City Council - Regular Meeting

I'll now call to order the 02/05/2026 meeting of mayor and council. I'd like to call in minister Chris Musgrove, founder, director of Future Now to lead us in prayer. Please remain standing for the pledge.

Before I pray, I'd like to say, Virginia job with a special gift book that I wrote. It's it's an easy read. See if you got pictures in it. I wanna say this. I was just sitting here thinking, I I I was born in Valdosta. I was raised down in North Florida. My mom is from Valdosta. My daddy grew up in Homerville. But as a child, this was before you came to town. You lived in Suwannee County, North Florida. And, man, I just I'm just proud to say I'm from Valdosta. I wanna thank all of you wonderful for serving this community. This and I get people say this all the time in North Florida. You know, we're out here in Adel and all around the communities that Valdosta is a wonderful place. It really is.

And I've never had barbecue if it hadn't been for Valdosta. I'll be 65 next month. I know I don't look like it. But my first taste of Mitchell's barbecue back in the day and and I know you got some good barbecue but you know, Shawnee's, if you, let me folks think, what are you talking about? We we didn't have nothing in Live Oak. I think it was a place called the Biffburger. It wasn't fit to eat but thank god for Shoney's and places like that but this is a wonderful place. I'm just proud of it. I I just want us to just pray that we'll continue the name that it's a city without limits. I believe that.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this Lord, this wonderful community, this wonderful city, and, Lord, all these wonderful men and women that have that take out their time that they're really concerned of where are we going, what are we gonna do, Lord? And we just thank you for wisdom and direction and lord, I thank you for unity. Lord, you said in Psalm one thirty three, that's where you command your blessing and lord, we need your commanded blessing and lord, not anywhere you see division or disunity, you know the devil's there. And we just we just thank you for unity and thank you for we're all working for the same cause.

We're not trying to get what we want. We want what you want, lord. And we just ask you to bless Valdosta, bless the mayor and all the council and all the people that serve. Lord, the firefighters, the the police department, the the the sanitation department, every aspect of this community. We just ask you to bless it and use it and let it continue to be a great place and for years and years to come to be a place for wonderful memories to be shared of of of times in Valdosta, Georgia. We just love you, we thank you, and we give you glory, honor, and praise. In Jesus' name, and everybody said Amen. Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag

of The United States Of America and

to the republic for which

it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Chris, thank you very much. Before I get to a very specific portion, and specific people, would all first responders that are in the room please stand. We also found out during the hurricanes that first responders, our public works, our utilities, are the rest of those people that did such an amazing job. You guys are all all awesome. Alright.

Number two, awards and presentations. Consideration of the January 2026 employee of the month award with lieutenant Caleb Clark, firefighter Kean O'Hannon, and firefighter Michael Niedov, please meet me at the front along with their interim fire chief Marcus Haines, who will present. I I I would definitely feel safer if you guys left. Our town will be safer if you left. And Emily, thank you too.

Well done. Always. Alright. We'll move on to item three. It's a public hearing item. Consideration of an ordinance granted conditional use permit for a multifamily residential development in a downtown commercial zoning district as requested by Daniel Bayman, Matt Martin, present. Matt?

Yes, sir. Thank you, mayor. Just one item from the planning commission on the agenda this evening. Conditional use request for property that consists of about an acre and a quarter located at 111 West Hill Avenue. And a bigger button. There we go. As you see on the zoning pattern, everything is downtown commercial zoning on this block and around it. The applicant does own this entire block, but the proposal is for a new four story building that is mixed use. Ground floor, commercial, and office. And then Floors 23, And 4 would be apartments, 18 dwelling units per floor for a total of 54 dwelling units within a larger block of CD zoning with commercial pattern.

Zoning pattern, you see a CD character area is downtown activity center throughout the entire area. Aerial imagery, this is from 2025.

I got somebody going out there. Go ahead, Matt. He's got them scooting along. Just alright. He's got it. Go ahead, man.

Okay. Aerial imagery shows a vacant commercial lot, some existing parking that is part of the subject property, as well as some to the south. On the right side of that picture, you can see the rooftop of the Bank of America building, which is an existing three story building that is there. I'm coming through the rest of these imageries. This is the view from Hill Avenue looking southward, and there's the back wall of the Bank of America building.

A little broader view of from the intersection. Tomb Street is to the right. This is at the Southeast corner of Hill And Tombs. Adjacent properties, this is the buildings along the North Side of Hill Avenue. These are historic brick buildings that's common in the downtown, which gave the applicants some inspiration for the design of their proposed building, but not everything is three story brick around it.

To the west of that, you see the one story buildings that end with the Bank of the Ozark building at the opposite corner of Hill And Tombs. And then to the west is a two story building that is the Lee Office building that's been there for many years. That property is also owned by the applicant and it will be the subject, I think, of a future redevelopment proposal. And looking eastward back toward the heart of downtown, again, Bank of America building. Here you see Hill Avenue with its on street parking.

In your packet, Battery. Miss Teresa, if you could forward this the old fashioned way. So in your packet are drawings of the subject proposal, which is the site plan. You see proposed building as we talked about the work session, the good sized building, but it's a little bit larger than even it looks. Again, four story, 93 parking spaces to be assigned to this building plus additional parking on the lot or the block to the south, but that is for Bank of America.

And then the next pictures of the facade drawings going in the other direction. There we go. This is the three d rendering of the building as you would see it from Hill Avenue, a stucco finish across the Ground Floor, three story brick apartments above. Total building height about 54, 55 feet, so it's a pretty good sized building. Some interesting detailing in it.

I'll let the applicant describe that and a little more information for you when they come up. And then the next slide I think is the other view of the building on the backside. This is the part that would be facing the parking lot to the south. Next slide is the floor plan I believe of the Ground Floor to show the four tenant spaces that they are proposing. One large one and then three smaller ones to the east.

And then the next one is the floor plan of the apartments. So second, third, and fourth Floor would look like this, 18 units per floor, 54 total for the building. Planning Commission reviewed this at their public hearing in January. They found it consistent with the comprehensive plan, consistent with the conditional use review criteria which are there in your packet, and they are recommending approval subject to two conditions. The first one, approval shall be granted for a multi family residential development in CD zoning in general accordance with the submitted site plan and building drawings.

The residential portion of the building consists of residential dwellings only, including home occupations, but not including home businesses or any nonresidential use. The residential portion of the building shall not exceed 80 bedrooms total. Their proposal is 75, so this gives them a little bit of cushion if they wanna tweak the floor plan a little bit. Number two, conditional use approval shall expire two years from the date of approval if no building permit for the proposed building has been issued by that date. Be glad to answer any questions you may have.

Counsel, any questions for Matt? Matt, thank you. Mhmm. Again, this is a public hearing item. Are there anybody is there anybody that wants to come forward and speak in favor of this request?

Daniel?

Hey, y'all. My name is Daniel Bayman. I reside at 5941 Empress Road in Quitman, Georgia, and I am the applicant. As you all know, this is a property we purchased about a year ago, and then we've been in the design phase for a little while. I'd love to say we were finished with everything, but we're getting back bids and seeing if we need to tweak it a little bit.

But that being said, I feel like Gideon Contractors is our construction GP and then Yoshi did an excellent job basically taking a two seventy foot building and making it look like four individual buildings with some of the same characteristics. It was important for us that it does not stick out like a sore thumb like some other modern buildings do in a downtown. So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the building. As Matt mentioned, we're looking at 54 apartments. It's about 17,000, 18,000 square feet of commercial space.

Just under 9,000 of that will be Lee office. It'll be occupied by Lee office. And then we have three other tenants as well.

Counsel, any questions for the applicant? Sandra?

I do. I'm glad you got up to speak because I've had some questions and I've wanted them and I told them we're gonna find out from the main man exactly what this is. Is this a hotel?

No, ma'am. Okay. So all all the residential units will be used as residential units. We are not gonna be doing any short term leases. In fact, our shortest lease will be a twelve month lease, which is typical for residential apartments.

Okay. So that let them know there's not an air Airbnb.

No ma'am no. I'm

good with the Mackie.

Good. Also someone was asking if it's going to be like for a corporate building or can anybody rent an apartment there?

Anybody can rent an apartment there. We are slightly above market rate for Lowndes County. Our typical lease our projections are $14.50 for our one bedroom and 2,100 for our two bedroom, but it's open to anybody within the community. We are specifically targeting young professionals between the ages of say 25 and 35 that are either newly married or going to get their masters or their doctorate at VSU. That's kind of our target demographic right now.

Good. Thank you.

Yes, of course.

Awesome. Any other questions for the applicant? Daniel, thank you.

Alright. Thank you all.

Yeah. Good luck. Is there anybody else that would like to come forward and speak in favor of this request? Seeing none, is there anybody that would like to come forward and speak in opposition to this request? Again, seeing none, counsel, it's yours for action.

Mayor, I would like to make a motion that we approve the request as stated. Second.

With with the two With the two conditions.

Thank you. Second. I have a motion to second. All in favor? Show of hands. Council, thank you. Applicant, thank you. Good luck.

Thank you.

Alright. We'll move on to item four, local funding and requests. I had to make consideration of our request to purchase structural firefighting gear for the Valdosta fire department. How can you say no to after tonight? Interim fire chief Marcus Haynes to present.

Good evening, mayor, council, city manager. Yeah. We come before you wanting to move forward with the purchase of 30 sets of structural firefighting gear. This gear has been deemed good for our fire service personnel. We tried it out. It has a ten year warranty. Whenever there was any type of defect on the gear, we was able to send it back off to the provider, and they was able to get it back to us in the timely manner. We are very excited about that. When transitioning, like I mentioned before, from the twenty fourforty eight to the foureightninety six, it's more than likely that we're going to have a structure fire during those times. And so it's good that firefighters to work on our cancer prevention be able to come out of one set of gear and be able to put on a fresh set of gear. So I'll just come before you with a press to move forward with the purchase of firefighting gear.

Any questions for the Chief? None? Chief, thank you.

I thank you.

Counsel, yours for action.

Mister mayor, I make a request to approve this presentation presented by chief.

Second. I got a motion and a second. All in favor, show of hands. Counsel, thank you. Chief, good luck. Now move on to boards, commissions, authorities, and advisory committees. The first one is robust. Consideration of appointments to the Central Valasta Development Authority. The authorities has the following members whose terms will expire on 12/31/2025, did expire Tiffany Bentley, downtown property owner, as well as Samantha Schreiber. Miss Schreiber has expressed an interest in being reappointed. Miss Bentley has not. The CVDA has the following slots that are currently vacant as well. Dean Gonzales resigned. He was merchant or professional operating a business. Alyssa Noyes resigned.

Stacy Denmark, downtown property owner, resigned as well. The following applicants have applied for the slots above. Donna Norton, merchant or professional operating business. Daniel Bayman, downtown property owner. Jamie Phelps, downtown property owner or an officer at the time of appointment. And Amanda Peacock, downtown property owner, an officer at the time of appointment as well. These were advertised according to our boards, commissions, authorities, and advisory committees policy. There are five slots open. We have five qualified applicants. If there's no objection from council, they will be appointed by acclamation.

Is there any objection? Council, thank you. And to the applicants, thank you. Item b, consideration of an appointment to the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission. Chip Wilds, who resigned due to personal reasons and has since passed, his term for that vacant slot will expire on 07/08/2030. It was advertised according to the board's commission's authorities and advisory committee policy. The only applicant to apply was William Tommy Willis, a retired farmer. And, again, there is one slot and one applicant. So without objection, we'll appoint by acclamation. Counsel, thank you.

Item c, consideration of appointment to the hospital authority about Austin, Lowndes County. Hospital authority has a member Timothy Dame whose term will expire 02/01/2026. Mister Dame has expressed an interest in being reappointed. An appointment was advertised according to the board's commission's authorities and adviser committee's policy that were adopted by mayor and council. The applicants are as follows in no order or preference. Timothy Dame, accountant, Dame Walker and Hardiman. Michelle Hayes, accountant, owner, Michelle Hayes, income tax and payroll. And Susan Swader, accountant, Susan Swader, CPA. Hospital authority has provided a letter of recommendation to reappoint Tim Dame. With that being said, I'll entertain a nomination.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve well, I'd like to nominate Tim Dame. I'll second. I have a motion and a second.

Any other any other nominations? K. I have a motion and a second up for the first, Tim Dame. All all in favor, show of hands. Counsel, thank you. The authority, thank you. Item d, consideration of appointments to the Valdosta Housing Authority. David Hiers, whose term expired on December 31, has expressed an interest in being reappointed. Thompson Curry, whose term will expire on 12/31/2029, has resigned due to personal reasons. The appointments were advertised according to our policy.

The applicants are as follows. David Hiers, retired. Jeff Hanson, banker, Citizens Community Bank. And Uri Register, workforce development programs manager at the SGRC. These are my appointments to make. I reappoint David Hires as he asked and Jeff Hanson, the banker and citizens at Citizens Community Bank. Item e, consideration of an appointment to the Valdosta Lowndes County Development Authority. The development authority has a member, Thomas Call, whose term expires expired on 01/01/1966. He has not expressed an interest in being reappointed. The appointment was advertised according to our policy.

The applicants that we have before us are buried. I will give you three options to consider. The two names that have applied in timely fashion, Franklin Richards, president and CEO, second harvest of South Georgia, and Jamil Williams, a realtor with Canopy Realty Group. There was a third, Michael Lee, banker with Ameris Bank, who's mistakenly submitted his application to Lowndes County instead of the city of Valdosta. So there are three options before you, counsel.

Option one, counsel can proceed with voting on the two applicants, Franklin Richards and Jamil Williams. Item two, since mister Lee's board application was submitted timely but to the wrong address, council could consider voting on all three. Item three, council could choose to reopen the entire appointment, wait the thirty days, and appoint at a later date. And I'll listen for your

May I like to nominate Franklin with Richards? No.

We don't. Because we don't have we

don't have an option. So you you'd like to go forward with item one. Correct? The item

one. Yeah. Alright. Now open it for nominations. I'd like to nominate Franklin Richards. Alright.

I have a nomination. Do I have a second? Nomination, a second. Any other nominations?

I'd like to nominate Jebel Williams.

I have another nomination. Do I have a second? I do not. I apologize. We do. We will do the second one first.

Do any other nominations outside of those two? No. Obviously not. Then we'll take the first one. You always take the first one first.

Alright. No other nominations. Correct. You chose option one. Alright. Alright. So I have a motion and a second for Franklin Richards. All in favor? Show of hands. Five. That motion carries. Alright. Thank you. We'll now move on to citizens to be heard. We ask you to come forward and state your name and address so we have that for the record.

Our policy requires that you stay under three minutes so that others have time to be heard. Please direct all comments to council as a whole. Do not attempt to engage individual members of council and debate. It is our policy to follow through with you and your concern. Additionally, we ask that any groups that want to address the council designate a spokesperson to represent their their comments to ensure again that all have time to be heard. Having said that, are there any citizens that would like to come forward at this time? Bobby?

Yeah. Bobby McKenzie. 2947 The mayor's pal is coming up at a couple of weeks. And every year when we get ready to do this, there's a significant effort into cleaning up the rivers. There's tons of trash in the river. There's weekends that are constantly full with volunteers on kayaks to pull the trash out of the rivers. There's also volunteers that go with you there with chainsaws and cutting up fallen limbs. It's a huge effort to get there on the river to get that mare's paddle going. And it's it's a great effort. It's a great cause to to get people on the water to see that beautiful resource that we have.

But it's a shame that that so much effort and resources has to go into that to get ready for us to showcase something that it should be taken care of year round. I've been up here several times, and I've talked several times about trash cans, about litter, about litter sources, about compliance, and code enforcement. And there's been some improvements for whatever reasons of of selling property or moving property and and code enforcement and getting talking to or whatever to get their their their their things jump started. But I also see here that, you know, recently, Valdosta got awarded recognized for a homeless situation, for their care of the homeless and to take care of it with the cold and etcetera. Going the fire department's going in there and taking care of homeless camps and and getting them out of there.

There is on on j on James Road over there. There's a homeless camp that's been abandoned for a little over a year. Code enforcement went in there a year or so ago, got that camp cleaned up, but that trash has been staying there. You need about a 30 yard cubic yard roll off dumpster to get the amount of trash that's in there. But there's so much trash. If it stayed on that property, that's one thing. You need somebody who just has a really crappy property, but it doesn't. That QUT that's across the street has a stormwater pond, and that stormwater pond, when it drains, you can follow the drain in the water trail. It falls right through across underneath James Road, catch that trash, lifts it up, floats it on right into the Whistlecoochee River. That's the stuff that me and my kids back there are part of that cleanup effort.

And if they were there at the game changers, they're right there with us. They were in the Mayor's Paddock last year. We're there. We're active. It's a great river. But we need to be more proactive in stopping that trash at the source and keep it from going in there. I've I've talked to you about a year ago this time about the trash can ordinances. They they've been put out there. You am I only asking you to enforce your own rules? There's a trash can ordinance for all parking lots. If they have a certain size, you have so many trash cans out there. It's been c click fish reported. Anisha Riley has closed them out with no action taken. It has been reclicked, fixed again. The mall has 60 acres. 60 acres at the mall. And you're attracting companies and businesses. There's zero trash cans. Zero trash cans at the mall. And we talk about the trash cans in residential.

It's very important that we have trash cans that people discarded their waste. And with the homeless situation, when you get that taken care of, because we won't there's an abandoned camp, and we wouldn't dare call them lazy people. We wouldn't dare call them in, inconsiderate people. We wanna take care of them through, all the programs. But when they got their trash there, that trash has a negative impact on the environment. Just wanna stay ahead of it before the bears panel.

Bobby, thank you very much. Are there any other citizens wishing to be heard at this time? Michael?

Good evening, mayor, city council members. I have a little bit of a cold. I sound funny, but we'll be short. I would like to invite all of you, if you have the time, to a open or panel discussion on February 17 at at 6PM at the Student Union Theater. We are organizing a panel that will discuss the various aspects that come with the construction of a data center.

We have two experts on the panel who will do basically a thirty minute presentation of what data centers are all about when it comes to water consumption, electricity consumption, the impact on nearby home home values, basically, noise pollution, air pollution, the whole shebang. So, again, you will also receive an invitation to the event by email. We have a flyer that should be sent out next week. So, again, Tuesday, February 17, 06:00 at the Student Union Theater, and you all are welcome to join us. Thank you.

Michael. Thank you, Michael. Are there any other citizens wishing to be heard at this time? Alright. Yes.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Maria Chung Willoughby.

I'm

founder, self development engineer, and client zero for the art of good. On January 8, I referenced a statement that I previously made to this council that failure is a stepping stone to success, and the mayor did wish me luck on my next success. We didn't wait for luck. We took action. However, I still haven't heard back from council yet, so council has failed the constituents in the community by not responding.

As stated over the twelve past twelve months, I conducted a regional infrastructure and security audit, not a physical bridges or digital firewalls, but what I call human architecture, the people, the policies, and practices that determine whether public systems succeed or quietly fail. I don't know if you have access to your emails, but I just sent you an email of a breakdown with of how the program affects each and every one of your council members and what we're willing to do with that. So on January 22, I formally resubmitted the findings that identified systemic vulnerabilities in our social infrastructure, particularly the gap between city policy goals and what residents actually experience on the ground. And those gaps showed up across faith based organizations where inclusion became gatekeeping, education and media systems, government and civil service environments, including exposed personally identifiable information and inconsistent documentation leading to causes of cases of assault, and most critically marginalized residents, many of whom remain silent out of fear or dependency even when systems meant to help them fall short. And these are state funded systems that exist.

These findings are not theoretical. They directly reduced or in some cases completely nullified the intended impact of publicly funded programs. And that brings me to the remedy. And I'm here today to introduce the growth partnership. I've mentioned this previously, which moves the results of the twelve month audit from audit to action, and formally request collaboration as the art of good moves towards incorporation, reincorporation, sam.gov registration, and community development and block grant alignment and development.

So growth stands for moving goal from goals to growth, resilience to radiance, opportunities to ownership, wisdom and work to wealth, truth and top man time management to top tier reputation with honest partners and healthy relationships, and that's where you guys in the community come in. Again, it applies to mayor Matt. I'm not supposed to say any names. I've sent you documentation where I individualized you all, but please respond. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other citizens wishing to be heard at this time? Alright. Seeing none, we'll close out that portion of the evening and head to the city manager's report, our very intentional interim city manager Al Craze.

First of all, I wanna again, on behalf of the mayor and council, we thank Jason Barnes and the whole team at the utilities department and also the meter reading that after the three day big freeze, the big problem came when the big thaw and all the water leaks showed up. And they worked all weekend to save our water system and keep it above minimum pressures, and they did an outstanding job.

That's that's not a tear. That's its awesomeness leaking out.

Regarding our transit and Valdosta on demand, we can one organizational change designating Amy Martin as the new unit manager. She is much more equipped and because she's written most of the master plans for this 18 county area, she's the best one to take over that program and guide it on a regular basis as far as administering it and also preparing the master plans and also preparing a proposed grant for transit center. But

Pause again.

And for the public's information, I wanna announce that the FEMA money and GEMA for our community has been paid. One was $522,000. The second one was 668,000. The third one, we've received a check for 13,316,000. And once we get that paid, I've been send in the paid receipt, we'll get another 10% of $1,300,000.

And all of that has now been settled. I wanna tip my hat to Ashley Tye, who put me in touch with the right people at GEMA, but also, let you know that former manager Larry Hansen, who is now head of GMA, made four visits to the White House and to Washington. And by using southern charm and good facts and explanation, finally convinced them that this was a good place to start to get this program back on the flag and free up some of the FEMA money. A couple of other states came and kinda low rated them, cussed them out, told them what sorry characters they were. Somebody bumped him on the shoulders.

He left and said, you'll be number one in this list of 50 states, but I think some of the others are gonna be close to 50. So our good people and their good charm worked in our favor. I wanna thank them very much. And we also acknowledge that the fire department has earned the Vision City Award. Chief Marcus Haynes, we appreciate that.

This is for the heart program, And, we're an outstanding and state convention was canceled because of the stove, but it's it's been awarded, and Shar tells me that's all together. Thanks. And that concludes my report.

That's awesome. We'll now move on to council comments. I'm gonna add to $1 amount. Got my third call today from senator Alsop's office. First, the senator, then Ray Benitez, his chief of staff, and then one of the aides called today. We got $211,000 for legacy behavioral health to do ride alongs with our police in the in the event of mental health situations. So that's a fantastic program. I hope it gets started and gets funded forevermore as well. That's all I got, counsel. Thomas? Good? Eric? Sandra?

I do. Please.

I want to say a couple of things. First of all, I've had a couple of questions that has been asked and tonight I heard something and I think it's wonderful and one of them was what did what does it mean to say we have an in what intentional interim city manager? And I heard him give some information and I think I would like for him, I guess, to tell us what that means to be intentional. It's like he is more or less from what I understand it would probably might be wrong, that he is doing his his purpose is more direct for what he's doing for the city. And when he was communicating tonight telling us some things, I think that's part of it and you know to get us back with it because a lot of people say we don't communicate with the public and I think that was a good example of what we call being intentional.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Could you tell them so people wanna know what does that mean to be intentional?

I had retired as of New Year's Eve twenty twenty four and was sitting around the house and mostly poking at gardening and things like that. But I got a call from the placement officer and said there's a need in Valdosta. They've got a gap between they don't have their management at this point and they need somebody to come over and take care of things while they go through a process to recruit a longer term management team. And I said, are you interested? My wife said, I didn't marry you for lunch, so you ought to go ahead and see if you hadn't been doing much around here, so why don't you just go?

And I've been having fun, and I was not one to just come and sit. I kinda started rearranging the furniture when I saw it if I thought it needed it, and so that's where we're heading. And I wanna use all my time till the June, which I think if things stay on schedule, it'll come to. If I need to stay and help finish some projects we get kicked off, I'd be glad to do that. But the intentional part is is that I came as the interim city manager and glad to do it. It's a wonderful staff, great team, and I enjoy working with each of you. And I wanna particularly thank you each for taking time to take me on a tour of your district so I could see the community from your eyes, your your location, and the way you see it.

Very good. Thank you. Thank you. That's the one thing. Alright. There was one other little thing that had been asked about citizens, and I'm like, I wanna get it out. There'd be the communication. There was the something happening about we had a miss I think it was a misconnection with the the ordinance that they had in the paper. I think it was a mix up. I'm hoping I know the people are on watching this on the TV or live screaming because they're always asking it.

But anyway, I did want our city manager or somebody else our attorney to explain it so they'll get it from the person who really knows rather than me so I don't mess it up. But there was a a quote of the ordinance that was in the paper about it. It was that's a old one. All I know. It's a old ordinance, and that's not really the one we go by. So My own It was an ordinance before. About that. It was on its two dash 42 dash seven about public hearings or not public hearing, public communication and, you know, for citizens to speak.

Yeah. As I understand it, councilwoman,

thank you.

As I understand it, that the policy as long as I've been here, it's always been three minutes that I recall. It used to be earlier in the meeting. They changed it. The dates I have when they actually changed it to move it back in the the time frame of the meeting and change it to or to three minutes. And I don't know exactly, was March 1031, so it's been since then that we've been going in that way.

I do remember, I just can't remember it being five minutes. I've always remembered it being three, but I may be mistaken. But the times that under the policy and policies and procedures of mayor and council section four, it was changed either on 03/10/2011, 12/15/2015, or 09/08/2016 when it was changed. But I can't remember it ever being more than three. Three years? Did you I can't remember.

I do.

Tim, mate.

I remember it, but, yeah, Tim probably did too. Five at one time. I can't remember. But we were here. I was here. I

don't remember.

You know?

I'm old.

So I would remember.

But I could sit on I know it's changed really. I came on counts. I think I was 2012, and it was right during that time like you see around eleven or twelve. Well, that's fine. But that's I that's just a question.

Got miss we got mister Payton out there.

Yeah. Was it five at one time?

I can't It was. It was and that's good. Just. That's one of the big question. Some of the questions and I do advocate for our citizens. I do say come up here and ask the questions yourself. A lot of them won't, so I tell you we'll get it from what we call the horse's mouth. Somebody who really knows so they'll know because we are trying to have a better communication with the people without citizens. So keep asking questions, but I wish you would come up here and ask them instead of asking me because I don't want to give you the wrong information. But thanks for the concern to all the citizens and to all of you for being here tonight. Thank you.

And I'm good. Nick?

Miss Cody. We need to applaud councilwoman Tooley. She's gonna be the grand marshal for the, what's the name of the History Parade. Black History Black history parade, Saturday. Could you tell us what time we we need to be there? Grand marshal? Oh, well, the parade is starting at twelve.

You know, we're getting the lineup and everything a little earlier, but I think that's a big honor. I was really happy for it, And I thank everybody who thought that I should be the grand marshal. I'm looking forward to it. But the parade starts at twelve and it should last for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and it will end it will start at Pineville Elementary School, and it would end up at the Martin Luther King Monument down there. And we're also gonna have some activities after. So please come out and join it. Enjoy the parade, and don't worry about the cold. We'll be alright.

And that is a district that you serve. District that you serve.

Without objection, I'm making a motion to adjourn. Second.

Motion to second. We stand adjourned.