01/05/2021

[0:00:00] be in order please stand with us i will be led in prayer by honorable gallagher please remain standing after that pleasure allegiance heavenly father lord we come before you and we thank you for this new year that we're entering in lord we want to pray for our country and uh our citizens lord jesus they're going through this tough time with kobe board so many people have lost lost family members and loved ones lord we pray for those families lord and we ask you to be here and be part of our meeting lord we ask you to lead us and guide us and direct us in the way that we should go these things we ask in christ let lincoln's to the flag of the united states of america to the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty okay uh next on the agenda this evening is the approval of minutes for the december 15 meeting thank you you've got emotional repeats second volume is there any discussion yes yes the motion carries next on the agenda is the code 19 lead policy mr chris wilson will help us with the details this is fairly simple straightforward cares act coded relief on act ended december 31st congress did not extend the opportunity to pay leave for those people

[0:02:04] they did extend the voluntary program for qualifying employers to offer paid leave through march 31st medford mayor matta discussed it we currently have 22 employees house uncovered related leave now that and follow the same guidelines the thought process that chris and i had is you know we want to continue to be as safe as we can you know keep people safe as much as possible minimize the risk recovery and you know we're going to ask them to quarantine to stay home and be cautious that it's you know in my mind it's unfair to ask them to do that and then expect them to use their personal time so if we're going to continue to have the quarantined measures of safety measured in place that the cdc recommends and it would be my recommendation to be extended this cover 19. wheeler is there any discussion one more thing so can we make that retro one more continuation yes yes yes yes yes promotion carries and chris will help us with this too the next on the agenda is about my 21 budget amendment and just a premise that i want to make sure that there's no misunderstanding about this we this one brought to my attention uh about a month ago maybe two months ago we've had a little bit of difficulty

[0:04:06] with our our labors in our parks department our public parks department this was not initiated with public works it was initiated by some challenges at the capitol parks department with our laborers leaving and going to some other jobs right now as you all know with cody there's some strange things going on in the employment world so there's some opportunities that have come up and we've lost some people and so we the bottom line is we're kind of struggling right now you know to find uh in the key quality labors these are our frontline labors and so that recommendation was made to raise the pay a dollar an hour when that suggestion was made to me as i always do ask what's the net budget chance that can affect our budget both departments felt like that they could sacrifice a few expenditures that they need but just pump them back one year in order to get this paid adjustment because it's such a it's an urgent issue you know the grant was to to get our labors and to have a recruiting a big competitive approach the other thing with that is when we we've tried really hard this board you have done a great job uh supported the fact that we try to keep uh carrying like in what if you have one job doing uh basically the same type of work and one department we want to make sure that we're the pay is the same you don't want someone doing the same work in one department getting paid for less or more than the other so that's why public works got brought into this discussion and it started with wes and i knowing the challenges that we have in the parks and then we we brought uh bradley in it um because we want to keep paired you know with our labor position so so that's all it is i mean uh on the uh all we're doing is changing lines has a neutral effect correct so it's a neutral it's budget neutral but we're just moving money into departments to payroll and set some things that we can bump back some minor issues and so that's what the

[0:06:10] recommendation is the amendment is only in public works and parts will absorb the increase within their payroll as is impact for his eight employees to go that one dollar an hour and it's presented um conducting twelve thousand materials nine utilities we have motion monitoring paint second one brooks is our discussion the personnel document tonight does include those changes so if you scroll down you'll see uh any other discussion preparing non-raw complex yes okay now motion carries and next on our agenda is the bid award for the main boulevard pedestrian bridge uh we talked about this extensively the bid was open uh back in december on december 15th and uh brian bullard with us with urban art if there's any questions brian's gonna come up um but the bids you know as you all know we've had a lot of discussion about how much this would be a lot of moving parts were covered in the supply chain the effects on that so we're starting to get cheerful you know about what this cost may be so actually the bids that we got we got a good bid we were expecting uh initially pre-coping between 1-6 you know 1-6-1-9 not knowing for sure and then even with all the challenges with the covet we have a local uh bidder uh murphy and sons that came in at one million nine hundred ninety eight thousand one fifty eight so we believe it's a good bid and it's my recommendation that we accept a bid and get moving but uh we'll open up the form

[0:08:14] for discussion yeah i have a project manager named will c law but i'm definitely going to be uh bernard will be project managing for the construction administration i'm here with some of the other local contractors that we're very familiar with we've completed multiple projects with them over the years including multiple projects before the city is out they have a high level of trust that they'll get before this all right can you tell us we have stated uh there's an eight month eight month period of time to get this project constructed so 240 calendar days and i think there may be a 30-day substantial completion of final completion should be around eight to nine we hope sooner there's a supply chain issues right now due to as the mayor said the code has had impacts on construction as well but the contractor is suggesting you know you know that's a pretty good calendar you know scheduled for us considering what was going on mr merrill i'll make a motion to be approved uh hurricane signs the low better middle of our bridge for about one million nine hundred ninety eight thousand one hundred fifty eight dollars that's presented on this day we've got motion waterman brooks second of all urban flores is there any other discussion are we going to go ahead and add the lights now or are they going to be one of the stoplights that's part of the project yeah they're very lit any other discussion okay any other discussion hearing none roll call please yes that motion carries thank you brian thank you guys okay next on the agenda's authorization

[0:10:20] to seek vids from fire station number five uh as you all know we've been busy 20 getting ready for this just uh urban art spent a lot of time you know designing the bridge the same thing with our fire department with with our fire city fire department and uh a2h and so we are now ready so this is a big deal fire station number five is a huge deal for our city and we're ready to uh get authorization to seek bids and build the state commissioner let me approve the resident resolution is our discussion hearing none roll call yes that motion carries next on the agenda is a resolution for ratification of emergency utilities department repairs just resolution uh prior to my repairs had to be done for at the water wells at um uh airways road and um growth uh in the amount of um almost fifteen thousand dollars twenty five dollars only six thousand eighty four dollars um but those need to be done for the drinking water health and safety of the city residents said tonight authorization to approve the uh resolution ratification according to the thirty one seven is there any discussion hearing non-roll call

[0:12:24] yes that motion carries next we have a lease with flynn broadcasting for the brookhaven property radio challenge and we discussed this uh previously this lease is about for having a radio tower the parked the radio tower at the corporate property owned by the city um the uh police was saying that rent was pretty much 200 a month previously now it's going to be 250 a month but flynn has requested that we have a five year lease for two five million rules obviously it doesn't find a future forward but it does take four cents through that way tonight you've seen the authorization of the mayor to sign this radio tower land lease um before the rotatable water tower being prohibited radio tower and authorize them compete at least there and get this back on their contract we have a motion by alderman hoots second alderman kelly hearing none roll call yes that motion carries next on the agenda as a contract with pbj happy day shows this is the uh agreement with pbj happy day show that helps with our spring fest marvel aspect the rise of the games um the contract uh sets forth that they'll uh perform those that task and change the probably 35 of the revenues from that along with a percentage for the gains um there is a clause in there that have the fourth measure of laws in the event that we do every cancel again because we also have a cancellation termination uh in this contract as well but

[0:14:27] this is the company we've used in the past they work with electricity and understanding and it's similar to the previous arguments that we've done in the password and so for my conversation with the mayor to sign the group with pdj happy day team promotion ballerman flores second baller with wheeler is there any discussion hearing none i'll ever say hi hi any opposed say no i just have it but she carries next on the agenda is a good award for the parks department point of sale system this previously went to uh bid but appointed sales system for parks um he went through some weighting uh the low bid was and what we did was hospitality solutions they'll work with wes and a clerk's office with the point of sale system they are the contractors that review they've made those revisions to the contract the so the authorization tonight is to authorize the bid award to host value solutions and the um allow west brown to sign the contract with them and complete the contract documents along with approving the missional invoice for the um setup which i'm throwing up the initial invoice was 96 thousand dollars um with our finding that that hospitalized solutions will perform that pass we have to pay in advance because they're having orders up in advance for us so authorization of paid invoice in advance due to their um integrity and character supporting the service beforehand annual room event and authorizing west signing contract with hospitality solutions any questions either way i can answer yes that motion carries

[0:16:31] next on the agenda is our planning agenda i guess our first application uh if you will remember two more meetings ago we approved a conditional use permit for car wash it's going to be located on the north side of goodman road just east of greenwood parkway what you have in your elevation package tonight was a compromise from the applicant to planning commission they were tabled the first hearing with some very loud colors that we're not agreed upon they did come back i don't see the elevation up there but the elevation uh that you should be looking at is a tone set of colors that was agreed upon by planning commission it was voted 7-1 in favor of this design mr mario we approve i have number one second we have a motion of alderman payne second ballroom hoots on item one is there any discussion just uh the original one that came in had um star white tile on the front and it was white and gray brick on the back there was a little laundry and a lot of royal blue um it was it was very loud uh the buildings next to it were more overtime or you know subdued colors so we asked them to perform with that um they came back a couple of different times with some different ones uh throughout the next month this is what everybody landed on they took the royal blue to a navy blue they removed the green with the exception where it's over the canopies with the vacuum stations and then they uh changed their entire exterior to our tiny stores yes motion carries on i don't want our

[0:18:38] second application wholesale nutrition is planning on moving to their own tenants spanning their own building it's going to be located right next to atc fitness on the north side of finland road between gatwell and oklahoma the elevations that you'll see in your package there have a proposed design for it we made some minor adjustments to the wainscot at the bottom of it and some decorative lighting in it but it was a very good layout very good site plan and they were grown unanimously in favor of with their submitted documents it's going to be right next to abc fitness there's a vacant lot they're going to occupy the 10 000 square foot building we'll have a drive through around the back to get the smoothies and the compounds and things um should be great right there we have a motion baltimore wheeler second baller and kelly is there any discussion yeah good job [Music] you're done wrong yes you carries on too item number three is a subdivision application from silo square holdings as you've seen throughout the process of them developing this they've kind of been going a lot by a lot when they know they have a tent or when they're ready to build on a lot this is for lot 21 it's approximately 0.638 acres this is going to be right on the roundabout on the south side of may boulevard um you'll have the three-story building uh closest up to get well two two-story buildings that are already constructed this will be the next lot which will take you to the roundabout uh no tenants as of now no design for the building i should have that back in front of you as soon as i get it but it does comply with the overall

[0:20:39] master plan that you see right there and it does comply with subdivision regulations it was voted unanimously in favor of the training commissioner hearing none roll call yes that motion carries on three item number four is an application for subdivision improvement or cherry tree south face 3d um being on star landing at gatwell road this portion is 5.03 acres uh two lots and two house products on it it uh it's on the interior or the mainly built out sections of territory um it does comply with the master plan as shown there it is approved with the street names already there because those are existing stub outs from the other portions of the development uh it does comply with the minimum lot of sizes and the key and square footages so it was voted unanimously in favor of the planning mission recommendation we have a motion by florence second volume wheeler is there any discussion here you know yes yes the motion carries our final application is the first phase of the pinewood subdivision this is going to be that portion of vacant property on the south side of state lawn roads from the gateway to oklahoma if you'll remember back it was attempted to go through approvals planning business park a couple of times we finally settled on it being a single family residential for the majority um it was heavily discussed on the minimum square footages and it was landed on 1800 square foot for the minimum all that was agreed upon this is the first phase that's the master plan as a

[0:22:42] whole that was purchased by the single family residential developers um the portion that's here tonight is 60 residential logs full common open spaces and approximately 21 acres of property the only comments coming from the planning commission which the developer did agree upon was that they add some carriage load options so you don't have all front load garages there's more diversity if you put more plans in there they did a group on that and uh the removal of what's called the ash three plan which totaled the square footage of 1632 needed to meet that 1800 feet of square footage to meet the the text uh they agreed to that as well uh once those were discussed and reported on then planning commissions commission dr university second grader motion water wheeler second alarm in florence um you did say that minimum square footage was 1800 1800 yeah i just um i do have some concerns when we had the pinewood industrial development that was declined years ago that was one of the things we had concerns about is if you bring all residential right there so what is what does the rest of the area look like i mean how many home how many homes they have purchased all of that without the tva lines the plan and talking to the original developers north of those power lines really doesn't have a big purpose but what he plans on doing there if anything is three-quarters of an acre to an acre lot to match up to valley road this south side right here is around 300 homes it has a nine acre park in it it has walking trails that connect with the tva lines and then you have office along gatwell road with a small section of commercial and you have a small section of commercial on the tula homicide when we went over the heated square footages ansley park and summit point to rutland point which are to the south that have the 1600s work with and then we had summerwood which kind of buried on their square footages large lots not such huge houses and then you had the large large lots uh to the north so we met with the neighbors a lot uh had several discussions with them the final settlement was 1800 at

[0:24:46] least for this portion like i said in talking to the developer one of the things he wouldn't want to do is carry this over to the north side of the tva lines which is the other portion of the single family residential if he does anything at all with it he says he will carry it into three quarter lines or acre lots just to match up the valley okay so there is going to be a natural buffer from the homes at valley grove north of state line what will be on the uh will will the streets open up to state line right now nothing the only thing that we're this is the master plan for all the single-family residential that's been bought so if you see that that line that's going diagonal right there that's the tva line that actually splits that property in half so everything to the north side that white triangle on the north end of it that's all wood's remaining as is nobody's purchased that there's no development plan on it um the buyer of the property that wanted to do the single family residential 1800 only saw profit in doing this south end so mr thunderbird who owns the original development still owns that portion to the north so as of now there will be no change for the valley grove area did you hear from any valley grove residents i sent out knowing how controversial it had been we had set up a group email with all the homeowner associations to all those subdivisions and other concerned citizens that have been coming to our meetings i sent this master plan out to them uh prior to even getting it in hand because i knew they were going to do some tree removal and i wanted to know what's going on uh submitted this over to them uh the only comment i got back was we did maintain the 1800 square foot minimum and i confirmed that yes they did not attend the meeting at um the planning commission uh to my knowledge they're not here tonight so we didn't hear anything negative okay what do you think there's one action on each side well you'll have stub acts that will carry into remainder of the developments and you've got two step-backs that go into the existing stovehouse of ansley park in rutland point if you look on that south end there's two rows that connect there so you'll have four access points at this time but if you if we scroll down can we go down one more

[0:26:49] this is all you're approving tonight it's just the main entrance off of getwell which has a boulevard entrance it's got decorative stone and landscaping and if you'll see those large lots right there at the front we ask them to remove six lots right there because there's some beautiful tree lines right there that we want to keep as a natural entrance they did agree to that um and then you have obviously the common open space right there in the center so this is all we're asking for approval to tonight any other discussions children's office makes us identify common open spaces and intentions now applause any other discussion on five yes okay that motion carries next on the agenda's mayor's report i'm gonna try to move fast with several things to talk about tonight first thing is the code 19 vaccination schedule is in place in summit county uh the vaccinations are being administered at the summit county health department in hernando they posted on the state health department's website a chart that shows a proposed timeline we're currently in phase one which is for you know medical professionals and also our first responders uh we have several people in our that work in the city our first responders that have been vaccinated for the first time so that's underway and then if you look down the chart it is subject to change we all we all know one thing with kobe 19. it's the first time that that our world has been through this so you can expect changes but let's refer people to the health

[0:28:51] department's website for any adjustments that they make but the bottom line is is going in phases uh phase uh phase two or uh phase one b excuse me it's projected to be from mid mid to the end of january and that will go out to um you know other first responders and also uh persons over the ages 75 years old then when you get into february and you get into other other workers and also people over the age of 65 and then when you get into march you're getting into you know other persons in correctional facilities other higher risk type situations and then um that leads me to believe the the conclusion that after march it's going to be available for anybody so i think we should all expect the timelines are are not going to go as smoothly as planned but hopefully as soon as possible everybody will get the opportunity to have the vaccination there's been lots of discussion uh chief scallions did some research for me today i had some questions this morning you know you hear uh in the media that the uh moderna vaccination only requires one application and so we found out today that that may not necessarily be true what we've been told at this point is that both the pfizer and moderna both require two applications uh one of them is 21 days apart because it's 28 days apart so that's some misleading information that's been floating around imagine that but anyway it's my understanding also the ones that we have first-hand experience on to have the first application for first inoculation they give a card an id card that tells you you know when you should come back the second time then you make contact with the health department schedule the next trip down and then you get your second uh inoculation at that time so the exciting thing is is we have a real plan i don't know how how fast it's going to go but at least there is there is hope that this nightmare is going to come to an end

[0:30:52] and uh so it's you know it's just it's great that we have a claim that we see it you know in action in the southern county um next thing i want to move on to is we've made it a priority in our city to correct some of the problems of the past years ago and and we have some incredible personnel in our finance department administration and we've been given the government finance officers award for excellence in financial reporting for the fifth year and i know that some people may say accounting is boring but let me explain to you accounting is essential in our financial reporting our transparency means everything to this city especially some of the things that have happened in the past and it's something i'm extremely proud of you know we've taken a lot of steps not just with financial reporting to improve transparency i believe that we're one of the most transparent governments that's ever operated i've tried to do my part in that in so many different ways but it's none of it is any any more important than your financial reporting so it's such an incredible thing only five percent of government entities in the united states and canada get the support so there's there's over 89 000 uh you know county cities total governmental entities in the united states and canada and only five percent get this award we've gotten five times five years ago so i just want to explain the magnitude of that it's just a tremendous uh tremendously positive thing for us and got to acknowledge you know our department eddie michael wayne is our finance director um you know she does an incredible job her and tish cox our comptroller you know they bury themselves at their desk in the corner i never see them i mean i'll go once without even seeing them i don't even know they work here anymore but they're steadily you know got their nose down you know doing their job something that's so crucial for us so we appreciate that chris wilson uh plays a big part of this too

[0:32:55] he is their supervisor he's our chief administrative officer so chris and and fish and eddie i just want to thank him for an incredible job this is a big deal for our city another thing just to give you an update you don't hear me talk about our animal shelter much you know why why would the mayor want to talk about the animal shelter that seems like it's a minor part of our operation but um i wanna i wanna bring i gotta report today uh you know perry mason is our animal control director he works underneath bradley wallace in public works but they they do an incredible job and when i tell you harry mason has been under the attack people on social media don't we love social media isn't it just a misinformation highway i mean you know i read this and uh there was a post that was put out back in november and just for everybody watching you know i read your post i mean it's just it's the most untrue thing that i've ever heard in our city so i'm here tonight to defend perry mason perry mason does an incredible job for our city that one situation was one of those like so many on facebook you know they want to put a little piece of partial information and leave out some real key relevant facts and not trying to show anybody up but but if your animal if you don't miss your animal for 17 days you're not a very good pet owner okay and so you can't blame perry mason in the city when they find a new home for an animal that goes to a sweet little family young kids that love the animal the animal was taken care of it was adopted by a family before christmas and so perry mason did his job and did it in an outstanding way so i want to share some other statistics this year there's a ton of them but i will make it real quick there's two key ones that jumped out at me today when i was reading this it says so much about the job perry does and what we do for our citizens and trying to value that relationship with pets that's so important but in pets in 2020 that were returned to their owner you

[0:34:58] know we had we got the animal and we were able to locate the owner get the pet back to the owner there was 235 of those and in 2019 it was 199 so we returned many more um animals that unfortunately had to be put down in 2020 or 80 compared to 141 in 2019. so again more animals that were saved in a and a return to a home so what that amounts to this sounds bad i prefer not to say the the rate that they're putting down i prefer to say the rate of survival for every animal that we're called out to save we we save 91 of those animals and i know you hear things and it's not again it's not to make light of any humane society or anybody else that you know that's upset with the loss of of one animal because it is tragic for one animal uh to not be able to be put back in a home but 91 of the animals we touch go back to either their existing home or to a new home so basically nine out of ten animals that we come into contact with we find them at home we put them back we find their owner put them back in the home or we find them in a new home so i just think it's an incredible job and i would ask everyone to join me in just a quick round of applause okay and then moving on uh i think we're trying to move fast okay last thing is if we can put up the year in review i'm going to go over and this is this is lengthy but i'm going to move really fast i want to talk about it just a little bit but i promise i'll go back but everybody that's up on all the screens if you want to follow along with me and the reason i like to do this every year i do this and the reason i've noticed in my own personal life and in my business life a lot of times you know we get so strung out in different ways we're pulling so many directions that sometimes it's important just to stop

[0:37:01] for a minute and look in the rearview mirror and and see where you've been see how you did so you can evaluate you know was it time well spent did you spend the year in the right way you know what changes do we need to make at the beginning of a new year so that's the purpose of this and when you look at it i don't have to tell everyone we've all been through one of the craziest years in our lifetime nobody has seen a year like this and we've been through so many bad tragic things and things that we don't want to you know talk about too much so tonight i just want to talk about some of the positive things so with all of our personal work for the city this board all the efforts that we've done to try to navigate through the code pandemic we're also we're able to accomplish all these things that are on this list so if you'll follow along with me i'm going to move kind of fast public safety no doubt is our number one priority and public safety in 2020 we got fire station number five design uh that's been pending for about 12 years so that was designed fire hydrant expansion you know this project's been going on for about four years now we just completed the fifth uh now we got five of six phases completed and again that's to bring the proper water lines uh to give the same fire protection to our hydrants and our ant exteriors how many years we talk about police body cameras hey it's a real deal chief moore updated me today we're using them right now they're working we saw there were seven uh complaints against our officers that have already been resolved real simply from a desktop just pointing out hey here it is here's what was said and so it just it goes so much to you know the integrity of operation and protecting our officers too so it's outstanding our police officer vacancies for about four years in a row uh we had vacant positions and we know that it is a fact that it's more challenging to hire police officers in today's world um but i commend chief moore and our police department for the first year and about four years we're a hundred percent we filled our own vacant spots as you all know in the new budget we get since we filled those we allowed

[0:39:06] uh six more spots in the current year's budget with a plan to expand and we're not going to get into the numbers but we have an aggressive plan to have many more officers over the next three years then you move into infrastructure improvement uh this board y'all been incredible we've all realized that there's ground that had to be made up uh from being behind on some issues in the past street resurfacing when i took over as mayor and some of the people around me there was about half a million dollars that was spent on a routine year on just the street resurfacing it was part of a larger budget item but about half a million was spent a year we spent two and a half million in the spring of 2020 and we spent another three million so we spent about five and a half million there's two streets that had to be reclaimed that are not on there but basically uh about five and a half million dollars was spent to resurface streets in 2020. um and that is that three million is a part of fbi 21 so that will uh delay the budget uh the streets on the next budget for some but anyway incredible accomplishment drainage improvement 500k stateline road was resurfaced stone grove pedestrian project was planned for four years it's complete uh i challenge anyone to go look at the number of people that are using that the number of dogs pets the people walking it's just incredible central snow and grove parks multi-use trail that's a seven year period no it's a nine year project uh that's now under construction main street pedestrian about six or seven year project that's under construction maple our pedestrian bridge you approve the video tonight that will be done people will be walking on that bridge in 2021 yellow road lighting project is our number one expansion project it's been designed in 20 ready for construction this year hornet creek bridge project is underway uh big step automated meter reader water system um for again for years the city's been studying that we made it happen this year it's being implemented now it saves uh 200 about 219 000 uh in cost and also saves the opportunity cost

[0:41:10] of about 543 000 so it's a net turnaround for the city of about 762 000 a year it's an incredible move by the city revitalization of beautification this building is renovated many people talked about how beautiful it is urban art designed this building they're still with us an incredible job here it's great for our city and our image it's much safer we got rid of mold issues and some of the other problems is incredible monument signs are beautiful the one at malone and goodman was completed this year working on the state line got one one now uh greenbrook parkway median landscaping was replanted to beautify one of our original neighborhoods vintage sign ordinance was passed to give businesses in the original business district a chance to make their sign look better without having to spend a larger amount of money to go back and completely redo the sign wildfire replanting an i-55 median it's going to be beautiful we've had some challenges with me haven't we had to replant it a few times but you'll notice in the spring of 21 it's going to be beautiful we continue with bradley bradley's been a big asset uh we we just press and press to make our right-of-ways look better picking up trash cutting grass better i-55 litter removal it's totally unsatisfactory with me the litter that's on the interstate i've been in touch with commissioner caldwell he's been a great partner we're trying to get some things done to improve the litter situation on the on the interstate park's expansion enhancement in this one year we finished greenbrick indoor softball facility spring fest payment project soccer at snowden grove artificial turf and snow to greenbrook parks and the park maintenance show all that is either done or are almost done in 2020. economic development goodness i mean you should find me another city in america that can uh has a resume like this we brought the first google north american operations center to south haven mississippi it's going to be incredible provide like 100 jobs initially it's about a 26 million dollar capital investment in our city

[0:43:13] medline industrial development started last year completed this year 46 million capital investment 1.4 billion square feet 450 new jobs spectre laboratories is a subsidiary of recentius medical care that development is an 81 million dollar capital investment 211 000 square feet it'll start off with 304 jobs and be expanded to 600 jobs in two years that finished in 20 they're they're actually in there now um don't have to tell you about silence square that you know it's not just a vision it's underway now you can run out there and look at it there's people living and doing business there now that's a 200 million project 228 acre mixed use development and then other miscellaneous service retail and other businesses in the city there's 363 other new businesses that opened in 2020 that's up from 251 and 19 and that's a total creation of new jobs of 866. new building permits in 2020 or 474. uh that's up from 358 in 2019 and 2019 was the highest since 2007. so we continue to break our own records the we did have an additional 16 commercial permits all this leads in conclusion to our ultimate goal which is we want to improve our quality of life for our citizens and we want to make everyone want to make our city and our residents more financially stable so we have all this in the eight years here and in 2020 there have been no property tax millage increases our sales tax revenue continues to increase in 2013 it was 12 million 499 000 170 in 2020 even with cobit a three month shutdown in south haven we still were at 14 753 171. it's projected to be well over 15 million in 2021 so we continue to have an increase in sales tax revenue all these things as you all know provide revenue that provides other amenities

[0:45:15] for our citizens all of our helps us meet all the needs of our departments our fire police so all these all these positive investments that we made in our city are setting us up well to get dividends and couples with all of our departments in the future our unassigned fund balance the board made a commitment about five years ago to maintain at least 12 percent general fund expenditures we continue to do that every year even with all the capital improvements we'll have our audit will tell us that exact number so i don't want quote numbers that are unaudited and that was at 2.4 million in 2013 it's going to be roughly about still about 6 million higher than that i told you about the award for excellence in financial reporting five consecutive years that's got to give comments to all of our citizens and the last thing which is one of the ultimate goals i never thought i would say this you know after the way property values skyrocketed in the early 2000s before the crash in 2008 the real estate values were unbelievable in the city and i recognize that there are many factors that go into this you know interest rates obviously the general economic climate in our country has a lot to do with our housing market but our property values in the city of south haven now are higher than they've ever been in the history of the city we have unprecedented property values not only the values the demand for the properties like somebody i was listed a report today that is estimated that if a home goes on the market in south haven mississippi it's sold on average within four days i said four days it's unbelievable which is crazy and so again we shouldn't take all the credit for that as a city uh because like i said there's other issues that come into play there but there's no doubt that the property values the things that we've done and we continue to continue to follow these priorities whoever is in these seats in 2021 if they will continue to follow this our city will continue to thrive like we are now and uh and property

[0:47:18] values will continue to go up so that's it 2020 was a great year i thank my department heads in december i thank them again for all their work i thank all of you for your cooperation and your your vision and all that you do to help us move the city forward about 2020 was still an incredible year even with all the changes and that's all i have told you i've moved fast sorry i know it took a long time moving on down the road next on the agendas on personnel yes yes yes yes that motion carries next on the agenda is our city attorney's legal update obviously nothing next on the agenda is a utility bill adjustment talking mr mayor we approve the utility bill leak adjustment document is presented we have a motion of alderman payne second of all gallagher is there any discussion i know audrey wheeler is part of this [Music] any other discussion hearing that rocco yes yes that motion carries next on the jettison uh playing stock if you set one document tonight is there a discussion hearing none wrong call

[0:49:20] yes yes that motion carries next on the agenda is the purpose of determining the need for executive sessions i'll make that motion we've got a motion from audrey gallagher second ballroom and wheeler i'll better say i'm all right can you probably say no i just have motion carries and need this evening claims and litigation against the sally police department parks department and public works sell the city property economic development city leases and potential litigation involving our utility operations is there a motion to declare its own decision got emotional armored gallagher second of all with flores oliveira saying any opponent say no let's have a motion carries americans you

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=3OQr8Ui6ktM