litany of questions, and I have great respect. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for allowing all of us to be intellectually informed about this. But this is information, Mr. Mayor, and Mr. Stemmings' colleagues, and the members of the public press, that should have been provided to us before the first bill was moved by any machinery. We need to be fully informed and I know the equipment has started, but Vice Mayor, why are you saying this? But I'm saying this very respectfully and professionally because, as I often say to the mayor and distinguished colleagues, as a community, as a family, we're at this table of discussion in this meeting room conducting the public business. Just want to say that we have to ensure, respectfully say it, that as we continue leaders of the community. We have a very individual and collective obligation to keep our our electors, our constituents, and our parents and all others including the press informed about things we're going to do. This is a according to reports I've seen the board has issued bonds for a borrowing capacity at least initial bonds 101 million to got $4 million from the legislature with an additional $24 million that they can get. And who knows what the final package is going to be by the time we get through the potential change orders as we regularly see on any project that comes through our city. So hopefully, that's going to be a question I'm going to have. at the next confirmation process, Mayor, and I want to make sure I have an opportunity to have each candidate who will appear for this board in the future to appear for us to be for a confirmation process. But in addition to that, Mayor, I'm concerned about, I think, Clerk, you can correct me if I'm wrong, our current millage rate right now is 34 mills, I believe, and the county current millage rate, I think, 55.11 mils, I believe, and we've got the control of it, and we're going to be able to correct the search from our base. And I think the school district's mil is really 66.31 mils. And here we are with about a $130 million high school, and I haven't seen the first one, the first, I don't even see anything to date. I mean, I don't see anything that would look like it. And then we were talking about building a 100-acre renal in high school. You know, the point is that, I mean, the public just want to know.

That's the main thing.

I mean, I have not heard a great conversation about against the school, but they just want to be informed. They want to have input. They want to have knowledge about what's going on, what's going to take place. We still don't have no definitive answer. Mr. Superintendent, Dr. McGee, When is your physical year? Does your physical year start on July 1, October 1? It starts in July. Okay. And Monday will be the 30th day before your next physical year begins. So can you tell this mayor, vice mayor, board, and the media and the members of the public What is your best estimation based upon your complete knowledge and the totality of the facts and the circumstances about how many mills of taxes that the Starkville school district mills rates on increasing? If we have 66.41 now, What do you anticipate for that notice to be at once this complete doctor's meeting? What do you expect for that total notice rate to be at?

I don't have that.

Do you know when you can have, okay, you don't have days May 29 of 2026 with 31 days, 32 days before your new book, so you don't have that information. Do you have any information that you can tell us about how the impact of the meals. How many meals? Are you telling Vice Mayor that you do not know how many meals that your military is going to increase?

That's what I told you today and also the other meetings that you have.

Let me just say I really appreciate it.

I appreciate our professionalism and dialogue. Thank you for your being here. But I'm just wanting to

I'm just in my home. I'm ready to start with high school. I'm just here as a servant. I'm just trying to, and I appreciate you. And the reason I asked you that question, very respectfully, professionally, yeah, and thank you for making that on the record to indicate that I asked that question previously. The reason I asked you that again, because I haven't got an answer to it.

But if you don't have an answer, that means you don't know. So that's what you taught me.

Well, what can you tell us in additional, if anything, in addition to what the mayor asked you about the financial matter? So we've got to have constituents. throughout this city and what is throughout a great portion of the city. I have others who ask me about the tax impact. What information can you share with me today? In addition, if the gentleman wants to chime in, I say he's eager to speak, but he's a very distinguished colleague of mine. I know he has a wealth of information. Can I yield to him? Mr. Gentleman, can you answer that question? Yes, well, I mean,

give you a little more information to your question is that our fiscal year starts july 1 but in a unique caveat of state law we don't actually have to approve our budget and or request our millage levy which the board of supervisors are going to set until the middle of august so that'll be after the new values come in so when the new values are given to the board of supervisors to your question about what the village is going to be for the district Everything's dependent upon that value because we make a revenue request and then the Board of Supervisors actually debits the village based on those values. So to your question, it's what I was saying earlier. We're bound by a 4% revenue increase. Now statewide, when you look, let's back up a step. We're going through a reappraisal in the county right now with the new manual that DOR's put out that changes the values. Now, It's not just your regular indexing through the process. The new appraisal manual from DOR will be implemented in October County this summer. Other places around the state that have had that manual implemented have seen an increase in values anywhere from 20 to 30%. That's not counting new growth. That's just on what's already here in the system. So if you run the numbers for us, And you just take the bottom end of that and a 20% jump in our value for our mills. Like I said, not counting new growth, but even including a 4% revenue increase, we're going to go from 55 on our district maintenance fund down to probably somewhere around 48 point something. So somewhere between six and seven drop in that level. the the levy for debt service will also potentially stay the same and be able to take and if you want to talk about increasing millage again this is just you don't know until you get those values you also don't know until we go to the bond market and actually sell them and know what the rate is but it's not going to be i know that certain people have said this is going to be a double-digit village increase when you factor everything in If the millage rate goes up, it's going to be very slight, very slight. But nobody, there's not a person in the world that can give you the answer you're asking for because of those various factors that nobody has the answer to.

Yes, sir. When you get that information, when do you think would be the earliest that you potentially would get that information?

Well, the county tax assessor is supposed to turn that those values over to board supervisor July, July one. Okay. Now, and people have the ability to protest their values. And there's a public hearing process for that might be some of that this time around, to be honest with you. And they don't officially adopt the role until that first week of August. Now, to your question, you'll have a pretty good idea. When our assessor turns it over to board those values over to the board of supervisors, y'all are in the same boat job will be in budget building at the exact same here in the exact same time y'all are waiting for those numbers the same. So to answer your question, the earliest we will get any indication will probably be right there around first of July. The official numbers don't come until after the first week always. So

As a final question, Mr. President, as a matter of full transparency and as a matter of full accountability, as I'm appointed to the school board now, as I've been appointed by this mayor and board, would it be too much to ask you, as president of the board, working in conjunction with the superintendent's staff, to please publish all available information as to the complete financing of this approximately $129 million high school construction project or more so that the mayor of this great city, the vice mayor, and all my distinguished colleagues present and forming all of the citizens of this city and of the school district will have a superior knowledge base about our community, our high school has been built upon this very high-profile landscape on the property of Mississippi State University. We're releasing from them, of course, a memorandum of understanding. Would you give us that commitment at this table, Mr. Board President? One hundred percent, Mr. Mayor.

No, not without hesitation. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Any other questions from the board members? Thank you very much. I think it's worth noting, just for kind of the fun of it, is that part of the school sits in Starville, and part of it does not sit in Starville. And I don't know how that profile fits, but I think at some point it will be interesting to see where that dividing line draws.

Based on where I can look at the map, I think y'all are going to catch the new basketball gym in the park. Okay.

Collect sales tax if you're going to.

That's exactly it.

Anyway, we appreciate you very much for being here. Thank you.

Thank you all for coming. Appreciate it. Always good to be here.

I know that people talk to us all the time about, why didn't you tell us? And how much can you push out? And how much can you depend on social media? And how much can you depend on the press? And all of that requires community engagement, which means you can't just sit back and let it come to you. You've got to participate in the knowledge base. And so I think it's appropriate for us to encourage our residents to participate and make sure they're watching either our board meetings, your board meetings. So I think the knowledge is available, but we've all got to be...

Proactive sure and others and I did read quite a bit of chatter on the internet about the bonds when they were going through the Authorization process and whether there would be a reverse referendum and to be dead honest I was surprised that there was not a reverse referendum that came forward so so there was some some talk not everybody not everybody because it is hard to Keep everybody in the loop, but this was just general public talking on the internet

i will tell you this i'm gonna speak for dr mcgee here for a second and and my colleagues on the board um we want to make sure everybody understands what's going on don't you know we we we are going to to make every commitment to push out information as we go forward and we will do the best we possibly can to do that i tell you what i can and i don't know joel do we have a link to startle high school or startle um

No, ma'am, we don't currently. We will create a link so that if somebody wants to come on our deal, we can do that. So Joel, if you would take that as a to-do. Yes, ma'am. And we'll make sure that that link is available on our website as well. Again, there's only so much you can do.

So we have to depend on multiple sources. I know that y'all get questions about things that aren't under y'all's purview. I get that. But I do want to say, if y'all get a question, feel free to contact either Dr. McGee or any of your board members, or tell us, hey, I'm getting these questions, y'all need to say something about, you know what I mean, that would be helpful as well. Sure, absolutely. Well, thank you again for being here. Thank you all so much for your time.

Really appreciate it. Hopefully the school year quiet time will be something you can enjoy. Yes, ma'am. All right, thank you. All right, very exciting. Next we have, I think this is wonderful. Mr. Williams has been the one who coordinated this. But we have Isabella Jones has done a thesis on our sidewalk ordinance that we passed back in 2009. And so she's got a study that she's going to present. And we have a former alderman, Jason Walker, who is with her as a part. And I don't know exactly, were you an advisor? Yes. Okay. All right. Cool. Well, then in that case, I will leave it to the two of you.

And thank you for allowing me to come and . So to start, I got development records from 2009 to end of 2024, which is when I started my study. So this doesn't show what's been done on 182 in the past six months or so. But this is to the end of 2024. So here is just overall network growth of all the sidewalks in the circle. So in 2009, before the ordinance really took place, we had 22.74 miles of sidewalk in the circle. And now that has gone up by 168% to 61.02 miles. So that's a really big increase and shows that it's, in the past 15, 16 years, it has increased greatly because of the ordinance and also because of city projects that have been done. And so here's a map of the Starkville city limits as a whole. You can see in 2010, there is a sidewalk system. It's kind of, concentrated to downtown and a few subdivisions throughout the city. And then in 2024, it has expanded largely across the city. The green lines are well-connected sidewalks, so they connect all the way to downtown. If anyone is on a green sidewalk, they can walk straight to downtown from anywhere in the city. And then the red are segmented sidewalks with a poor connection to the network. And so here I, taking those poor, fair, good, excellent ratings, I made a connectivity rating for the city as a whole. And so in 2010, it was 2.8 on a scale of one to four. And then in 2024, that went up to 3.0, which puts it in the good category of connectivity. And here you can see the percentages of poor, fair, good, excellent rated sidewalk segments throughout the city. And you can see that excellent rated sidewalk segments have gone up dramatically.

Poor has gone up rather much too. So I guess it's the deterioration. Is that what's determined to be poor?

So this study, I didn't look at sidewalk qualities. It has cracks. I didn't look at that. But I looked at if it's a fragmented sidewalk. So with the ordinance, A new development will build a sidewalk just on the property line, not connecting to anything else. So the poor percentage has gone up a little bit because of that. But also, mainly the city projects have contributed to the excellent increase.

So our sidewalks to nowhere have caused our poor to go up a little bit, but eventually those will connect to something. So that's the long-term goal. Got it. Okay. Thank you.

And so I also looked at public and private. So public is city-funded, state-funded, TAP grants, sidewalk projects. And those are the red lines. And then black is private developments, such as subdivisions or commercial developments. And the public sidewalks were 15.10 miles, and the private sidewalks were 23.17. And even though they were a much larger length of sidewalks total, they are more segmented. And you can see on this map that the public projects contributed more to increases in the connectivity percentage across the city. They really helped to connect those selected private projects. And then lastly, I looked at destination connectivity. So for this study, I looked at grocery stores, schools, parks, bus stops, and the hospital. And I looked at how are they connected to downtown and to neighboring subdivisions via the sidewalk network. And overall, it increased. And it also increased much more than the network overall. you can see that the projects that have been done have been focusing on some destinations throughout the city and increasing their connectivity and allowing people to walk to those destinations. Looking at the color chart of the lines, You can see that parks and grocery stores have gone down a little bit, and that's because new developments have been made that are poorly connected, such as the Walmart neighborhood market or Cornerstone Park. Those are poorly connected via the sidewalk network, so that brought those categories down. But the bus stop system has increased connection to those destinations. And it was developed in 2012. So you can see the light blue line started in 2015. And that is, if some sidewalk or some destination had gone down, the bus stop network has increased .

want you to come back in another say five years and look because we've got the Walmart neighborhood market project going with the with the grant that we're looking at to it would be connectivity off of Garrett Road to that so that's going to be that's going to be a piece of that that will have that connection made that's really exciting and how did you do on your thesis Of course you did. Of course you did. Vice Mayor?

I apologize. I had to step out for a moment, but I have to take care of my area. I just want to say that the Vice Mayor is always very impressed with your work. And whenever you are in the room, you have to be recognized. And this is something that you all and yourself are going to reach out to. So I appreciate that. And thank you for your commitment, sir. You have instituted on the tree advisory and on the state board. and go through this committee. I mean, I'm waiting to see what he had to say about it. So thank you gentlemen for your service.

Thank you all for letting us be here. And I would just say all credit to Isabella. She did a fantastic job on this.

Jason, were you on the board when we started this out

zoning at that time. So I wasn't in that room, but I was in the building. How about that?

The chatter of that has died down, y'all.

I wanted to say, I was on the board with you then, and there was a lot of that sort of talk. But what's funny is, over the last 15 years, we've moved away from that to, why can't we have a sidewalk in fill in the blank? So there's more demand for sidewalks now than there were.

That's making me think, you know, everybody said sidewalks are nowhere, but now look at all these sidewalks. They're connected now. Well, you just wait long enough.

The city lives forever, and the rest of us are, you know, going to not necessarily be here, but at some point those will connect, and that's the long term.

Yes, ma'am. And if I'm not mistaken, 80% of the sidewalks the city has done has been off the grant money, correct? A lot of them have been.

The major portion of them. I don't know if it's 80, but it's certainly a huge amount. And the part we're doing right now will be off of grant money. So that's all good stuff. All good stuff. Spending it wisely. One final point.

Yes, sir. As to a question I'm going to ask about when the sidewalk primarily started. It started near the Europe term, as I see. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and highlighting that, just for fun, the Garrard Road intersection where it punched through, that had that wonderful sidewalk.

And I remember Mayor Camp going, that's a sidewalk from nowhere. I said, you just wait. Just wait. And now it is incredibly well used. So, absolutely.

constantly bombarded with questions and complaints and other things and part of the reason that Isabella took on this study was just to see see what the numbers actually were and I was I knew that we had completed a lot of walkways, but I was surprised at the total number of the walkways and what it connected. So I would say, I think, unless everything's not perfectly connected yet, it will be. So I would encourage to be steadfast and hold the force because it is working. And what it really showed is that between the University, city, county, when we work together to find where the city's gonna go out and improve the grant, those segments are exceptionally important in improving the overall connectivity to neighborhoods that may, while you're waiting on private development to occur. I think it shows a number of things. I think it also shows over these 15 years that the city of Starville has been exceptionally blessed with lots of development happening in our community that's driving a lot of this. Good things have happened. I'll keep doing it. I think if you get a hold on this path, we're going to get there maybe sooner than we thought.

Absolutely. I'm incredibly proud of it. And thank you for taking a special look at us. I'm delighted with the results, certainly. Where are you going next?

I'm going to Mobile, actually, this Monday to start work.

Okay. Well, congratulations. And thanks again for coming to it.

I'm sorry? Oh, okay.

Well, we certainly know them very well. Several different projects. So, congratulations. All right. Thanks again, guys. Appreciate it. All right. Let's go on to our agenda here. All right. We have a couple of sets of minutes. Mr. Huskinson, are we all good with those? Mr. McLaurin is good. All good. All right. So we do consent for those two. Okay. All right. Mayor's comments. I hope I'll be able to say that we want them. So we'll we'll see what will be for lack of. All right. We will see if there's any comments. We won't have introductions, so we will see how that goes. Anything the board wants to highlight on the board comments. All right. Under public hearings, we're going to have a variance. Mr. Haviland, would you give us a little explanation for some of this?

Yes. The first variance request is on Brick Avenue. This is a request that's paid for hardship.

The applicant had a house that's very uniquely situated. It has public roads on three sides. Therefore, it creates three front yards.

And so what they're wanting to do is locate what's in their current backyards, how they use it, and it's been that way since 2004. They want to locate a shed, garage structure, and then they want to be allowed to keep their properties because of where it is. And so the staff and the Board of Justice of the field recommends approval of that with three conditions that are related to future construction.

Okay, and that'll be a public hearing, so we won't look at that for anything consent-wise anyway. And then the second one?

The second one is a request that's for the Bruce's property on Highway 12, and this one's based off of them exceeding the limits of work from a right-of-way permit. The existing site was a nonconformity, and by exceeding the limits of that permit, they made the nonconformity more nonconform. And so this is a request that they're trying to be able to keep what they've already done by requesting to not have parking setbacks. Staff and the Board of Justice feel both regulated denial of that.

That was unanimous? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, we will obviously have public hearing on that. And then last but not least, under public hearing, we're going to have a 21-1911 look at 101 Fairfield Drive. And if y'all recall, we had a couple of residents who were living nearby that location come to talk to us about it, and our code enforcement has taken action. So we will look forward to seeing that also under the public hearing at that point in time. All right, so the next thing we have is... Mayor's business, and so what I'm asking for, and I sent y'all an email. Glad nobody responded in group because that wasn't intended that way. It was just an informational piece for looking at updating our unified development code to include a short-term rental register. Things have changed since we looked at it back in 2019. I think it was 2019, 18, 19. One of the things that's changed is the fact that short-term rentals are now considered part of the 2%, 1% hotel-motel fee And so in order for us to be able to make sure we capture that, that's something that we need to have information about. And so this is to create a registry. Just like we have a long-term rental ordinance, this is for a short-term purpose. And so what I'm asking you to do is call for the first of at least two public hearings. Two is our standard. And then if there are more things that come from it, then we can certainly have more. not unlike some of the other ordinances we've recently done. And so I would like us to look at this as something for the future in terms of just being able to know what's out there that is operating under the Airbnb, the VRBO, those registries. So that's the purpose for this. Vice Mayor.

Mayor, I have a very respectful request, as I mentioned to you earlier, for this, for the board to hear, for you to please at least consider the ordinances that are in full force and effect from the following jurisdictions. The city of Oxford, the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors passed one just within the last eight to 10 months, and the city of Columbus passed one, and they basically tracked the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors. just consider that?

Actually, we've not only considered, I've incorporated a number of things into that. And Mr. Haviland is working on, there you are, Mr. Haviland is working on putting the details in. I'm giving him handwritten stuff and he is, bless his heart, helping put it in there and also provide a new definition for short-term rental as well as the section three, which is the ordinance that, or the part of the ordinance that is the enforcement element of it. So we're gonna have to change three, 17, and I believe 18, which is the definition part. And so he's putting that together and that should be coming forthcoming soon, so you get the details. The only thing that's in your packet right now are the whereases. And so that's what's there for viewing now, but this is just for calling for the first of at least two public hearings. Thank you. Any reason to not put that on consent, or do you want to hold off? I'm going to hold off. Okay. All right. No problem. Just see him, since it is not an action other than just advertising calling. But anyway. All right. The next one is And guys, I didn't, I just didn't catch it. I'm going to call this a scrivener's error. That's what I'm calling this. And there is no precedent for this that I'm aware of, so I'm fessing up. When we did the alcohol ordinance 2026-01 back in January, we did the change of the hour. That was all we changed from 11 o'clock to 10 o'clock. And in the drafting of the ordinance, Alcoholic beverages is in there everywhere. There's one section that says beer and light wine. And I've gotten an email from ABC that says that needs to change before we're willing to approve it and move forward with it. So that's what's in your packet is the email from ABC that I got as well as the change in the ordinance that simply reflects alcoholic beverages instead of beer and light wine. But because it's an ordinance change, then I put it up for calling for a public hearing so that we have one public hearing since it's Scrivener's error related. And so I'm hopeful that that will satisfy everybody because we're only required to have one public hearing for an ordinance change. We have always, well, since I was CAO, we've done two because I think it's appropriate to give as much notice as possible to the public. But this is not really a change of what we're doing. This is not a substantive change. This is just simply a language change.

So it will be from 11 to 10.

Yes, well, it's already 11 to 10 for us, for beer and wine. It's just not for the rest of it. It's not for your Bloody Mary. So if we could just make that a consent to call for the public hearing. All right, thank you very much. And then the last one is... This is the resolution that adopts that definition. Now, there's a narrative that goes again with the, I've been enjoying learning the agenda software. There's a narrative in there that goes with it that talks about the fact that when we got our last extension of the hotel, motel, local and private, it said four. The state at that time said six. Four rooms. Yeah, I'm sorry. You just said four. To be clear, four rooms as opposed to six, which was the state definition at the time. The state has since gone to one room, even if it's one room, and I think that's in response to the Airbnb VRBO issue. But in order for them to acknowledge that, we're going to have to adopt a resolution, which is what this is, that accepts their definition of the one room. And so that's what this resolution says, and this is just needed in order for us to collect that two percent one percent on the hotel motel tax for the room so consent for this one resolution wise all right thank you all right airport um and these are consultants mr there it is hiding in the corner mr lincoln anything particular about these these are all associated with our grants is that correct and the runway extension which is part of the grant. So consent for those? All right. Thank you. And then we have, this is the UDC. Daniel, you want to give just a quick overview of the UDC?

One of our standard sort of yearly updates is how it's sort of happened. So it's just a couple topics we're going to hit on in this one. There's some variance reapplication procedures that just aren't well defined. So to correct that, There's some side setback, some language need to be tightened up, and there's regulations on density for single dwelling units on the lot. There's some language to tighten up. Food truck signage, temporary 5G telecommunications, that's for stuff like when they had the derby in the cop district, they put 5G temporary things on the light poles just for that weekend, but we have no policy that covers that or anything. So it's just adding that to the UDC lighting standards, how to measure the height of a fence, 10 restrictions for food trucks. And then in the solid waste section in the UDC, it incorrectly references the wrong document. Because it's no longer Chapter 98 now in Section 1A. Okay.

Some of that sort of thing. And this is just for calling for the first public hearing?

Just a call. We're going to have the public hearing in July.

Okay. All right. Consent for that one? Okay. All right. Engineering. So yesterday was Cody's last day on site. So, Mr. Williams, you are up.

You want to go through all of them?

Well, just, you know, I'm going to give you the shot at it to go through all of them for the first time. Throw you in the deep end.

First one is approving the low quote for Rush Harbor Cemetery. So on it. So this one is the low bid was from Econ Construction. It's the same contractor that's doing the Main Street project. And we really took all the design elements from Main Street and kind of incorporated those into Rush Harbor. So it'll be a great.

I think we've seen that visual, right? Yes.

see walls that you have on main street it'll be the same look at those and the same ideas as far as that goes so it came in under our under our estimate so that's great as far as the budget goes and then also this is the one that we have america's 250 and the north mississippi hills grant so the 91 000 we got 35 000 of that in grant funds as far as that goes okay so we get consent for that one all right The next one is for the professional services. This is for the design of the library renovation project with architectronics. So it is a percentage project or contract. So it was roughly a $1 million budget. 8% of that is what the design is.

All right. I'm going to jump in before he does. So one of the things that I've shared with the board is that we have a donor who has provided us with current $250,000. that is going into a library restricted fund, which is going toward the development and the building of this new renovation. And so it is a graduated support for the project, and I am delighted that he's done that. He is very low key, and so there's not been a lot of hoopla about it, and nor does he want it, but he is a donor to the university, with regularity and he is very humble and just wanted to make sure that our library was in good shape and he's been along with a friend of the library. So I'm really pleased that he saw the benefit of the project and that we can move forward with this. And I intend to keep him in the loop. Vice Mayor, I saw your hand.

Yes, Madam Mayor. Thanks for the recognition. I'm going to need one more time before the meeting is over. Mayor, this kind of regulations to you for getting the the commitment um as i mentioned to you yesterday uh certainly this is great to have anyone who just donates money to the city and um now after the first consideration yesterday is considering supporting it and i just wanted to say right now mayor i do not want to be on the record against the library but at the same time i was thinking about leaving off consent but i'm Let me say this. Just from a philosophical point of view, I do not like to approve a project of a million dollars or any magnitude based upon a promise to pay. But on your representation that it's a regular donor that you have familiarity with, you are with, and no disrespect, and thank you, Mr. Donor.

Thank you very much. Thank you for doing what you're doing. It was just, you know, just the lawyer, you know, and nothing else. Nothing's negative about anything.

You know, just a good old lawyer on the board. And a world other professional. But nevertheless, I'm going to support it. I just wanted to say that. Thank you for your assurance about the things you just said about a donor regulator. I just didn't want to be in a situation where someone has good intentions, then there's default. Then it hits the telephone button. You remove mine. concerned so you and I should get the other $750,000 off. Thank you for that.

We will certainly, yes. This gentleman has every intention. Sure, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, yes. And then the Main Street Revitalization Grant.

So this is the grant agreement we approved the MLA last board meeting with the Main Street Association. This is the actual grant agreement with Mississippi Development Authority? Yes.

And that is, again, being supported through OCEDA with the match.

It's a $500,000 grant, $100,000 coming from OCEDA for the match. Don't see it.

Consent, thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing the plan once you get that developed. That'll be a good work session thing to see.

It'll be a great connector between the 182 and our Main Street project. Absolutely.

Okay. All right. Finance Administration will skip the claims docket. We've got an annual safety test with... cone for the elevators, and were you able to put them together? Did they ever commit to that? They said they would check on it. They were still in the checking phase? Okay, so consent for that?

Alright, thank you.

And then advertising for request for proposal for janitorial services. We have been less than happy with the current status of the janitorial services. In particular, I've seen dirt that's been there for like three or four days. So, on the stairs leading up here. So we need to we need to make sure we get some good service because we are a public body and our public space that needs to be maintained well so advertising for that consent thank you and then fire department this is the smack agreement I received a request from Mr Jarvis Boyd that we sign into the smack agreement we've done this we've done this for years now so this is just more of what we've done in the past to support the state when there are when there are emergencies and needs for our associated services yes ma'am I just want to say I think Jarvis and Connor have done a great job since they've taken those roles on over at the EMS 911 would you agree they've done great it's been a good transition so all right consent with that one all right thank you all right HR NAV is on the line I don't know that we have any necessarily any questions at this point in time but we have All these are all positions that are unfilled. Mr. Mr. Ashford, are you there? Yes, ma'am. I'm here and unmuted. When you were when you were unmuted a minute ago. Okay, is there anything you wish to highlight about any of these?

No, ma'am. They're all replacement positions except the co-op position, and it's part of our rotation program in the engineering department.

With David Jelinek?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. All right. Thank you. And to highlight, this is to hire Mr. Williams as the city engineer in the engineering department. Obviously, Cody's departure, he is still on board, but he is remote, and so I think it's appropriate to go ahead and have Mr. Williams, who is here, and available as the go ahead and hire him in that role even though Cody is still until June the 30th, I believe it is.

Is that correct, Mr. Ashford?

Is it June the 30th? Yes, ma'am. Or June the 30th? Yeah, June the 30th. OK. It's June the 30th.

Effective date for this?

The effective date would be July 1. OK. All right. Can we get consent? No, we don't have consent for number one. Consent for the rest of them? Okay. All right. Consent for the rest of them. All right. Thank you, Mr. Ashford. Appreciate you being on the line.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

And under parks, we have the, well, actually, it would be more or less engineer again, but we've got the sheet metal for the Travis Outlaw Center and the annex roof repairs. This is a whole new roof for the annex building, and it is repairs to the Travis Outlaw Center. Is that correct? Okay, can we do consent for that one? Okay, thank you. Summary change order of Byron. This is a closeout for J.L. King. I'm delighted to see that we are about done with that, and we have a year's whatever. Watch for life. And it looks good. It does look good. I built by there yesterday. Okay, consent for that one? Okay. Lowest quote for turf and soccer field renovations. That's going to be a part of what we've separated. One's a service and the other one is materials. So that's what these next two, three, and four are for. And that is to...