01/04/2022

[0:00:04] welcome everyone and happy new year i'm calling this meeting to order please stand with us we led in prayer brother and gallagher please elaine standing after that for the pledge of allegiance led to allah heavenly father lord we thank you for this new year that you've given us lord we pray that you would be with us and watch over us lord as we make decisions that impact our city we pray for your spirit and everything that we say and think and do lord bless our time tonight in your name we pray amen [Music] to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all first on the agenda this evening is the approval of minutes for the december 21 2021 meeting second we have motionballer hoots second ballroom in pain is there any discussion here on the roll call next on the agenda is the resolution for property liens mr nick manley if this revolution just authorizes the uh those lots have been cut percentage 21 10 11 along with 20 penalty uh so we also get for the mayor to find the resolutions to the winds can be filed i'll make that motion to smear motion in pain second baller to kelly is there any discussion among the board the only question i had here was on the amount column that's the amount of money it costs for

[0:02:07] a contractor to cut okay and then on uh so we have a contract um with a contractor to allow them to cut after expanding dealing with importance which 21 like 10 11 and then we put the penny over there 250 which is also allowed through the statute and then the enrollment fees and so that's where you get that total number from any other discussion among the board hearing none is there anyone in the audience as a financial interest in any other properties you'd like to see hearing none roll call please yes yes yes without motion carries next on the agenda are spring fest contracts yeah these i just went ahead and get these done uh tonight the spring fest contracts the first one is with happy days there the uh uh pbj happy days shows including actually provides the rides along with the um exhibits um so tonight the opposition for the mayor to sign that contract it's the same as we've done in the past with them they um 75 per game in their food vendor and then the city compensation defended the conversation 35 percent of the growth is what we receive they've done well for us in the past and worked well with them in the future hopefully so tonight obviously for the mayor to sign this contract with tv happy day happy dj happy days i'm sorry i'll make that question okay we have a motion of alderman payne a second ballroom wheeler is there any discussion you're playing that spring fest that it's going in the spring this year any other discussion got another contract if you want to want to give up sure other ones with wildcats here the same thing they'll be in charge of coordinating the beverages and serving beverages as this year for spring fest like i said we want to get these done early so we weren't playing catch anymore with it so

[0:04:09] that's also for your approval tonight as well i'll make the motion to roll that into this original motion okay we've got emotional pain second margaret kelly any discussion yes yes okay that motion carries thank you sir okay somebody did as a resolution for a request to extend the tax authorized by house bill 1471 from 2018 again a very long discussion make it real quick this is the restaurant tourism tax um known in the past as a penny for your parks to one percent tax on restaurants sales in the city by law has to be used for parks and recreation or tourism promotion uh the city of south haven has been the model no one has used this tax any better than the city of south haven to make a long long story short there were two votes on this by the people back in 2010 2011 people voted 76 in favor of this tax so the first tax began but then the state legislature put a three-year appeal date on it and so it repealed and expired in 2014 2014 we all learned that the the mississippi state house of representatives and the senate agreed that on tourism taxes local and private bills that they would keep a repeal date and their purpose from what they told me when i came on board in 2013 and 14 is that the reason they did this was simply just to make sure that the cities use the tax revenue for what it's intended to be useful so in 2014 uh that was extended again uh and it was extended three years from

[0:06:11] 14 to 17 in 2017 we had some local delegation um three or four house reps uh that for whatever reason oppose this again to this day i challenge anybody to help me understand the sense in that that your own representatives would not support a bill that creates revenue and benefits your city but they did do that and so in 2017 on the house floor i was in attendance um in the in the galley or whatever gallery whatever you call it and uh witnessed uh one of our house reps being questioned by peers uh if if they supported the bill and uh our own house rep said that they did not so there was a roar of laughter on the house floor they said that they many of them stated that in their whole career they've never seen somebody present a bill that they didn't support on their own so um the reason i tell you all that the history is to say that it became a laughingstock of the of the house floor and so the house voted no and so uh the tax went away for a year um and then uh had several house reps i was in attendance that told me simply uh that they had nothing against the city of south payment they did not question that the city had used the revenue properly but they were going to vote no in 2017 simply because our own some of our own house reps had voted no to other local and private bills that affected them that had a referendum that we're going to allow them to take it back before their people so still there are people scratching their head all over the state why in the world would anybody vote no to a local and private bill it doesn't even affect them but that the local area voted on or was going to have a chance to vote on to say that they wanted the tax so it made no sense to anybody so in 2017 they said mayor we're going to vote no to punish southaven for that and so they did and in 2018 we came back and we explained to

[0:08:16] them that um that the voting record of a few of these house reps were not in uh conjunction with the wishes of the city of south haven it was a unanimous vote by the city of south haven um you know to to have this tax revenue back um and then we made it clear to them that if that that a no vote on the bill in 18 was giving these reps what they wanted but a yes vote was given what they didn't want so they overwhelmingly voted yes in 2018 and we got the revenue extended again so in 18 again similar to what happens throughout the state there's hundreds of these local and private bills and tourism taxes throughout the state and and most of them now by state uh legislative practice they have repeal dates on we didn't ask for the repeal date when our people voted on it there was no repeal date um so we've never asked for that but we just comply if the legislature tells us that's the way they want to do it that's the way we've done it and so 2018 they voted yes and they extended this tax before they gave us four more years so in that four years we've done incredible things with that you know y'all may remember just a few of the things that feel the dreams playground was done massive soccer expansion uh tennis expansion and it goes on and on but you can look at all the things that have happened uh it's been incredible uh since 2014 the things that the city has done with the tax revenue you know the greenbrick indoor training facility is another little spring fest pavement and and parking lot for the bankplus amphitheater it's just it's just been incredible what the city's done with the revenue so here we are again nothing's changed other than we're asking for the legislature to extend it again as you all know we have we have plans to do many other things in our parks parks have proven to be not only a quality of life value provider for our citizens our parks has become an economic driver in the city of south

[0:10:19] haven uh i could march multiple people up here to that podium that will tell you that without the parks program in the city of south haven they would not have invested in the city of south haven specifically brian hill will tell you he just invested over 200 million dollars in silence square that is absolutely soaring right now and in many groundbreaking ceremonies the words have come directly out of his mouth without the board of aldermen and the city administration's commitment uh to parks uh that silo square would never ex would never exist so all that to say just to summarize it it's been a great thing for our city i know if you want to get into the politics of it everybody knows that from day one i've been an advocate for parks i know that the people up here have been advocate for parks as well we've several of us have been reelected i've been reelected twice all three times even my first campaign i explained to people that uh that the value of parks and recreation is huge so i've been an advocate for parks i've been an advocate for for the tourism revenue my whole time uh the people again i'm grateful for the people but they've known that but they've reelected me every time they like the plan and so again we're a representative of a public form of government um they we elect people to make decisions y'all know that we just um set up a 90 million dollar budget uh the people didn't ask to vote on every line item they voted for you to make decisions on the budget and that's what we're charged to do in a representative republic form of government and that's what we've done so again i'm advocating for this board and to the people of south haven for us to pass this resolution to give it to the state legislature so they can extend this tax again and we can continue to make our city an even better place to live mayor i move we adopt a resolution of the mayor and board of autonomous city of south africa requesting the legislature of the state of mississippi to extend

[0:12:20] until july 1st 2032 the authority for the city of southampton mississippi to levy and collect attacks upon every person corporation or firm operating a restaurant in the city at a rate not to extend exceed one percent of the gross proceeds from the sales and beverages and prepared food at restaurants to provide funds for promoting tourism parks and recreation originally authorized by chapter 955 local and private laws of 2011 reauthorized in 2014 by senate bill 2925 and reauthorized in 2018 by house bill 1471. second we have motion pain second law urban flores is there any discussion my only question was uh the uh ten year one different from what we've asked in the past as far as three and four years that's a great question since our last extension in 2018 several cities around the state have gotten a large a longer repeal date so the same thing there y'all know that when you have an annual amount of revenue for you to do big projects like we've done with soccer and tennis and things like that it takes a larger amount of revenue so if you have a guaranteed revenue stream that's longer than four years it allows you more flexibility in getting big projects done and quicker so we're going to ask for 10 but if you read the resolution it says the wording says basically i'll paraphrase that the what nick wrote uh is basically what it says that we're asking for 2032 but that we're basically at the mercy of the state legislature whatever you give us yeah we're agreeable to whatever term that you give us okay any other discussion carrying none roll call yes yes okay that motion series next on the

[0:14:26] agenda's resolution for a firearm donation for salhen police officer's retirement mr eddie james and basically um hey eddie james has been with the city many many years great service to the city and we want to honor him by uh by giving him his firearms motion waterman hoots second baltimore wheeler any discussion [Music] yes yes that motion carries next on the agenda or donation dockets for the sallian fire department and southampton police department to accept the donations we have a motion by alderman flores second baltimore wheeler is there any discussion thank you tanger appreciate that hearing none roll call yes thanks for the agenda is our planning agenda mr nick mainly will be handling planning agenda the first item tonight is design review approval for georgia blue um it's there's a preview answer by the planning committee um there's a couple of things administratively the planning department's gonna work on uh as far as the character of the building and matching it uh have the feel of not only is the monofilament tequila but also the field of the solid square itself but it was approved and tonight the motion further to ask is

[0:16:30] for the approval for design review for georgia blue as approved by the planning commission along with administrative oversight of the recommended changes by the planning commission mr mayor i make a motion to approve item number one on the planning continues tonight we have a motion balance second lawyer mcgallagher is there a discussion on item one hearing none roll call yes that motion carries now the next item is the uh application i number three outfits by happy hour entertainment for subdivision approval revised lot six of silos square uh this uh happy hour entertainment llc um it's going to use one room or one lot uh for the the tap room and they did not do the entire area for that one lots they're asking to have the light subdivided so that the other lot can be potentially marketed and maybe used for a restaurant so tonight is in compliance with the conference plan and the pud so tonight i just need authorization to authorize the um revising of like six of silos square so that the west side of it will road between maple or wildflower lane can be subdivided as presented and approved by the planning commissioner recommendations a second arm and gallagher is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes that motion periods and the last item is a number three uh application by uh reports approval for the honda dealership be

[0:18:33] located on south side of goodman and east of elmore which i think we've already started clearing that property for the dealership the staff was agreeable to the overall design of the building um it's similar to the existing dealerships on goodman road uh it was also pretty united by the planning commission i think with the one thing they wanted to make sure the plane department is to have the decorative lighting as required by the um new ordinances um to incorporate the acorn lighting or any alternative provided by the city um the inside entryways and then also incorporating the streetscape design along with the road and the other thing too was not having uh the speaker system on the lot um due to the closest i think of the residential area so uh that will also be that will be confirmed by the administrative part i mean the planning administrative staff as well so tonight's authorization for the design review of the honda dealership is requested along with the caveats i previously mentioned regarding the acorn lighting and the sound speaker our speaker system located on the property and that will be enforced by the planning department as well camera make a motion that we prove item number three on the planet tonight we have a motion fraudulent flores a second alderman wheeler is there any discussion on item three it's a great development for our city we've never had honda here it's been a really outstanding development i did have the pleasure of meeting um mr saab and uh a great um attitude for investing in the community um it has already offered to invest 50 000 um just to a an organization of my choice he said so there'll be more details to come on who that will go to but but anyway wow what can you say about somebody putting their money where their mouth is

[0:20:34] but they're extremely successful uh automotive dealership owners throughout the country and it's uh it's gonna be a good thing for us happening here in south bend it's uh okay any other discussion on item three yes no motion carries next on agenda is our mayor's report um i promised you the last couple of meetings i would um do like i've done every other years uh do a year in review for 2021. i'm going to do that in just a minute finally got the time to put all that uh together go back and look over um you know all the things that happened in 21. before i do that just a quick update alderman hoots a year or two or ago uh you would your experience in television and cameras and all that you suggested that we do some things differently in the board room to make our board meetings uh better for the viewers online and um so we've been working on that and we're uh we're at the point now we're gonna do that uh michael norris did update you today that uh that now we're about to start so probably the next board meeting or at least the one after that we'll have more cameras so so what will happen is the viewers now um they see the camera in the back that view so it doesn't matter you know if i'm talking or if an alderman is talking or we have a guest at the podium talking they see the same view every time so what will happen with these cameras is it will switch to the person that's speaking so it will allow the viewers to see you up close they can you know understand what you're saying better there's going to be better audio

[0:22:35] better visual and uh so it's a great suggestion i appreciate that and we did take action on that appreciate michael's work on it so that's the update that in the near future we'll have that technology working so then the only other thing i want to go over tonight is the year in review and like i told you at the last meeting um not to sound overly dramatic but and in all things that i do like in my yearly work i like to stop for a minute and uh usually the holidays are a good time you know everybody's like slowing down a little bit so it's a good time to stop and and kind of just do a just turn around look behind me you know a lot of times when you're when you got your you know your nose to the grindstone you're working your tail off you don't really look and notice all the things that happen and so it's always smart to stop every now and then just to see how far you've come and so what i'm doing tonight is again is just an update on how far we've come as a city in 2021 you may also remember when i did this review last year i told everyone that this was that uh 2020 sort of been two years ago was going to be an action year and what i meant by that is a lot of things that we've been working on as a city for some as long as eight years we're all going to be on the ground under construction in 2020 and they were there was an amazing number of things that were that were under construction are happening in 20. 2021 i'm just going to tell you about the things that actually happened but not the work that gets us to the next action year as y'all know a lot of times it takes an enormous amount of work we spent a lot of time in 2021 working on things that are going to bear fruit in the near future there are some big announcements that are that are going to be coming in 2022 not ready to announce them yet but we spent a lot of time working on those things so what i'm about to tell you are things that are not you know comprehensive of our total work here but these are the things that that actually were completed or made significant progress in 2021 fire station number five has been talked

[0:24:40] about for um probably 15 years that the construction start on fire station number five i'll have some more updates uh with you about that project in the near future but it did get started in 2021. in 2021 [Music] we continue with our police officer expansion plan and we even increase that even more with the next budget you're adding more officers that's going to pay dividends for us in the future our investment in police body cameras i think our police chief and anybody that has worn them will tell you that our results have been nothing but successful it's been amazing uh what they have done they accomplished our goals they've uh they protected our officers against ridiculous claims it's just been a complete success street resurfacing budget we've continued over the last eight years to increase that budget each year for the first time ever we've topped 4 million with our baseline budget for street resurfacing in 2021. central to snowden grove park's multi-use trail is another project that i think was 11 years old that was completed main street pedestrian project another eight or nine year old project completed may boulevard pedestrian bridge we're waiting on again heat sensors for the elevators it's a supply chain issue and then everything will be done so that's basically completed foreign bridge project completion a bridge that was aging getting near to the point of being dangerous was completed in 2021 automated meter reader water system again talked about for decades in south haven uh we're almost done i think we're down we're like 99 complete right now that's a big big thing for us monument sign at goodman and malone was completed y'all know that we continued on with that we have uh another one planned for this year but that one was done this year yellow road south widening project right away acquisition that project is on pace to start

[0:26:43] construction in march that will be a tremendous project to help with a nightmare of traffic congestion in south haven again it's it's gavel road south of church to star landing right away takes the longest amount of time of all the stages to a construction process so that's there's a lot of a lot of progress made this year soccer expansion at southern grove park i told you about earlier completed this year artificial turf conversion at stone grove and greenbrook completed this year spring fest returned in october new bank club theater concert promoter was hired this year bankflow's amphitheater enhancement project was designed this year will be under construction very very soon food truck friday start shows associated park started silas square development as i mentioned earlier is absolutely soaring and roaring it's unbelievable the amount of progress in the penny developments that are going on right there some of you may not know this but uh somebody asked me the other day if they said are people living at south square now uh if you haven't ridden through there in the cottage homes there's i don't know probably 25 people that already lived there same thing on the tula homicide with bigger homes people are occupying those homes now the mixed use apartments are occupied commercial developments the stores are open there restaurants or as we've seen oh i'm sorry about that um restaurants are being designed and actually as you've seen with uh georgia blue and there's six others that are pending right now to be under construction there we created the first ever leisure and recreation district at silo that's in place now and that also will attract other businesses honda southaven as we talked about broke ground whataburger broke had two ground breakings new business permits uh are continuing to break records i don't have the tally on those yet i'll get those soon but we continue to break records every year last year we broke records with that the highest since 2007 before the housing recession

[0:28:46] the highest sales tax revenue in city's history happened this year we continue to reduce the aggregate debt reduction we continue to have excesses in our reserve fund policy uh the government finance officers association award for excellence in financial reporting uh we receive that for the fifth consecutive year and the property values in the city of salt lake are the highest in the city's history so it was a good year in 2021 that's all i have any any questions for me about any of those projects or anything else from the board okay we'll move on next on the agenda is our city attorney's legal update [Music] oh my gosh okay my bad let's let me back up let's do the personnel docket first mr ranger movie we bring the personnel dock it is presented on the stage exactly alderman payne made the motion honorable foreign second is there any discussion about the personnel doctor hearing that roll call yes that motion carries next on the genesis city attorney's lawyer all day yes i have two ios that came up today uh first is um just approval to go to reverse auction for police uniforms um when their uh contract's expiring so need approval to go uh to reverse office and for those and once we get the bids back we'll come is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes that motion carries and then next authorization i got this afternoon for the mayor to sign a document with nrcs uh these is a grant program that we have

[0:30:50] previously previously applied for and it's receiving six hundred and sixty seven thousand six hundred six hundred sixty seven thousand six hundred seventy eight dollars um then our portion will be two hundred twenty two thousand times nine um for uh drainage projects and the projects or uh um lane at johns creek uh modern drive at nalavo creek area 102 highway 51 at state line road summerwood lane at johns creek you know for channeling the ditches for those training projects so as part of the acceptance the mayor has to sign or need it is required to sign the acceptance documents from nrcs based on the award granted to the city for those monies okay great motion by alderman flores second author of wheeler is there any discussion and just add to that we've used these grants very successfully in the past many of the drainage projects throughout the city have come with this federal money so we'll continue you know continue to take advantage of that and leverage our own money okay any other discussion hearing none roll call yes yes yes yes and that motion carries next on the agenda is our utility bill adjustment docket mr mayor we approve the utility bill leak adjustment docket is presented on the state good motion modern pain second argument kelly is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes that motion carries next on the agenda

[0:32:52] are there two is there one or two clients okay we have one fine doctor tonight mr mayor i move we approve the claims docket and the amount of two million forty two thousand eighty nine dollars and ninety cents including demand checks exactly we have motion water maintained second baltimore and flores is there any discussion hearing mountain roll car yes that russian carries next on the agenda is the purpose of determining the need for executive session let me hear your feeling my options have a moment to uh give some kudos to our utility department i knew i had been contacted by a resident for christmas eve and before i could even reply someone had called back from the emergency number and replied to the resident about you know some water pressure issues and also on sunday afternoon which everybody knows it was freezing cold snowing right and sleeping and the utility department was actually in my neighborhood fixing a water leak so i really appreciate the uh efforts by the utility department you know sometimes those things go you know unmentioned and they shouldn't and i was really really impressed well thank you for saying that and we we appreciate our utilities team mr ray humphreys and the audience um ray's team does an incredible job and like you said they uh that's that's something that's um not a rarity that happens a lot uh that you know we have uh water breaks and different problems that happen 24 7. and uh they're always out there taking care of that so you know we could never thank them enough but i do appreciate you bringing that up and we thank our utilities team okay and then uh so next on the agenda

[0:34:55] is uh again to determine the need for executive session make that motion thank you you got a motion martin mcgowan the second modern wheeler all in favor say aye aye any opposed say no i just have a motion carries the need this evening is litigation and claims involving the silent police department southern fire department and city infrastructure citywide personnel and economic development is there a motion to declare executive session the motion hoots second autumn in jerome paul bear say hi he opposed say no i

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=7vW2T7E3ADY