Board of Aldermen - workshop

for our work session in preparation for our first meeting in September which will be on September 1 at 530 downstairs where it usually is and we have obviously the agenda to deal with but we do have a presentation by Todd Palmer and it may be others but I just put I just put Todd on there for Pafford Emergency Services and We've got contract renewal on this agenda, and I thought it would be timely for them to provide us additional information about services and the assorted communications that we have with y'all on the regular. So please, whoever wishes to present.

Absolutely. So I'll stand up.

Well, I tell you what, if you don't mind going down to that end of the table, that way we can all lay eyes on you easily.

have a seat down here you can okay so uh my name is freddie parker i think i've met a lot of you guys in the past i'm the chief operating officer for dms uh so this uh extension will be uh recovered 2026 to 2028 uh and kind of exciting because this will actually take us to a decade of service i believe in the city of circle we started this back in 2018 i believe So, just so everybody kind of has the current landscape, you know, as far as the contract goes, we're not requesting any changes to be made. It needs to be service as usual as has been provided. And on that landscape, kind of the geography of it. So there's two ambulances that are stationed in the city 24 hours a day. seven days a week. One is at fire station number three, and one is at fire station number four. And then for the kind of local geography around there, so we have ambulances that are in Choctaw County, we have ambulances that are in Western County, and we have ambulances that are in Clay County as well. So we have changed our process a little bit i guess you could say we take one of those ambulances and it kind of becomes a floater a little bit um and it kind of lives in the phoebe area a lot of times in that south end of clay county and that helps us you know if we get to a low level in a certain area we kind of have a resource we can shift around a little bit um and that resource has been moving sparkle you know on a few occasions it's not very often that we go into a situation where you know both animals and sparkle are tied up you know at the same time it does happen But with that extra resource, that way we're able to move it down and make sure that you guys have coverage that's not impeded by anything. As far as that, like I said, as far as the contract goes, we're not requesting any changes to be made. And the agreement will just be as is that we've had for the last eight years, I guess.

Y'all have expanded some over the last...

several years have you not we have so we we acquired the Mississippi health system operations for their ground and air ambulance. So that's when we expanded into those surrounding counties. And then Choctaw County, like I said, there's two ambulances that are in Choctaw County as well, which is as honestly our sister company, but we work side by side with them to share resources. Okay.

And, Chief, we haven't encountered any issues as it relates to Starkville having Pafford versus the county having whoever the county's had in the past and is going to have in the future. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. All right. No confusion factor there. Okay. Are you all foreseeing any further growth?

in the area so I think in northeast Mississippi there could be some opportunities that present themselves you know over the next couple of years so we're hopeful we'll see where it goes hopefully for October Hall County too I'm sorry in the future

Well, they've just signed a new contract, so it won't be in the near future. Not in the future. I'm just trying to think if there's anything else informative that y'all want to share with us while you have the opportunity. The contract is the same. Why don't you just kind of remind us how that contract works? what we provide, what you provide, that sort of thing.

So the contract dictates two annuances on duty 24-7 throughout the term of the contract. The response times we maintain, we maintain an average of 10 minutes or less. I believe it's 90% of the time. on the contract, which that's never been an issue since we've been here as far as being over on the times. Like I said, that's the response time average. The number of trucks is two. And then the city provides a place for us to be in Fire Station 3 and Fire Station 4.

And that staging is due to one's close to the hospital and some of the care homes, and the other one is down south for the far reaches from the hospital. Okay. All right. And for those, I mean, I get those reports weekly, but the chief sends them to me. And for those of us who may be not necessarily up on that but try to say it fairly frequently, that 80% of what we do, fire department, et cetera, is medical. And that seems to be true nationwide. So what you all do is a good – proponents of what you share with our fire department in responding to medical events in the city we had one down downstairs yesterday at court so we appreciate that that partnership

Can you expound on the EMT program that he provides?

OK. Well, that was one of the things I was kind of expecting him to talk about. I was just about to say that. So Rob Fisher is here also. He's our director of education for the company. And Rob, do you want to just expound a little bit? Maybe come over here.

Sure. Would you please? That'd be great. This is intended to kind of be educational for everybody.

All right. Sure. So since I came to work with Pafford in the past two and a half years, All two years, we have done EMT classes here in-house with the fire department. Jeremy Weaver, one of you guys, is a fire guy, works for us. He's cross-trained, works for Packard as well, so him and I do the education together. I actually just spoke with him this week, Chief, on a request. You guys want another EMT class here in-house. So it's good for us because these medics that are in-house that work, For the fire department, they're cross-trained with our protocols. So all of our advanced life techniques that we use, we teach our employees, we do with the fire guys. So it's a good trade-off. So the medicine's the same. That way the hospitals know whenever they see a patient with XYZ, they know what to expect from the fire guys and with the Packard employees. I come from a fire-based EMS system at Vicksburg Fire Department, so I'm very pro-fire paramedic EMS working in relationships with each other. So we've had, Jeremy has a great success rate. I don't know what his success rate is off the top of my head, Chief. It's better than anywhere that I teach. I'll have to say that. You have to give a thumbs up to Jeremy. He does a great job. And we're able to, what we like to do is not only educate the fire guys where they help us, they get there prior to us getting the call a few minutes ahead of times, but we also like to hope we can recruit a couple of those guys to work on their days off for us on our ambulances. And I think we had one out of this last class last fall that's working part-time with us. Good results. I think it's good for the community. We try to do as much as we can. If Todd needs anything here as far as CPR or for any of the community, The fire, the police guys, Jeremy's usually the one that takes care of that. He reaches out to me, and then we give him the resources that he needs. We just did one over in Westville, and that's the reason we haven't done one in-house here with y'all's guys this year yet. He reached out to me actually this week about trying to get one this fall. So I see one of those on the horizon here pretty quick.

Do you do that at Fire Station 1? Where do you all do that? Where do you actually conduct the training?

We started up here. I'm not familiar. This is the county building right up here. Oh, okay. We're on the second floor there. Okay. The EMS building?

That's right. Okay.

And then we transitioned it to, is that Fire Station 1? it would have been because the recruits were there and they need to go jump on the fire truck while we were teaching the alarm goes out we just close the book and they go get on the truck so that works out well we transitioned over there okay and do y'all do y'all share with does anybody else come in and train with us when y'all train i mean you said you did one at west point do we have other cities or municipalities we offer it um but a lot of times The departments like to stay with their own folks. We'll pass out if Todd's got an employee or somebody who needs EMT in-house, we allow them to come. jump in and in the class. I think we had one from one of our new residents and boys now he's going to paramedic school. We actually train him to go to paramedic school as well. So.

Okay.

Yeah we try to offer as much as we can in the community. So when you know if you you guys know anyone's out of high school you know a good potential candidate and yeah tell them to come on and jump in and it's good for everybody.

Okay, cool. Questions, anybody? We appreciate you all being here. We appreciate the partnership, and I didn't realize it had been a decade, so that's...

I was looking, I was saying when I was looking at the draft contract, this is going to be 10 years.

Yeah. cool okay well I remember when it occurred and I think we've done well together so thank you very much Mayor do you remember what precipitated bringing them in I do I'd rather not throw anybody under the bus right now but yes I do remember that distinctly now so I think we're we are well served so thank you all okay we're here to support you guys and make sure you're taken care of okay well I know our residents appreciate that so all right thank you so much all right thanks guys

Just chicken.

Well, no, they're gone. They are gone now. So don't have to worry about it. Don't have to shame them. All right, so we move on to our agenda items. We've got two sets of minutes. Mr. Huskisson, is McLaurin all good? All right, we'll put those on consent. All right. then I've got announcements I will mention that the Labor Day garbage schedule is citywide pickup and I will also mention that we will have to get swept up which will actually occur on the second which will be the day after our board meeting so I can say it now as well so yeah the get swept up process is always before our first home game which will be following weekend so glad to have it anybody got anything they want under Board of Aldermen comments Okay. Public appearances. Ms. Creasing has asked for first responders' blood drive. I think she says she needs more than three but less than ten. So we've got her set up for a public appearance as well. Under public hearings, this will be our second public hearing and our opportunity to adopt the tax millage and to adopt the fiscal year 26-27 budget for the city of Starkville. So we will go through that process. Since we had our special call meeting, I believe everybody knows where we are, so we will just wait for our public hearing. This is also going to be the first public hearing to adopt a chronic nuisance property ordinance. We will have two of those, so the opportunity to actually adopt it would be on the 15th for the second public hearing. And I have asked, depending on how everybody feels about it, I have asked that it become one of those ordinances that with a unanimous adoption becomes effective immediately. So that is in the... Ordinance itself, so you know it does require unanimous adoption in order for that to occur but that gives us that option if the board is is Willing to consider it such And then the other one is the Leisure and Recreation District Ordinance, which is to add that specific language to the Go Cup, which allows them to put a date on it and it to become easily recognizable to the police department as they're in the Go Cup district so that the folks are assisted in being legal as they're wandering around with their cup of whatever their cup is filled with. So we will see. And that, again, is a public hearing. And then the next public hearing, this one is a 21-1911 associated with one of the locations that we have been struggling with for years now. We actually had done a 21-1911 on this location, what, back in 2017, 2018, all of them at all? Sometime back in there. And with the... construction and the changes to 182 we have we have let it go to see if we can get to the point where something might happen with it and at this point in time now we've got past that particular location and so the effort will be to see if we can get that property cleaned up appropriately it has its own challenges Mr. Williams you've been underneath it I believe underneath it yeah and it is yeah it is it is a concern yeah we will have those obviously available for the public hearing so and I have had a conversation with Mr. Moore so he's very aware of it under mayor's business this this will not be able to go on consent as Alderman Brooks is going to need to recuse himself so we just do that as a follow-up to our presentation today Community Development. Mr. Haviland, I see you back there. We got a final plat.

We have two final plats. The first one is we're taking one lot and making it into two lots on Collegue. And then the other one is you're taking two lots and making it into one lot in Haviland.

Okay. And no issues about that?

No, both minor class ERC review all over.

Okay. Consent for those two? Consent. Okay. And then under engineering, we have the Main Street revitalization grant, which Mr. Williams has been working diligently with Main Street on to put together a program. OCETA is the match, so this is not a dollar factor for the city. This is a partnership with some in-kind services coming from the engineering department. So it's an opportunity for us to continue to make improvements in the Main Street area. This one is for Lafayette Street. So we'll hopefully look forward to getting that. Consent for that? All right. Thank you. And then we claim stock it. We can skip over that one. So HR, Mr. Ashford, are you on? Are you still in Greece and on with us? There he is.

He's actually not dialed in.

Is he not dialed in? Okay. Well, I see the big N there, so I made an assumption. All right. So we have the – this is that grant program for internships, which I think we've been very successful with in the utilities department. And where else have we had that? Anybody else? Fire. Fire department. Okay. Thank you. So consent for that one? Okay. Okay. And then we've got, and all of these are replacement positions, I believe, that firefighters and sanitation. What about two? I'm sorry? Two? That's been back a long time, right? Yes, it has been. Like years. Edward's on, but also Mike, the electrical engineer, is a replacement position. Yes. Okay, consent for that one. And then police department, pre-academy, obviously police positions. Fire positions? Yes. consent and then the driver so to be noted on this one Ms. Walker needs to have that we need to make that that start date retroactive to 27 the commercial driver that Chris recently lost left him short and Ms. Walker is coming back to us from she was in West Point I'm sorry first student first student okay anyway she's coming back to us from being employed elsewhere and also being a lottery winner so happy to have her back I believe consent for that one okay and then mr. Nance has applied for the position that mr. McMullen has so rudely vacated, or are going to vacate from us. We will miss him, but Mr. Nance has agreed to fill that role, and I think he will make an excellent choice. So, consent for that one? Parks. These are soccer uniforms, and then sand for, these are for the cornerstone field. Is he here somewhere? No, he's not. All right, consent. Thank you. Then police, we have a new motorcycle. Anything about this you want to share, AC?

No, ma'am. It's going to be at another place.

The replacement motorcycle. The one that's currently in the proposed budget for fiscal 27? No, this is the replacement one. The next one would come with the new budget, I believe. Is that right?

But the insurance goes to the motorcycle company, not to us.

Right, but it's a replacement, is my understanding. Is that not right, Webb?

Is that not a replacement vehicle? This is a replacement motor. Okay.

That's what I thought. Right. Okay. All right. Consent for that one? Consent. And then the abandoned property to sell, consent for that one? Consent. And then a forfeited vehicle, much the same scrap, consent for that one? Consent. And then, my goodness, we're getting all kinds of surplus. Surplus for vehicles as well? Hmm. Consent? And then code enforcement is going to be a mowing cleanup of 66 Boyd Road. Consent for that? Consent. Okay. And then under utilities, we have an amendment to engineering services for an influent pump station. Anything specific about that, Jones, that you want to share? No. Sure. Join us at the end of the table.

This was the work that is associated with the rehab work. The clarifier on the three had a failure, so they had to pump that out so there could be repairs on it. And the other pump was on the influent water coming in through the wastewater coming in through the plant. They had to rent a pump to do repairs to the existing pump.

Okay, this was not an anticipated expense. So it's a change order, so to speak?

Yes, ma'am. Okay. Well, the cost associated with... The rental went wrong in what we saw.

Right. Okay.

As far as whether it was anticipated, I'm fairly sure the clarifier was wrong.

Okay.

What I don't know about the problem is whether the failure of the input block was worked up for the input block was a product of the moment we had or what it was. I don't know that.

Edward, you up?

Yes, ma'am. This is the item on the Clearwater contract? Yes, sir.

This is the pump, right?

Okay. Yeah, we had a failure at the Influent station, and we had to bring in a supplementary pump for that. We were not sure exactly how long we were going to need it because we didn't know how long the repairs were going to take. So the invoice for that repair exceeded $5,000 when we got the final bill back. So we're asking for more approval of that after the fact since it's greater than $5,000.

A very similar thing happened with Clarifier 3 and it's the same vendor.

different pump but same vendor in the same scenario we we didn't really know how long it was going to take to get that clarifier back up and running.

Okay, so that essentially covers when you your dialogue essentially covers one and two? Emergency purchase?

The emergency is two different invoices approximately around $6,000 each.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Consent for that. And then the next one up is the influent lift station pump repair. Consent for that one? Okay. All right. Then we have low quote from Turner Farms for dump trailer for water distribution. Consent for that one? Okay. And sole source quote for central pipe for badger meter. Consent for that one? And then utility maintenance specialist to provide professional services associated with substation maintenance. Consent for that one? All right, that carries us to the end of the agenda for our first meeting in September. So any questions, anything you want to talk about? Okay, all right. Everyone have a great weekend, and we will see you in September. See you in September, yes.

Yes, absolutely. And go Jacks.