08/20/2019

[0:00:01] welcome everyone i'm now calling this meeting to order please stand with us i will be led in prayer by alderman gallagher after that please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance that will be led by honor and pain father lord we just thank you that you've gathered us again for this meeting lord we pray that you're that your grace would be upon us lord lord we thank you for uh protecting our city lord we thank you for watching over our children lord and we pray that you would be involved in all of our decisions here that you would give give us wisdom to make correct decisions in your name we pray pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the regime for which it stands one nation under god and indivisible with liberty okay first on the agenda is the approval of minutes for uh three meetings we had a regular meeting on august 6th then we had two uh two special meetings that served as budget workshops they're on august 7 and august 8th so if um if i can't have emotions first of all for the through to august six minutes mr mayor move we approve the minutes of the regular meeting of august 6 2019 with any additions deletions or corrections exciting we have a motion of ultimate pain second volume and gallagher is there any discussion hearing non-roll call yes that motion carries hey nick can we do seven and eight together since it's something you can do i mean okay mr mayor what will approve uh the

[0:02:08] budget workshop on august 7th within the addition to deletions or corrections inspector and and august 8th and also uh we appreciate the budget workshop on august 8th with the additions deletions for corrections okay we have a motion for both the august 7 and august 8th meeting by alderman payne and alderman gallagher your second is for both meetings that's great okay any discussion yes that motion carries next on the agenda is our budget amendment mr chris wilson this is for quite 19. yes the fy 19 budget amendment as you all know we normally do these wrapping them up to year the major increases in revenues for a fire safer grant which was the um that just is the influx of the grant monies and expenses out of the fire for their salaries uh the interest revenue and franchise fees are also up and we need to adjust those and expenses out as you see and then the bottom box is utility fund so it's two general fund and utility funds questions i'll make that in motion second we had a motion bomberman flores second order of wheeler is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes no motion carries next on our agenda is our fy 2020 public budget hearing so i think we need to close the public meeting open the hearings and how we do it next i should know right now okay is there a motion to close the public meeting i'll make that motion got a motion aldrin second ballroom wheeler all in favor say aye aye any opposed say no eyes have it motion carries the public meeting is closed now is there a motion

[0:04:11] to open up the public budget hearing let's move second we've got a motion monitor in flores second ballerman hoots all in favor say i'm all right any opposed say no i was having motion carries the public budget meeting uh hearing excuse me is now open and uh mr chris wilson will lead this off with a uh just an overview of all the discussions in the proposed budget and then we'll open up the floor uh both for the public and the board members for any discussion yeah mayor board after the two days of hearings and the meetings um it's really simple budget no tax increases no increases across the board in fees or garbage rates the water rates the big ticket items again obviously is a balanced budget this obviously the first year that we adopted the full 17.4 percent of per citywide which is an increase of 400 000 we did see a pretty good increase in the citywide assessed value which led to new revenues uh in property tax sales tax we are projecting a healthy 15 million first time we've ever been that high we're on pace about 15 won this year so we feel pretty good on that estimate two personnel two new emergency dispatchers one new facility maintenance tech for hvac and uh utilities i mean in public works part-time court clerk and the um salary city-wide salary adjustments that were discussed and if i may i'll start off the discussion again just to add to what chris said you know a board is already aware of this we've had five hours of discussion in public about it already but uh just to remind you know on camera and to the public uh each year when we start this uh budget uh review and start the you know start working on the proposed budget you know the biggest challenges we face a lot of them are similar to what any organization in america faces health insurance is a big challenge um in the f-119 budget there was a 499 000

[0:06:17] increase in the cost of health insurance that's that's a cost that the the city employees don't see we take care of we take care of that obviously they see the increase as well with dependents as far as the cost of the employees health insurance the city pays 100 of that and we've uh in the last five years uh it's gone up one million and ten thousand dollars so the city has continued every year uh these people up here with the board have done a great job in finding a way to make that happen to where we don't have capacity that cost on to the employees so anyway i just want to you know not not here to pat people on the back i just i think it's important our employees know that before we even get started and start talking about raises and all the other all the other requests that are in the specific departments uh that we eat that health insurance every year and it's tough it's it's extremely tough chris mentioned uh the pers increase you know these are things that the city has no control about state government uh votes on this and then passes a cost on down to the cities and so we have to suck that up and we have to do it so i just think it's important before we get into the specifics of what's in each department's budget that's city-wide these are two big challenges you know that we face every year close to a million dollars between them both correct and then the other thing that uh that's important to note is we've maintained our commitment to infrastructure improvement we still have two billion dollars in there for uh street improvement um you know we kept the lines so we did cut the drainage uh slight was it 50. it went back we did we hit back up all right so we've maintained our commitment we solved a lot of drainage problems in the last six years uh the number of tiles that come in are just i mean it's just drastically less than it was in 2013. um so we've made a lot of progress there but we remain committed to that we've got those infrastructure improvement uh you know aggressive plans still in the budget there you've got the 180 000 of public works vehicles

[0:08:19] um that we requested on the one side and 400 000 in four police vehicles which we're looking to hopefully do something would have a few more on at the end of fy19 as well so i know you requested 16 400 won't quite get that but we're still working on trying to get that full option of 16 vehicles between the end of at 19 and the last thing i'd like to add not to dominate the discussion i'll shut up after this but i do think it's important you know one of the priorities of this year even more so every year we look at pay we look at our competitive position with all of our positions citywide but we realize that you know with the climate the police climate in our country right now that it's become challenging we have fewer people that want to be police officers and that's just a fact and so for that reason we realized that we've got to do all that we can you know to make sure that the police officers in the city of south haven you know have competitive pay and have you know and we want to make them as not as not just competitive but we want to try to you know widen that gap from our competitors as much as we can to make sure that we retain and recruit the best potential officers that are out there so this budget shows a commitment to our police any discussion among the board we're gonna did you say we're gonna try and get two vehicles in nineteen uh we should be able to do more than that okay two and split the allotment now the bulk of it will be in twenty any other discussion among the board is there any anyone in the audience that would like to question any budget line we have the budget here i will take questions on any line anything it's all public discussion so if there any questions about anything now is the time to come forward and ask the draft is also online okay any discussion anybody in the

[0:10:22] audience want to speak or ask questions about the budget okay hearing and seeing none is there a motion to close the budget here thank you you have a motion honorable florida second monitor in pain all in favor say hi any opposed say no i just have motion carries the budget hearing is now closed is there a motion to reopen the public meeting a second we've got a motion balancing second motherboard hoots all in favor say any opposed say no i just have a motion carries the public meeting is now open we'll move on to the next item on our agenda is the spring fest area parking improvements we want to make an award there as you all know this is part of our aggressive park enhancement and improve expansion and enhancement plan uh this is the um the pavement project that where spring fest has occurred for many years uh this project will now pave that area so there's no mud issues with the barbecue teams it also will landscape it so there'll be islands and landscaping throughout the center lane that goes up to the amphitheater so it's going to be a beautiful project and mr dan cornell is here to answer any questions and tell us the details mayor board thank you um as he said we received bids back in early august we recommend the award to actually the lowest and best bidder was actually the second low we threw out some inconsistencies with the low bidder uh so the lowest and best is barnes and broward at 1 million 324 162.58 i asked the board's approval to award that and give the mayor authority to sign contract documents related documents so does this include off like including

[0:12:30] like where the rides are typically or is this only where the it's just the barbecue it's the barbecue area and and remind me um i can send you a another or did we have that in the pack of the map i did not bring a sketch up okay i can um email that to you but it basically to answer your question no it's the area that includes all the barbecue lines to where the fence is basically all right right then it adds another access on the north end uh and it adds lighting and yeah it goes back into where that fence is separates the from the carnival right and if anybody wants to look it up right now on my facebook my mayor facebook page there's a there's a post on there that has photos of it so it's on it's on social media right now anyone wants to look at what it the bid amount again one million three hundred twenty four thousand one hundred sixty two dollars and fifty eight cents the actual paving and drainage issues came in at around 650 the rest of its utility work and electrical stuff so it's all utility really and alderman flores and our enhancement plan we had we budgeted 700 so 700 for the the work and then so it's right in line i remember that the minutes were reflected i don't have the number minutes to reflect the actual located amount well and the reason i do have a low bid amount now there were some inconsistencies in the bid and our assumptions in it they didn't realize it was a buy item bit tabulation so the tabulated bid amount was one million one hundred and sixty two thousand forty seven dollars and zero cents but due to those inconsistencies we had to throw that little bit out they were made aware of that yes they were made to wear in and at that price would have rejected doing the work is there any other discussion

[0:14:34] um and obviously um in addition i know that's something everybody's excited about the spring fest uh but obviously it's a parking lot too so it's going to provide more parking okay there's no other discussion um roll call please yes that motion carries thank you sir all right next on the agenda is permission a permission letter granting fernando to supply water to customers in the city's southern certificated service area excuse me this authorization just for utilities department parade hungry to send that letter to the city of fernando for i think it's 18 to 19 addresses uh the draft letter is in your packets also with the minutes um and allow currently um the city fernando is doing the i mean we do the building the hernando does provides the water and this will just allow them to um serve those customers for now until we can get a line to that location before an event that we do ever and next to that area but at this juncture tonight which is authorization for the letter to be sent to those addresses so that um city of nano can serve it to clean up the certificated area issue and that they'll collect the money storage and that way there's really an issue hernando will be the one responding to it as opposed to the city because we don't have the capacity right now we don't have the lines to do that and it's not even within our city limits at this juncture anyway so um just for authorization for radius in that letter or for hunter's in that letter tonight is what's needed what's up second we have a motion by arnold gallagher second ballerina wheeler is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye

[0:16:38] any opposed say no i just have it motion carries next on the agenda is the contract with soda county electorate if this contract is just for the second election because mary noted their public works department to allow them to assist with those items that would be in the ordinary course of maintenance and repair work and they even provided us the exhibit eight which the work they'll do it's the same prices that were in 2014 so at this juncture authorization for the mayor to sign this contract with southern county electric so that they can do the professional services associated with electric along with the routine repair and ordinary course of maintenance type responsibilities to set more than exhibit eight mr mayor i'll make that question a second we have a motion balance second bottom and hoops is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes that motion carries next on the agenda's resolution to clean private property mr mayor who we approve the clean proper property as presented on this day second we have a motion volume of pain second volume in flores is there any discussion among the board hearing none is there anyone in the audience that has a financial interest in any of the properties that would like to speak hearing or seeing none row hall please yes yes that motion carries next on the agenda is our planning agenda our planning director miss whitney cook i guess the first item we have on the agenda is a request for conditional use permit to expand the existing mini storage and rv and boat storage on the south side of

[0:18:41] w ross parkway west of pepper chase drive there is currently the easy days rv park on both sides of w ross parkway and then as you go further down what's called don south drive there's an existing mini storage that backs up to the debbie ross and pollard homes they're requesting an expansion of that of 1.14 acres this would actually add 38 covered units for boats and rv storage obviously they will extend the detention area behind there we did have some hydraulics or um water issues we ran the hydraulics on it the first time around to make sure that the water going down onto the homes wasn't going to become worse if anything would improve it did improve with the last phase of it they're carrying that detention over so if anything will improve that drainage so with that being said and the stipulation of one of those numbers the commission voted uniqueness in favor of it mr mayor i believe that we approve item number one and the agenda is presented second on item one we have a motion by alderman gallagher the second volume in pain is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes item number two we have an application to rezone one acre of property on the north side of nail road east of getwell road from agricultural to r20 this is family-owned property by a gentleman and his sisters are wanting to split this one lot you see up there to two lots to build two additional homes onto the family's property check the comprehensive plan comprehensive plan for this area once uh this designated for future land uses low density residential r20r30 and estate residential all classifies low density residential therefore they are in the perimeters of the comprehensive plan designation of low density residential you have additional lots around that that are 20 or smaller so it does comply with the character of the neighborhood so with that being said the planning commission voted unanimously in favor of

[0:20:42] it as well mr make that motion say okay on item two we have a motion about alderman wheeler and a second volume in flores is there any discussion okay is there any discussion among the board hearing none is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak about this zoning good how are you mr maxwell great thank you for saying that and uh mr maxwell's a long time resident of south haven i just like to say that he was not that kind of guy 30 years ago you want to meet on the sideline one of the best linebackers to ever come out of desoto county right there do you know that personally i do know that personally my back still cracks a little bit but if you have been two inches taller maybe a half a step faster he'd had a long nfl career and as many scouts would tell you that he was a great football player and a great great resident too and leader and great leader any other discussion our final item is an item that does not require a vote again we have another tax incentive request from main street district there is an aerial photo attached with this one we have a person who has come in to reinvest in this area they have bought the minuteman store and they bought all of the retail up and down mill branch you will see a red roof that is not correct they're actually doing a gray

[0:22:44] roof but if you can go before one more picture of um okay this is right here at the corner of mill bridge and state line road we're building a retainer wall with some landscape plantings they're done what you'll see on their itemized list is they are redoing the parking lot they're adding architectural columns they're re-roofing it they're adding planters everywhere they're putting landscape everywhere they're putting new lighting they've got extensive interior renovations they're doing exterior renovations they're too toning the stucco they're replacing all of the rotten wood um they're putting new signage up and of course they're done hvac repairs and replacement the total uh investment into it will be in upwards of six hundred thousand plus um we're very excited about it they are going to approach us about possibly doing some some murals on some of the buildings that kind of represent south haven so they've come to us a couple times i spoke with the mayor um but we're kind of giving them some design symbols to kind of incorporate and they've got some people from the memphis college of art who want to come and do the murals to kind of give it a funky little vibe in that area and give its own characteristic um so like i said there's no vote tonight we're just presenting it with their estimates for improvements once they get complete then we'll come back and ask for the tax incentive approval excited about that yeah that's awesome that is fantastic and this is is this three in a row yeah requests it's really started taking off we have another one that could possibly come up for a demo and a rebuild too and i'm going to give it away because the decision is not made yet but um there's one heavily leaning towards a takedown and a rebuild on the site too so it seems to really be taking off is it coaster thinking i'm not going to let's go i'm here for any questions there's no vote for it um but it is it is already underway isn't that the old barbershop when the old bar shop there the barbershop's right on the corner right there they bought all the way down to where the chiropractor's office was on the

[0:24:45] corner they're planning on making that into kind of park system to kind of be an asset for this development so we'll see okay so um we need a motion node no there's no motion it's just pretty it's just presenting it to you so you'll see the work start once they get complete we'll check over all the improvements and come back to you does anybody care about the west end up here but y'all i care i care about the west is cameron michael i care about the west end can you tilt the camera to show that a little bit you care about the west man we do all right some people up here know a little bit about the west man okay we'll move on uh thank you very much that's exciting stuff that's really nice okay next on the agenda is my mayor's report so um i'll try to move quickly through this uh since already paying out so i'll go ahead and update the board on that a lot of questions about the uh the building that is in poor condition at custom 51 uh the issue there again i've said this in public meetings before i will say it again the there's a an insurance investigation going on and so we've tried to wait and allow them to complete that investigation uh they are you know a lot of that's confidential it's between their insurance client and the company so they're not going to tell us you know what's going on we're frustrated uh that problem occurred on december 31st of 2018 and so we felt like it's been adequate time you know for that to be resolved uh we're trying to be patient it's something that we spent had a lot of discussion about we do care we care what it looks like we don't like it anybody that's uh that's been around me he knows that i don't like the way it looks we've had a lot of discussion about it so the update on it is that's why there's been a delay we tried to be patient let them have time to complete

[0:26:47] their investigation and resolve it that way if they did that and it was part of an insurance claim then the insurance company would also be paying for the for demolishing the building rebuilding the building if we go ahead and proceed with condemnation ultimately the city pays for that you're looking at about 35 40 000. is that correct whitney uh for the whole site now you're probably that's a high number but yeah okay we do budget for that you all know that we have a condemnation budget so it doesn't just include cutting tall grass it includes things like this too we have demoed several dilapidated homes over the last three or four years so we would be paying for that so again that's why we waited you know we're trying to be efficient with the taxpayers money you know if the insurance company is going to pay for it we certainly don't want to spend 35 40 000 of the taxpayers money so that's the reason for the delay uh now again the more specific update tonight is we still get no answers i mean we've reached out we've talked to the adjusters with the insurance carrier we talked to everybody involved attorneys we get no answers so at this point we're going to proceed we're going to start the process of condemnation again we hope that we don't have to do that but uh but it's time that something changes we've looked at it long enough it's not fair to our citizens that drive by every day it's not fair uh to put kids at risk i know if when my youngest son was younger i can promise you that that would be his ideal playground he would be all over that and i know that there's many other kids that would love to get in there and it's dangerous and so we just we can't wait anymore so that's the update we have started condemnation proceedings i've got a quick question i mean you've got an extensive background and insurance is that typical no it's not they would take i mean absolutely not what that leads to and again i'm not going to speak about a private issue because i don't know but to answer your question generally what that means is there's some type of coverage issue or a or an obligation issue either with the insured

[0:28:49] with the insurer there's something going on where the insurance company is questioning whether coverage exists i agree okay that's just the update on that i'm gonna move quickly if i can um y'all know that uh i'm gonna go back just go in reverse tonight okay so the um the recent announcement about the the massive medline project uh part of that project the mississippi development authority uh agreed to pay a large part or most of the pepper chase road extension in order for medline to come there they've got to have a second access or escape route or egress route and so pepper chase where it dead ends into the lander center needs to be extended southward to church road so it'll you know it'll go kind of parallel to the interstate and they'll kind of meander back uh back westward you know on the star landing but to do that um it's significant amount of money a little bit over four million dollars but we've received uh authorization from uh mda that they're going to do that however we have to uh actually submit a formal application so i need a board approval tonight to apply for what they call a dip grant from mba for for the trevor chase road extension i'll make that motion we've got a motion by alderman flores second volume and gallagher is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say hi all right any opposed say no i just have it motion carries okay another uh the next thing um just being attentive to again the needs of recruiting and retaining police officers it's not limited to just police officers but that's how this discussion started we realized that we need to make an amendment to our employee handbook

[0:30:51] regarding our employee appearance and dress code policy in that current policy there are no visible tattoos and i think everyone would agree that the public perception of tattoos you know 20 years ago and what they are today for most people there's a different perception of that tattoos are more frequent now many many more people use those some that choose to have tattoos are former military personnel who are highly trained and outstanding candidates for police officers and the fact that we do not allow visible tattoos even though we can use a sleeve and other ways to cover it up when it's you know when it's 100 degrees outside and you have someone that's out all day with a sleeve on it just it's a gesture that i feel like we can comfortably make now to allow removal of that sleep and and to amend this tattoo policy uh to where some tattoos are uh it's it's acceptable for them to be visible and so that's what this policy the guts of it is about it also addresses uh just clarifies some language with you know body piercings body alterations things like that these are things that are prevalent now so um not a proven now i'm just saying it clarifies part of that so it's my recommendation that we that we amend the policy and to allow more flexibility for the hiring process and again it's not just limits to police and it helps with our fire personnel uh we have uh personnel in many of our other departments you know that are out in the heat every day you know that have tattoos uh that uh you know that this will allow them you know to be able to uh you know remove the sleeve as well i still have stipulations in there about things that can be offensive to our citizens or other people so there will be some judgment that is specified you know in that policy all of you have that policy this

[0:32:54] was finalized after the deadline friday but we do have it we michael don't we have that so that's um it's there and available if anybody has any questions about that but otherwise if we can i'd like a motion to make that amendment to our employee handbook and then we'll open the floor up for more discussion i'll make the motion to amend the to approve the amended dress code is there any discussion looks like you have everything covered though so there's not going to be offensive you know no offensive tattoos or piercings and that kind of stuff so well we did seek the services of um labor law firms you know we we did reach out uh to seek some advice in that area the police department assisted as well matt defour you know did some research for us as well had some input as did chief moore chris wilson but we feel like that you know there's no nothing that covers 100 percent of situations that may occur but this is based on what has been used with other organizations and you know in modern you know with modern day handbooks okay is there any other discussion about the handbook amendment hearing none roll call please yes that motion carries okay next thing i want to go over with everyone is we have had a we have a change order for the monument signs we've all discussed i know a lot of people have seen the monument sign that's the beautiful sign that's complete except for landscape lighting at

[0:34:56] i-55 and state line we have another one that's been approved in this budget year to be on interstate 55 on the southern entrance to our city that's facing northbound traffic it's going to be a grand entrance sign that's going to add a lot of character and and beautification to our city it's going to show the pride that we have in our city it's going to be an economic development tool so people know hey when they're reaching the best city in mississippi and this sign has been a trailblazing event it's something that we've never the city of southampton has never done before so we've uh we've been bold we've we've been out there we've we've had some challenges along the way um basically as i've said in public meetings before when you're entering southaven on the from the south ideally we wanted it to be on the eastern edge so it's on the northbound lane uh but the next time if you're traveling that way you'll notice that there is no place to put it it's all the grades are are down below the interstate so there was no room to put it there until you got all the way to church road well that kind of defeats the purpose if it's a city entrance sign to wait till you're you know two miles inside the city before you have your sign so what we chose to do is to go on the other side of the interstate and then turn the sun back to face the northbound traffic so coincidentally uh the location of the medline development which is going to be fabulous there's a hill right there it's the most ideal place it's up on a hill so we chose that place we did some work to get an easement there so we could place a sign got all that done we started proceeding with construction of the sign and we ran into challenges i ran into some big challenges actually the pepper chase extension that i just mentioned is going to be coming parallel right there uh we didn't realize exactly how close it was going to be so we had some challenges on on how we turned the sign how we fit it there we also did not know when we started trying to put the sign on that hill right there that mdot has some utilities

[0:36:59] that are buried right there and we don't know that well they're not marked so we didn't we couldn't grade the hill down for that reason uh so we realized that we got some elevation problems so basically what we did is went back and we adjusted the angle of the sun we did start the sign it was at the improper angle as we learned these other things we made an adjustment we went back and had it redesigned to give it four feet more elevation to get it above that hill so it has the optimum visibility for the northbound traffic we feel like we've got it right now it's been a painful process it's been tough but we got a change order tonight and that's what i'm asking the board now you know to approve the change order uh that paid for making these amendments to the sign both from an angle standpoint and an elevation standpoint the amount of the total change in just a second let me get you the exact amount the exact amount uh for the total change order is 39 148 so tonight i'm just asking for approval for that change order so we can proceed with the construction of the sun i'll make that motion we got a motion bottom in flores second monitoring wheeler is there any discussion i'll just tell you what assignment we have down here on state line road i've gotten at least two or three dozen compliments about how nice it looks and yeah so i mean i'm sure this is gonna be the same same thing as we're gonna have down there with that one well this one again although it's been painful i will say that when this one uh we have a mock-up down there now we have wooden braces with the uh proper elevation and also just a plastic banner that has the letters and the size that it's going to be to give a good you know a visual of what it's going to look like it's going to be grand i mean when we get these changes done get it built up higher get it turned at the correct angle it's going to be a great entrance for our city so i think what we're seeing down here you're going to capture uh more people are going to see the one on the interstate so i think that you know the positive comments that you're getting on this one i think we're gonna see that um

[0:39:02] you know exponentially with the uh the one on the interstate but thank you for saying that you see it was gonna be lit up too it is gonna be lit up too we're uh we we lucked out on that whitney then we we we realize there is power with the medline development right there in the area as soon as they get under construction obviously their utility lines run so we're doing we're prepping and just going to the west with our pipe so we can run the electrical and attached medlines we lugged out so right now there's no power anywhere in that vicinity and so both will have landscape lighting and we're going to landscape them both too they'll be this one down here is not landscaped yet but it will have landscape and they'll have landscape lighting as well okay is there any other discussion hearing none roll call yes okay that motion carries okay another issue that the board needs to be aware of um i don't know how many firsts we've done during this administration but we've had a lot of firsts so i re it was brought to my attention recently uh that with some of the new residential developments in our city that entergy has requested that they set up a billing system an account with entergy while the subdivision is is under construction that prompted the discussion about when does the city take street lights just like we we wait before we actually take the streets and they become public streets when the development is a percentage built out because we don't want to take a street where there's still going to be damage about construction vehicles that kind of thing well it makes my first comment about that was it makes sense that we would take the lights when we take the street i mean why would you take the lights before the street because it's part of the development when it's ready for the public we take it i was then told that never told

[0:41:03] never in the history of all the homes that have been built in the great city of south haven that this has never been done but it's always been when the street lights went up the city took them even before the streets were ready i find that odd i didn't know that but but people have said that i've also been told that the other cities do it in a variety of different ways the county does it differently sometimes hoas are responsible for them basically the reason i bring this up tonight is i just want to hear from y'all i mean you know to me my first my first thought was like i said why would you take the street lights before you take the street the response to that from a private developer which is a good one is when the when the streets are built and even though there's not a home on these lots uh you face uh vandalism issues you face you know promiscuity you know on the on the vacant streets without lighting so it serves a public interest for the city to you know to have the lights but anyway i just i thought that was odd but the last thing i would want to do is have a policy to where we're discouraging development our city we want we don't want to put the city of south payment at any competitive disadvantage with anyone else as far as attracting residential home builders so basically what i wanted to hear from my board members tonight is what are your thoughts on that i mean do y'all want to go ahead and and just take the lot because nick looked at has done the research state law allows us to do it either way we can take the street lights before we take the streets and again i don't want to i don't want to punish anyone i want to encourage development in our city um but share with me your thoughts so if we don't take the street lights early on they have to pay energy wise for example like we'll just um let's use uh what let's use any development let's just say it's not uncommon for a good size residential development to take five to seven years

[0:43:05] to finish i mean if it's a big one well if they start putting the streets in then they're paying the lighting cost for that amount of time before they give until they give the streets to us so if we take them now that saves them the money of paying for public lighting or well i mean i guess you call it public or private but what are the some of the other cities what do they do whitney will you update me on that i know that we got uh different information you know it was kind of a hodgepodge um olive branch and hernando are kind of the same but we're they don't have a written down policy but majority of them take them as they're getting installed there's a utility easement down both sides of the road uh whoever their electrical contractor comes in installs the electrical lines they then notify the city that they're getting put in entergy goes and plops them in and the cities take them desoto county was very different they don't own a street light apparently anywhere in the county either the hoa the developers the ones who request them have them installed and pay for them for the duration of the light working here hernando was looking at the same as desoto county um so there's there's and i'm not sure what horn lake was and they really couldn't give me any answers but olive branch um kind of fall asleep with us fernando does right now but they're looking to kind of go towards desoto county desoto county doesn't pay for street life so nobody's consistent and the other thing just to make sure everybody's aware like the the city rents the lights from entergy like we don't we don't put the lights up like entergy puts the lights up if it's on a what would become a public street and then you know stuff that's on private property you know they choose their own lighting fixtures and they put them in and pay their own power costs but like on public street or what will become public streets entergy is the one that actually puts the fixtures up you know lays the conduit to bring power to them so you know depending on how decorative you want to be like in some of our areas you know we want decorative lighting and so it can get expensive like you know with the lay of the conduit plant paying

[0:45:06] for the fixtures uh but um but just to clarify that the city doesn't you know put the fixtures up it's something that's done by entergy now is that of the installation and stuff do we pay that have we've been paying that in the past yeah and this is something that again i'll just be real candid it's strange to me but uh entergy uh whatever your cost to put the lights in whether you go with just a standard concrete pole or if you're getting into a decorative fixture the cost that it takes to install that is worked into the rent agreement so basically um your perpetuity you you pay indefinitely on whatever the cost to put the lights in that's why we're going to be extremely cautious like from a budget standpoint you know if we put decorative lighting in we want to make sure that we do it in an efficient way because we'll be considered going to be renting that paying for it you know definitely well i know we've looked at different ways to cut down if we went in and installed the lights ourselves you know bought the lives and stalled ourselves or even boring ourselves that is a something we could take off the bill forever and ever more so we've been looking at different ways to cut it down and that actually drastically cuts it down if the city goes in and does the boring and purchases of the lights and installs it then essentially all we're doing is paying for the electricity and you all know that we talked about this public we've worked on a main street decorative lighting project to take some of the old poles down between uh mill branch and highway 51 on main street and we've had many many many many discussions with entergy about this and we're finally we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna figure this out um but it's uh been complicated because like whitney said they were going to charge us to lay conduit because the the old light pictures have been up there for so long you know to beautify it to put some you know decorative poles that we could hang you know christmas banners and things like that a lot of our citizens love the christmas parade right there they i can assure you we got some citizens that they want their mayor to love christmas because they remind me all throughout the year even in july so we want to we want to make it pretty

[0:47:09] right there and uh but it's been it's been costly so we you know kind of thrown the brakes on we continue to ask questions so we want to make sure that it's affordable so part of doing that is what whitney's talking about we may bring a presentation back to where the city pays the boring and laying the conduit and then that way we just rent the electricity from energy but that's that's kind of a related topic but back to this issue this is not really an issue of um i mean it's going to be the same cost regardless of who's paying for it basically the issue is do you want to give relief you know to the developers in the city go ahead and take the cost of the electricity while the development is under construction doesn't it also give relief to the homeowners though that are there while the subdivision's being built out well i mean they're going to get it either way it's just a matter of who's paying for it what about the lights uh who decides what lights get put up i mean i'm a developer and i know the city's going to put the bill i'm i'm going to look for the best one out there the most expensive right we've communicated we have a plan now that we started about three years ago um to improve the look of our neighborhoods but i'm sure there's there's a great looking goal for 500 pounds is really really really great for 15. sure and that's what i was telling you we we have done that within it we've offered uh given a design to the developers of what's up with the poll these are your this is your allowance well no we've given them like what it would look like which poll like entergy has uh they have a catalog of polls that you can choose from right and obviously we don't go for the most expensive one but we're trying to improve the look of our neighborhoods and improve property values so we have um you know uh suggested that you know within entergy and we basically the whitney communicates that when the new development comes in and so then they'll know what the cost you know of the lighting is spec package for them it's got single head and dual heads um it's what we usually require in the commercial areas too to kind of get some consistency but we put together a spec package so when they come in they get

[0:49:12] this back package and just to add to that if you're on your like main collector streets your bigger streets you're going to have a double-headed fixture but if you're just on in inside the development you're going to have a single-headed fixture you're going to do something once they have a percentage of you know lots occupied and that kind of stuff as opposed to that's where our roads are you know yeah that's the way the roads are but it's over it's usually eighty percent well we could somebody do something less than that but i mean you know we don't want to be providing a whole subdivision of empty stuff and because our residents aren't getting they got them but what's the resonance well they are that's kind of what i mean that's debatable but here's what again i'm just sharing information the private developer will tell you that we are getting the public benefit of that because we're stopping promiscuity and vandalism you know because we you know there's a lot of streets if you go in and develop the streets by the time you build the homes i mean we have you know we have some divisions that have 500 homes in them you know take five to seven years to build them well when you put those streets in then you've uh you've made a public or you've opened up that option for people you know that want to go and do whatever they want to do on a on a hidden uh undeveloped street so the city does have a public challenge with that so that would be their response and i do agree with that that's a good point and we do have that risk what are your thoughts i mean i've looked at it from both ways i think that from a safety standpoint i think the benefit is i mean i like the idea of taking taking them almost immediately simply because i think we're going to run into more complaints and more problems with it staying dark if we did decide to do something else i'm not opposed to that but i would say that we we should probably give a warning out to the developers so they can budget appropriately in the future as they're trying to come up with designs because that's expensive it's a cost you're not looking at you try to throw it into your utility and your infrastructure design it's a big cost so if we went that way i'm sure it would cause some controversy in the development world they would get used to it but then we kind of kind of get them in you know in the water with the foot first before we just let them dive in i would i would give kind of a time period

[0:51:14] to get everybody used to it first so i've got a question say you're hoa in the county and you go defunct that was my question because we've had a couple of hoas dissolved here and it's against the city's will it's we have no control when they when they go they just file the secretary of state and they're gone because we've had to take over detention areas and all kinds of issues and some subdivisions that shouldn't have been ours state has taken on some and purchased back land from hoa so that's that's a big question i mean i i don't know nick's dealt with it mayors don't know that i've dealt with that there's you know the city doesn't control that i don't know whose issue that becomes but right now the issue with the hives that have dissolved here become our issues so essentially we would be taking on the street lights all right i mean i can answer that it's going to be you yeah what do you think my thoughts are this um again that's why i wanted to hear from y'all because you know have mixed thoughts about it i mean like i said my first thought was why would we take the light before you take the street it make it makes from a logic standpoint i would think that you would take them at the same time but then if i had to make a decision myself tonight i would lean more towards aaron on the side of uh being development friendly you know just for a temporary time i wouldn't want to do anything that i mean eventually we're going to be paying for the lights anyway and and so it just for us not having the cost of the lights for you know two three years uh i would say that we're getting the benefit of that already because when they start paying taxes on they're paying taxes on on a vacant lot so realistically um we're getting a public benefit because we're collecting the taxes on these vacant lots before a home is built on them so i i do kind of agree that it would make sense you know for us to take the lighting you know so a long way to say if i had if i were the one making the decision tonight i would after hearing everything that i've heard i would i would air towards us taking the lights immediately i would agree with that okay i agree with that that's very agree too but i still just for sake i i wouldn't mind knowing like what

[0:53:17] tupelo oxford i could do some more research a little further i don't know what madison does all right i will check with all the other larger cities that have some especially decorative the ones that are really trying to form yeah motion springs okay we'll just get a huge list i'll put together like a spreadsheet of all those and you can add any extra day if you want to i'll do the research and bring something back next for me okay i mainly just wanted because there's been a lot of discussion uh with whitney and and i and some uh some developers so i just wanted y'all to be aware of that because i know i know alderman flores had a call uh about a couple likes that were in the situation where it's not it's not ready to be given to us yet and so we're waiting for you know kind of to make a decision on what we do with that until we know what our policy is so if it's okay with y'all why don't we bring this right back up at the next meeting and that should give whitney time to gather some more information then we'll just go ahead and hammer down a decision in the next meeting i just never thought about it that's you know why didn't like i didn't know it was an issue until until about three or four weeks ago i never knew it was an issue is that okay with everybody if we do that anybody else got any input before we move on okay we'll uh we'll bring that back up at the next meeting okay and moving on here um um the the next thing is uh when we did our budget hearings we talked about a paving proposal just experimenting with the idea of maybe adding a paving department to our city our department head public works bradley wallace and robert booth have done an outstanding job of making a presentation we're not we're still coming through some information i want to talk to dan cordell and i had time to talk to him about it he's he's been my um my leader with the uh the paving uh through our private contractors you know the whole time i've been mayor so i rely on him a lot i want

[0:55:20] to have some time to sit down one-on-one and come do some numbers with him but i did want to report to y'all that we've done a lot of research on it and the proposal we feel like to to bring paving in-house to do it we feel like we would need about 550 000 in equipment up front and what that is a that breaks down to a paving machine two dump trucks and a roller let me get to my page here yeah pavement machine two dump trucks and a roller um we feel like it would be better uh to the areas that have to be milled uh rather than uh buying a very expensive milling machine we could still contract the milling a lot of the streets do not have to be built if it's not curb and gutter it doesn't have to be built obviously with uh final lifts on new developments you know there you don't have to mill that you just lay the asphalt so we believe that there's um some potent some serious potential savings here and that's why i want to want to update you so 550 000 up front the budget hearing was tonight none of this if we do decide to go this route none of it will affect our anything that would have an impact on the budget what we would do is take our cost of personnel which is estimated to be about 275 thousand dollars i would have to hire people that have this skill set this is not just someone we could take in-house and train them we would have to hire people that have have experience in paving we believe that we can do that for 275 000 a year with 275 if you do the math on that we believe that uh right now with a two million dollar budget generally your materials are about half of what we're spending so if we're if

[0:57:23] we're paving two million dollars in streets about a million of that is materials obviously we still have that cost but if we can uh with the milling contract and the cost of labor you're looking at about 475 000 of recurring annual cost so you would be paving 1.475 your cost to pay 2 million dollars in the streets um would be about 1.475 so you're you're saving 525 000 well you do the math on that you're up front your equipment 550 you're almost paying for that in the first year paying for your equipment so i think that there's still some other questions obviously this is a big decision if we do this but we want to be cautious like i said i want to i want to talk some more detail but i just wanted to give you an update that this is um this has got my attention and the reason it's got my attention and dan cordell knows this we assign i mean our contractor does a great job i have nothing negative to say about that it's just a matter of uh we're at their mercy you know y'all know that we've i had citizens that have come forward and and said hey look you know y'all milled my strength but that's been a month ago what is the delay why are you waiting i don't like to see my streak like that you know my little girl can't ride her bicycle when she gets home from school you know i just multiply that times thousands that's the number of calls i get the other thing is um we're waiting on them for a certain time we're totally at their mercy so like we're we're we're a sandwich job for them so like when they're doing a big job uh it's a larger project when they get done with that then they come start working on our streets and we get them all done but it's just it's a drawn out project a lot of times during the winter months nothing is going on basically our streets are paved generally the most part from march until really june and then other than just maybe a few here and there that's about it well if we had our own department we can pay more streets

[0:59:25] we can decide when we pay them we can be more flexible you know a lot of times throughout the winter months we may have a list of streets that we feel like are are a priority to be done and then after a bad winter everybody starts calling in january and this this street's falling apart this is a mess well if we have our own uh our own paving crew then when the asphalt plants open back up we get the asphalt on on a warm sunny day in january we paid the streets you know i just i like i said it's just got my attention i'm tired of being at the mercy of somebody else i want to be able to get our streets in better condition and the other thing you all heard me say this in the budget workshops we've done a lot of research dan cordell and civil link have been instrumental in helping us be much more progressive and aggressive with street improvement but i can tell you right now i didn't know anything about pavement streets in 2013 but i can tell you right now after doing this for six years two million is nowhere near enough it's what we what we would have to have paying somebody else to keep our streets in the standard that i think south haven needs is about double that and in this year's budget you have two but if you're going to continue paying somebody else to do it um i'm just telling you now i i stand by that it needs to be about four well we keep falling father behind that's right so we feel like a dog chasing their tail hold on right and we're programming like i said with dan's help uh i would i would put our program up against anybody else in the area we've got a very aggressive program uh we've done a lot of research and studies and doing it but still we're just not getting there and i just the more i consider these things that i'm talking about tonight i just i'm very uh interested in looking at taking this jump and doing it but again no not asking any action tonight i just wanted to kind of update you on the numbers and we're going to come through it some more before we do it the last other piece of information i

[1:01:28] would update you with is the equipment is available i wanted to know if we did this you know are we having to order equipment wait half a year before we get it and we don't believe that's a problem believe that the equipment is in the memphis metro that we could go by also the labor we feel like that that this 275 000 is adequate to go into the marketplace and get labors from some of these other companies a lot of these people now pay streets in the summer and they collect unemployment in the winter or deer hunt so if we have our own crew we could be appealing to them like giving them a job 12 months a year you know so i just i believe it's encouraging i think that it's something we should seriously consider doing and we can use them other projects too as well certainly does the county pay their own don't they have their own payment crews they have more than we do um dan no the county has more they do more yeah do they do all of it they don't do all of their and we would still again with us we wouldn't do everything but there would still be uh projects like state line that's that we're about to do within a couple weeks state line is going to be patched and and we'll start doing that one we'll always have projects like that that will be too big for us you know we'll definitely still you know bring in contractors for that and um but mainly what i'm talking about the majority of what we're doing your neighborhood streets that are in terrible conclusion we're in terrible condition the county may be a good source for us to get the price per mile they're paying how much you're saving if you kind of get an idea that figures out we do but we have we have actually have that data you know we do we have that data but anyway that's all i just want to kind of give you an update because i at our last budget workshop i didn't have all the numbers uh but um but i just want you to be aware of the process and i'll continue to update everybody about that okay and then um i think i'm to the end hang on just a second here okay last thing again we did not we got the information

[1:03:32] just yesterday but we got the information for the city hall renovation project and uh mr brown bullard with urban arc is here with us tonight so uh i want to i want to hear what he has to say about his recommendation to awarding the bid for the city hall renovation good evening good evening thank you brian board well you may recall a couple of months ago we opened up the the bids for the city hall package and we noted to you all that we didn't feel like we were really getting a fair shake and we're getting the best bid that we could get a lot of it had to do with the roofing component of that job the roofing component essentially was kind of come really making the project too complex for general contractors to want to touch it so what we were getting was only one bid on roofing it exacerbated the whole issue and kind of shot the shot the budget out of whack on us so our recommendation to you at that point in time was to get creative and basically split the the bid project so that we would do the building renovation project separate from the roof project and bid those out separate i'm happy to say that we did receive bids on august 7th for the building renovations portion of this so we're basically halfway home and it's working our bids that we received uh on the seventh uh the low lowest and what we believe to be the best bid is one million one hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and eight dollars that is from f f construction um and the reason why i say that i think we're in good shape right now is that compared to where we were two months ago when this was a combined bid between the renovation of the building plus the roofing we were at two and a quarter million dollars and that bid consisted of about 1.25 million for the renovations of the city hall plus about a million dollars for the roofing project so the way we look at it right now we're we've saved about 130 000 by making this decision so um

[1:05:37] our hope right now is that uh and our recommendation would be to accept this portion and then let us bid the roof that's currently out for uh for bids currently and uh we expect to take those bids here in the next few weeks and we're hoping we'll come out on top with that piece as well any more questions do you need a motion to accept that uh yes yeah if you'll make a motion then we'll uh open up the floor of any other discussion please i will make that motion accept the bid for fnf construction for the mayor to sign contract okay have a motion balance florida's second sorry no second of all i've been paying any discussion what are the other closest bids do you have that i do have that um our next bid was about 35 000 more than that and that would be our own murphy and sons construction then we had one about 150 000 higher and then another about another hundred thousand dollars higher so decent little spread there between one and four but one and two are are really pretty close together those are local yes so that's indicative to us that that they were pricing the same thing now you asked me if both of them are local fnf construction i believe is based out of memphis um and i'm not sure if they have a south haven office but they're both generally what we consider local contractors and the plan is still on the road like upcoming we'll be at that one that's right soon it's out to bid right now i think um i can't recall the exact bid day but it's sometime in the next uh the first week or so maybe week to 10 days of september okay and when we receive those bids we're getting some some pretty good vibes that those numbers are going to be a lot better than what we got a couple months ago so

[1:07:38] it's our thought you know again there's no guarantees at this point in time but it's our thought that we're going to come out way ahead by going through this process and y'all remember that was uh what three four months ago when we got did the original bid it was about two months ago two months ago okay so we've had to delay it but we're again for hopes of what brian's talking about you know hopefully to get you know more competitive pricing on it okay any other discussion about the accepting the bid or awarding the bid for the city hall renovation hearing none roll call yes yes okay that motion carries thank you brian thank you all okay that's all i have on my mayor's report this evening next on the agenda is our citizens agenda uh we did not have anyone that contacted us but uh anyone that's in the audience that would like to speak please come forward and state your name anyone want to speak tonight okay looks like we have no one on the citizens agenda next on the agenda is our personnel document mr mayor will approve the personnel documents presented on the state second we have a motion bomber in pain second monitoring flores is there any discussion yes that motion carries next on the agenda is our city attorney's legal update mr nick manley again except one quick item uh need authorization for reimbursement the sweeney ridge homeowners association amount of 438.71 cents evidently they have been paying the entry bill or electricity bill for a uh substation on the north end of sweeney ridge for the last 20 years that being said you can only hold a city

[1:09:42] level for one year it's worth a claim so the last one the one year claims would be 438.17 so reimburse them for their payments on behalf of the city i'll make that motion thank you we have a motion by mcgallagher second bottom of wheeler is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say ah any opposed say no i just have it but she carries all right next on the agenda is a utility bill adjustment docket mr mayor i mean we approve the utility bill adjustment docket is presented on your state second we have a motion by alderman payne a second monitor flores is there any discussion is do i need to anyone in the audience is that necessary but okay okay hearing no discussion among the board roll call please yes yes that motion carries okay next on the agenda our claims dockets looks like we just have one docket mr mayor move we approved the claims docket in the amount of 2 million 119 643.68 including demand tax second we have a motion monitoring pain second volume of fluorescence is there any discussion hearing number one yes that motion carries next on the agenda uh we need to to determine the need for executive session i'll make that motion second second we have a motion by gallagher second baltimore wheeler all of ever say aye aye any opposed say no

[1:11:45] eyes have it motion carries the need this evening is potential litigation and claims involving the southland police department parks and public works personnel and police and utilities economic development within our city and the potential sale of city property is there a motion to declare executive session second we have a motion model with gallagher second monitor and wheeler all of ever say uh any opposed say no i just have a motion carries the mayor board will now enter executive session

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=T8R0JuCBeX4