11/17/2020

[0:00:03] welcome everyone uh now calling this meeting to order please stand with us heavenly father thank you for allowing us to be here tonight lord we thank you that uh we're born in a country that's the most blessed country that there's ever been lord lord we thank you for so many things that you've done especially during this this time of year lord we just want to thank you for the lord jesus christ who died on the cross for each and every one of us lord and we pray that you would be with us and our families and keep us safe first on the agenda this evening is the approval of minutes for the november 3rd 2020 meeting mr merritt announced the regular meeting november 3rd uh 2020 with any collision without the left back with any additions more corrections a motion brooke second ballerman is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes yes yes that motion carries next time the agenda is the resolution for a personal property tax exemption from conair corporation mr nick manley this is a personal property tax exemption for conair it's extension for 44-year personal property tax exemption it's been approved by the federal county affordable advisors and the economic council recommends this chris tonight authorization for the four-year

[0:02:07] tax exemption for personal profit provider for con air corporation we have a motion bond with fluoride second alderman wheeler is there any discussion hearing mountain roll call yes that motion carries next on the agenda's approval of utility leak adjustment form it is at the last thing you recall we talked about the leak adjustment uh policy and uh this new form uh we're going to put in the minutes before we're also in the process of looking at the ordinances for the utility department but in the meantime i want to have this form in our minutes to reflect the policy of one adjustment per year and that's also will note that uh policy within the body of the forums that might also improve the new leading deaf and request form and have it reflected in our minutes mr apparently we've uh approved utility leak adjustment form as presented just thank you we have a motion bottom and brooks second ballerman hoops is there any discussion hearing none a wrong call yes yes yes that motion carries make some agendas approval for bid for soccer equipment they're the specifics are the miscellaneous equipment that will go to the fields for us to play soccer such as soccer goals and benches for the players and to use central building as part of the fit use central bidding allowed for the mid-auction procedure so families will be approved mr soccer that's recyclable okay we have a motion ballroom brooks second ballroom and wheeler is there any discussion hearing none roll call

[0:04:11] yes information technology and emergency communications department surplus property this is surplus that property according to this code 1725.55 have a motion of alderman who's second daughter and wheeler is there any discussion hearing gun roll call please yes you carries next on the agenda is the city declaration for uh for holidays yeah this is the decoration for december 24th and the friday after thanksgiving i'm not sure what the friday the day for friday thanksgiving is uh 27th thank you friday 27th mary will be uh approved november 27th in december 44.24 starting holidays got a motion balder in brooks second ballroom floor is is there any discussion hearing nine all in favor say hi next on the agenda is our planning agenda this would be cool i guess our first application is to rezone 0.44 acres of property uh it's currently zoned r9 the request just go to c4 if you can look on the screen where the red highlighted area is that's the overall piece of property we did recently subdivide um this property into two lots the portion you see in yellow is currently r9 we're requesting to add that into the existing c4 which is just

[0:06:15] to the south of that it says that when you're in front of goodman road um it is compliant with the conference and plan in terms of the depth it does line up with the c4 that's on the east side of it so we recommended approval to the planning commission and um i believe we need to do a hearing zoning hearing but we are recommending approval based on those we can do that here in the first or motion public hearings or item one automate gallery or make some motion any opposed say no i decided unless you carry the public hearing that's now open for item one so if there's anyone in the audience who would like to speak my name is kurt grain i am a partner in clyde express car washes we're the company that is asking for the rezoning and traditional use on goodman road we looked at a lot of sites in this area and everything we really like this site because you all have a great town here we're excited to be here in this town this particular site uh works well for us we got a great buffer in the back uh for the neighbors and everything like that and i'm just here to answer any questions that you might have um be happy to do that any questions [Music] that actually joins 13 acres that go north and east and we're hoping one of these days if he does something there that he may buy that or not if not we're just going to just keep it so it'll always be a buffer unless somebody joins in with the other property thank you appreciate you thank you for your interest in south haven thanks for

[0:08:17] coming forward look forward to it please really catch your cannon yeah so is any other anyone else would like to speak in the audience anyone else would like to speak during the public year okay we don't see anyone or hear from anyone so is there a motion to close the public hearing it's a move so we got a motion water from brooks second armored wheeler all in favor say hi and your post say no i was having motion carries the public hearing is now closed and now do we want to vote are we ready to vote on item one swear i moved to the tree lightning from one of the things as percentage got a motion autumn brook second waterfall it's approved item one yes yes emotion cares and uh application number two i think you just alluded to the fact that it was a conditional use permit for a car wash in this location um what we look at for the conditional use for this is character of the neighborhood um in close proximity to other similar establishments i was determined that obviously it's surrounded by heavy commercial uh it is buffer appropriately and it is not in close proximity to another car wash i think the closest one was on wardrobe or by lowe's after that you have to go quite a bit away to the east side of the roads we felt like it wasn't a saturation of the market in this therefore we did recommend approval the conditional use permit one year with a four-year extension scrambling free ride with two seconds

[0:10:21] we have a motion model in brooks the second alarm in florence is during discussion on item two hearing none roll call yes is that what she cares if you have one more thing uh we got noticed from the changing clerk's office we did a scripture there i believe two meetings ago for the change in the street name in a section um section down to the range error on an existing plaque for central park section b um chaser clerk informed us that our minutes were detailed enough for the black book and page and identification of the corrections so we have to go back through it um so what i need now is um hopefully you'll approve a central part section b uh p which is in book 132 page 39 uh we're requesting a street name change uh from inline drive to park valley and also there is an error on the existing section township and range on the flat currently the section shows us 20 and we need to correct it to section is there any discussion yes emotion cares thank you next on the agenda is our mayor's report i got several things i'll try to move fairly quickly through this first of all we yesterday received information for our bids for the rasco two oklahoma traffic signals i don't know that we've talked about this many times before when rasco road was extended all the way through to connect the east and west ends around cove now

[0:12:24] it is a road that goes all the way from highway 51 to get well when that happened it increases traffic tremendously on rasco and so um in a very uh quick manner it created a need for a traffic signal rascal and two home it's a very dangerous intersection uh we need to get that done as soon as possible so we did get the bids on that um that wasn't on the mail out friday because we just got it yesterday but i emailed that out but basically uh the lowest bid and the recommendation for bid award is to soak county electric and that amount is 190 163 so i'm asking the board to um to award this bid tonight we got a motion by alderman gallagher second honorable flores is there any discussions yes okay that motion cares okay the next thing is um with our annual financial audit we've used fort berry and ballard each year and so it's time to hire them again we've been very pleased uh with their service and providing our audit so i'm asking the board again for a motion to hire important very ballard uh to complete our financial audit for the next one we've got a motion monitoring flores second monitor wheeler is there any discussion here you know yes okay and that motion carries okay the

[0:14:31] next uh thing we need to do is uh i mentioned in previous meetings that the uh the mississippi municipal league uh conference for the winter session in january is being done differently this year because of code 19. you know we can't or they canceled the summer conference with this winter conference is going to be held but it's going to be held with an option to either go virtual or cancer right also they do still have some events obviously it would be much different you know with some people going virtual i think someone else expressed this during the last discussion that one of the great benefits of the conference is uh getting there and you know building relationships you know with uh you know with other elected officials and getting a chance to uh you know see our legislators and things like that so we're not able to uh go in person obviously that will change so we've got to make a decision to let them know you know kind of what we're going to do so i want to bring that back up and just hear everybody's thoughts on that and i'll share what i think as well if we can't go i think a lot of last time we should have a legislative uh report meeting we can invite them up here talk to us explain what they do for us certainly for questions for them as well it's a great idea we can uh i will i will reach out and try to set that up for the next couple of weeks thank you i don't see advantages again

[0:16:45] yeah we don't have to take action but audrey kelly's on the line i think that's a good decision so we don't need board action but christy will you reach out and let them know that the city of south haven we're not going to attend this year correct we just don't see the value of going virtual you're not being able to be there and uh like you said you know being in person you hear the instructors in person build the relationships have the discussions with other officials and legislators so we don't feel like it's a value for the city all right so we'll take care of that and let him know um okay then just a couple updates uh for everybody y'all know that we did the uh employees survey for the second time and um we closed that survey left it open for three or four weeks three weeks i think and we got the results back on that uh we'll be sending out that data to all of you so you can look through it i've not had a chance yet to read all the comments but it's proven to be a good thing for us and i i give credit to alderman wheeler last year for the idea we appreciate that it was a good idea we did the survey in 19 got some good uh comments back from all of our employees and we did the same thing this year i also got some good feedback and i am gonna as we told everybody this is an anonymous survey we don't know you know where the comments came from but they're all together and it's kind of lengthy so i haven't had time to read through all the comments but i'm going to and i will also pour that to all the board members as well but i just want to share a couple of highlights with you that chris wilson tabulated for us regarding the survey we had 206 people return a survey so that's pretty good a pretty good sample about

[0:18:50] the same thing it had a 19 blacks who had 208 19 206 and 20. and then just the the main thing that of course we're listening to all the ideas and uh because we've got some good ideas the last time we did it and uh and we're going to read through and listen to all the ideas as well this time but the main thing that i want to report to the board tonight is in 2019 the question is how satisfied are you working for the city that number was 85.6 and the number on our recent survey was 85.9 so it's still right there uh you know 86 percent of the people have indicated that they you know that they're satisfied working for the city so i think that that says a lot uh doesn't mean we don't again we're not going to listen to the other comments we can always make ourselves better we're going to try to do that y'all know the number one comment is about health insurance again that's the number one concern uh as we addressed in a previous meeting we did get better loss results with our group health insurance policy this year so uh we're headed in the right direction we've just got to put a couple uh maybe three years together then we should have a lot more options as far as our health insurance price and company so yeah the rates stayed about the same and then there were a few other benefits that were added that we didn't have so we're headed in the right direction but mainly we understand it's you know that's been well communicated that the city's had some major loss ratio problems that's why health insurance has been so challenging but the employees still don't you know their families still they're paying for their dependents we're pampering employees they're paying for their independence so we're you know we're working together on this we recognize that that's money that comes out of their pocket and affects their net compensation so we want to get that as low as we possibly can too so we still got some work to do there the other thing that's real positive about the survey and i'm not going to go through all of them but

[0:20:51] in a couple of our largest departments um we had some major increases and uh uh let's turn them around you know we feel like that the you know even with all the the crazy stuff that's happened in 2020 uh with code and everything uh we still have had some large increases on uh positive morale in our department so that was one of the main concerns that we had in 2019 and so we've seen some improvement in that area and i i think our department heads this morning in our meeting for that and so that's so that's a compliment to them for improving our around our department so anyway that's it just wanted to give you a quick update on that a couple other awesome things for the city it's still early y'all know that the budget year starts on october the 1st but we've gotten numbers in thus far on for the sales tax revenues that were collected for october and november and our sales tax revenues are already just in too much 280 000 higher in our budget so that's a very positive thing it shows the resilience of south and our people we continue to move on with their lives and our business even with all the challenges that are going on we have an outstanding economy in south haven and this is a good sign of that related to that our tourism tax revenues which you all know both are geared towards the restaurants and hotels in south haven and again with that just in two months that's tracking 85 000 which is already in two months higher than what we budgeted for so those are very positive things for our city and let me go down on my list here make sure i'm not forgetting anything um just another announcement there is going to be some public mask handouts we've done that in the past we're going to do that again i think it's scheduled the emergency organization and soda county emergency is coordinating that and i believe

[0:22:53] they're going to have that on saturday g sky is that correct that's correct saturday and it's going to be from nine to three okay nine to three saturday and then what is the location the high schools again okay this was at desoto central high school so nine to three this saturday there's gonna be another mass handout now while we're talking about that i'm gonna be really quick with this uh but i just wanna let everyone know again that um they're we all know what we've been through with code this year and you know i've learned throughout this pandemic that a lot of times when you make the statement to try to prevent fear and panic and to be positive there's some that jump on that that that you don't take a virus seriously and so just quickly i want to reiterate to everyone we are moving into november the weather is changing we've never been in november with code or that we know about some people think we had it last november that's still debatable but my point is is that the flu and everything else you know code is not our only health risk i mean we have risk of flu and other things and it's always ramped up in november so i do have concerns about covet and starting now in november so i want to encourage everyone again to be safe and what that means is just because you may not believe in kind of certain government mandates does not mean that you don't take the virus seriously and so as your mayor and on camera i hope everyone i hope to share this video i'm telling you now i recommend any safety precaution that you can take because if it saves one person it was worth it so we know that the statistics show that coding is not life-threatening to the overwhelming majority of people but still listen to me if what we do saves one person's life it's worth all of us using good common sense being smart wear a mask when you're i have a mask in my pocket i don't wear it if i'm distance but when you go in somewhere and you're

[0:24:55] in a dense gathering wear a mask use common sense with social distancing um use hygiene do the things that you know to do we all know what this is now this is we've had it long enough in our in our society to know the risks everyone can make their decisions but let's all be smart let's all keep our fellow man safe so just because you try to be positive which i've tried to do i learned a long time in leadership that you sometimes can't change the facts but the way you approach it is everything and if you have a positive attitude even in the most dire circumstances it makes a difference and so that's all i'm trying to do is be positive throughout this whole thing and so and i've tried to encourage our other leaders to do the same thing we know what this is but let's be positive okay let's don't live in fear let's don't panic because fear and panic are a health risk on their own so let's stay positive so let's be smart okay and that's all i got to say about that i'm speaking to all who may watch this tonight and and in the future just because again and i want to say positive does not mean that i do not take the environment seriously the virus is a very serious matter and i encourage all of us to move forward in the safest way possible but also not living in fear all right enough of that we got that on the mask handouts then uh two other things this is not on the agenda tonight but because it's the first time in our city's history we've done this we've talked about this the whole time that we've talked about south square but you all know that it's been um at least my goal i don't speak to everybody else i think that we have an agreement there that with our commitment to silas square not just silas square but our snow district we believe that we have a unique opportunity to create a true entertainment district there and so in order to do that you can now in the state of mississippi create what's called a leisure and recreation district and this was a law that was changed in 2018 the state approved this and basically what it is is just encourages areas that are

[0:26:59] walkable and safe where you have a restaurant or a you know restaurant bar sports bar or things like that where you can have a plaza or areas where people can leave a restaurant and go shopping or go to like a plaza area for social gatherings things like that and they can take an alcoholic drink outside of the establishment so what they would do the way the state defined it is that what you would do is you would go out there has to be strict boundaries to that and then you have to define you know what you allow how much alcohol you allow a person to have so we've already started uh moving forward with that and we're going to try to put that on the next agenda but i want y'all to understand give us a chance to talk about it this is one of those things that can be easily misunderstood um i can i can see it now that you know that we're trying to bring nightclubs and everything else you know to our city i can already before you tell me i can already hear you saying okay so i'm gonna go ahead and address that this is not about night clothes it's not about changing the hours all the hours of any kind of establishment stay the same all it is is defining a very tight boundary where people can take an alcoholic drink uh outside of the restaurant in a plastic cup and there's some big uh restaurants that will be tremendous for our city that have their eye on our city right now and this is important to them so that's why it prompts the need for us to go ahead and do that so what we did and i've been doing the homework has been helping me by law what you have to do is pass a resolution basically just you know states that um that our city supports that in these tight boundaries then you have to define what can actually be taken out how much quantity how it is so nick has drawn for resolution we've talked about that that'll be on the next agenda and it specifically just limits the size of the amount of alcohol that can be taken out

[0:29:03] uh and and the tight foundation so along with that uh obviously there has to be concerns about the police they need to have a clear direction you know how they enforce that and so there has to be a letter that chief morris has been studying that whitney has helped with that to create the boundaries and also you know to indicate a police plan in doing that it's really no different than what we do now at snow grove park with the amphitheater you have the same you know basically the same rifts there or the same challenge for us to do but we feel like and jesus indicated that he feels like it's not something that we can't do in a controlled way in a positive way so anyway i don't i didn't want anybody to misunderstand that it's called a leisure and recreation district and that's something that i'll be recommending that we approve at the next meeting to allow that in the silo area as the stone district continues to develop we may look at or i may recommend to use some other areas but we want to keep this tight for right now but we think it'll be a tremendous thing for our city we think it's smart or i think it was smart on the state of mississippi for tourism and economic development to you know pass this law so with that being said before i move on to my last topic tonight just now uh is there any discussion about any thoughts or any concerns about the leisure recreation i personally like to see us keep it on the west side of you know getting not crossing the bridge or going to the other side that's the way it is right there okay it's actually it's really small right now it's mainly because what you have there now is you have maple art that's already developed on the east side uh there's no development or very little development is coming but there's very loaded up on the west side so right now this area is clearly defined as the area on may boulevard and then about a block south of there for the new tequila upscale mexican restaurant is coming so it's it's a pretty tight blocker

[0:31:07] they're awesome when you can go somewhere and walk through the store without having to sit down and stay at that restaurant and so you know it gives it thank you for saying that it does it it allows all the businesses to develop a synergy in that area like you said you can leave one and go to the other you can shop you know that kind of thing and again this is not you know i had somebody asked me one time what are you talking about there's a district i knew where they were going with it now this is not like yeah it's been one hour one place you're on stuff right there very very well said and and these establishments that were that we have in mind when this is created are establishments that bring a quality dining experience this is not you know just like a sports bar or something like that it's geared towards um an entertainment uh type establishment that also has quality dining as well so that's that's kind of the um the vision that we have and i know that uh the discussion in the past has been similar to making this like this square in oxford mississippi if anybody's been there you have some great restaurants on the square they have some great events that they hold around the square so they they have this at that location too any other comments or anything else about that and we'll get that out it'll like set up be on the next agenda if there's any questions between now and then uh please reach out to me i'll get any information that anyone needs or answer any questions okay we'll move on to the my last topic tonight we canceled we didn't the chamber of commerce canceled the christmas parade this year for obvious reasons they had they had to make that decision in september there were people preparing floats that wanted to know they didn't want to go

[0:33:09] spend money building floats making commitment and then find out last minute you know that we're going to have to cancel the parade so it's important to make that decision then as opposed to now and so the chamber did reach out to me and ask my thoughts about it and at that time i told them you know we don't know three months from now you know what the code situation is going to be like they expressed concern again about having to refund money this and that and so there was a decision made by the chamber board of directors chamber chamber president and uh and also manhood that we would cancel the christmas parade and so that decision was made honorary kelly had some questions about that he he says it so well like he always does that again about being positive i appreciate positive people right now but he talks about how people need uplifting things right now we we hear enough doom and gloom we don't need any more we know the bad things are out there but anything positive we can do is uplifting for our citizens we know the christmas parade is an awesome thing but if you truly want to look at it there's not many things that get more risky if you've ever been to the christmas parade you know how dense the gatherings are people are all over the place tight so it is a very risky thing uh from a total perspective but but honorable kelly has an idea and um in honor of brooks did you put the uh mike up his tongue and alderman kelly would you share uh with the board in the audience um your ideas uh as an alternative for the christmas party [Music] [Applause] what we're thinking is we do a virtual christmas tree very similar to what you see with the pc things getting great uh we don't have it to where people can't create clothes subscribe to [Applause] we live stream it we don't encourage

[0:35:13] people to stand on the sidelines to watch it because we're not going to hang out or anything but this way that we can still have the spirit of christmas which is helping joy during this time that we're in and you know just even staying yeah i think it's a great idea and when i was what i mentioned alderman kelly is that um you know i don't know as far as this time frame if it gives people enough time to do that ottoman kelly you know offered to you know help coordinate that and um you know so if it's not too late to make it happen i think it's a good idea but anyway just want to hear everybody's thoughts about that and how we go about it the chamber is always or for many years has been the organization that organized the parade we still have some questions for them how much they can be evolving help with that but i guess my only daughter and kelly also that we didn't talk about today would be would there be a need for a um for an event insurance policy um if if the city's doing this without the chamber then that would put the liability on the city um so we would need to consider having an event insurance policy if there are going to be people on the roadway that could prevent some risks but maybe if it's all virtual i don't know what is but but mainly back to

[0:37:23] being a city attorney if we did something like that the um you know obviously with a true parade you have the risk of a child putting out any traffic things like that but with virtual it would be more geared towards you know uh you know liable slander stuff like that i mean just make sure that yeah so if the city is able to produce the virtual christmas parade and secure an event insurance policy for that um what are these does anyone have any concerns moving forward with that i mean i think it's you know like he said it's going to be pretty much whoever wants to come in and come here stay here and we can probably use the road going back towards the library since it's not open now you just have to stay here and just go back there and just figure the pocket in the empty out back there and just somewhere along videotape it yeah anybody else any thoughts on that so kelly we don't i mean everybody likes the idea for what i'm hearing um i guess the the only challenge would be is you know who does the legwork put it together and i appreciate you know your your efforts to uh our offer to provide your efforts so you want to talk about that more maybe kind of help put a plan together on how we would do it now i can get in with the changes [Music]

[0:39:34] okay well once again i appreciate your idea and um so we'll go ahead and uh if you will just kind of start that fall rolling and and let me know how i can help and we'll uh we'll try to make it happen thank you okay that's all i have this evening does anyone have any questions for me uh board or anybody okay we'll move on next on our agenda um our citizens agenda is actually i'm sorry before you go to citizen's guide uh after a moment here sure uh chief moore did you come forward for a second uh i've had probably my busiest week that's all this is actually professionally been set up with something went on and uh yeah pretty behind the weekend over and over and stuff well there i wanted to get you more to come forward and talk about it and basically reassure some of the citizens and that kind of stuff to talk about i know one of the biggest concerns is but what can you do as a police department to try to keep that kind of stuff happening obviously in a public setting i'm not going to discuss anything regarding the case i can tell you two weeks ago we had to double homicide in columbia views and within 24 hours our guys had everybody has worked all night in the morning i can tell you that that was not a random act that the victims and the suspects all were acquainted i will share that we feel in this situation this weekend that was the same a lot of progress has been made today and you know this was a situation where the crime scene spanned over a large area so that our guys would pull this video from through one day the actors involved i'll do each other

[0:41:49] so it's not it's not something random is there anything that you think you could be doing that would give you in the city you think that so the situation just like both of these we don't feel any one of these or pre-planned events that just occurred it's very difficult you know to say you know what what we could have done to prevent this other than uh yeah i'll tell you that i pulled cash sheets on friday night and uh we had the first event was around nine um we were working some other major things wrecks uh i had one car available during that time period this is the main event in colombia occurred at 2300 i had no cars in service when that call came out the third guy occurred at 3 30 am out of 14 cars i had five you know that's that's i mean certain times of the day it just that's just the way it is we're looking at doing some old-time details in the area traffic important invisible we've already got a large number of assets assigned to that part of the city every so we're already stacked in there but if we're tied up about i can just tell you i'd be glad to share some information out of the public city about the case they but

[0:43:51] they might be very hard this morning he's been here his 34th year i think he's been here thursday or 29th this is the first time he's ever seen a situation like this in his entire career here so this is absolutely not a common occurrence plan on giving these um a place to stay for quite a while so that we don't have to deal with them again you know i i can just tell you you know you guys are working hard i'm quite sure we'll have some closure so i know you i know you've had a busy week here but i can tell you just kidding working you're you know already have more cars than any other period in the city but we base it off data unfortunately you have some doubt in your area so you do get more units there's a reason as chief stated that we don't discuss some things in a public meeting it's not a transparency issue it's a it's a strategy

[0:45:52] issue obviously for our police to be effective in fighting crime uh we can't on camera and tell what we're doing uh but the important thing i want everybody to understand this listening tonight is uh something like that that happens this weekend that's not when this man and all our police department that's not when i start thinking about stuff like this this is something that is a daily thing and uh just because we don't talk about it in a public meeting doesn't mean that he and i don't have conversations about it uh that he's not having conversations with all his command staff we understand the challenges and we are we are working on that but there's just some things he stated that don't need to be discussed for the for the benefit of the city they all need to be discussed in public meetings and i i know you're concerned with it also that my thing was i just wanted to get him to reassure them a little bit yeah because i mean i think that's what the people a little people think about some reassurance that yeah and what you say both you know go along with that reassurance is that you know it's not something that's not we're not looking into it right and there's been uh not to get too far down the road there's a large amount of discussion about as he said about uh data-driven policing and not only that but us knowing the uh areas of our city that are more susceptible to certain crimes and so we're aware of that and we are we are working to always be conscious of that and do we can about it uh there are some things though that it's fair to know we don't have to explain to everyone that may be watching how our country is how 2020 has been when you see some of the youth in our country the things that they do now you know that they would have never done 10 years ago and so a lot of these things as chief noted this is not for someone that's just uh for the most part a random thing where someone has to be terrified in their home in most of these situations and we don't know everything yet it's a little premature to be making judgments on what happened this weekend but in the event that happened on

[0:47:55] halloween night that was a situation where it was a fight at a party among people that know each other you know it's not they were they knew each other they're all related or at least friends so it's not like someone just uh you know showed up at a party or something like that so that makes me feel better as opposed to just having something like that happen randomly but anyway this last event is chief stated they're not done investigating all that our police have done an incredible job of responding like he said uh the the the event that happened on halloween night those people were uh were caught the next day or two days later at least and uh star police are doing an incredible job and so i guess and i to make sure i say this accurately i want to make sure everybody understands i appreciate your question because i have the same concerns you do and i want our citizens to feel as comfortable as they can however let's make sure that there's no misinterpretation of this discussion suggesting that our police didn't respond properly or didn't prevent that our police respond and entirely yeah very well said because we deal with challenges like i said we deal with things that as he just uh mentioned that major allred has said we deal with things now that we didn't deal with 10 years ago and and just because you have more control doesn't mean that a criminal is not going to commit a crime you know so we're going to do everything we can i'm committed to that and i share the concern of any citizen when something like that happens and i'll i'll tell you you know i know you get calls but imagine the calls i get you know i get the same calls you get um i miss sleep i worry about things like that too so but anyway i appreciate chief's comments you know again i'm very confident learning what i learned this afternoon about the investigation i really can't share the details yet but but i think i think sooner than later we'll

[0:49:58] have some closure um and then we can you know we can change more details once that occurred but uh this again just like the one on halloween this was not a uh just a random occurrence pretty sure the parties involved each other it just happened to be a moving situation where they weren't located in north spot which makes our investigation more shorter and we have to look for evidence along several blocks during the 11 p.m tonight makes another challenge for us there's the guys they're doing a great job and i tell you you know as far as your area we cover probably as good or better than any area it's just we're growing city located as your metropolitan area appreciate you you know all the jobs that you and your officers do okay we'll move on to the sister's agenda would you please come forward and i know y'all here that they're not

[0:52:18] coming down that direction i live on pastor i've seen a lot of times i understand that they can really do what they can do i'm here for us to come up with a plan for our neighborhood can participate in doing something to curb the problem that's going on in my neighborhood because you can't pretend there's not a problem there's vain issues section 8 is brought in a lot of problems we need to figure out something we can do because we're using all that root because some of us can't afford to do it my house is faithful i think this is we have a lot of good people [Music] we need some help and like i said i appreciate this thing [Music] in the neighborhood the next morning my mailbox has plowed over i've been there since the 70s never had my mailbox forever it was when i called her please it was just a random incident i am not an idiot you know and i know they can improve their lives but i know what happened we we've got to do something there's a house at the corner for my street everybody knows that that's a game-related situation up there i'm not situating anything maybe something we could then discuss the future maybe get more i mean it's possible but they should be too uh especially for the neighborhood those that that keeps we we've had a path we plant those and they know they're being watched and

[0:54:20] they can take the turks state you know i'm begging for someone who's our neighborhood because we have a business we have good people that were in there but they're all talking about moving out and then the other people are terrified they're terrified and they should be because if they speak up there's those own moments you know what they want to talk about cops yes they can actually watch just but it maybe we could come up with a citizen's group that knows watch page all the time talking about things going on but you know you can watch all day long but until we come to the plan of how to handle what we're seeing it doesn't do a business launch i i don't know i'm thinking if we if we just could get together with the police department with anybody that is willing to talk to us and give us some ideas on what we can do other than just watch we need to be proactive we're going to lose our neighborhood it's going to be like living in memphis in a year with code enforcement right and a lot of times if you don't make people feel vulnerable and making activity it's not as um that we can you know force it force more it's going to upset some people but yeah and you know the folks that are law-abiding here is upset correct we don't care we just want our neighbors back and we don't know how to do it by ourselves like i said we can watch all day long but they didn't answer the problem no that's not the problem if i may i can probably share some information at least it's not going to solve the problem tonight but i want you to know this and like i said earlier i can't tell you everything that

[0:56:21] that our police you and i talk about but what your concerns are they didn't start this weekend i've had those concerns for a long time we've had many discussions about it this man standing to my right over here can tell you that i talk to him a lot about this and i understand the challenge it is a challenge but and i'm not here to talk about the problems all night i want to spend more time talking about solutions but let me tell you two things that you need to know uh two things that are a problem in the area are ottoman brooks mentioned it you have a problem with juveniles you have a problem with the laws the laws like we've tried i'm aware that in the summertime when the kids are out of school we have a lot a lot more crime in the area that are done by juveniles well our city attorney can tell you more about that but there are laws with juveniles that restrict us from enforcing things with them that's a big problem because a lot of these people that are committing these crimes are not 40 40 year old people these are people that are very young people that have chosen to go down the road having to do something that you know 25 years ago a parent took care of and the police never had to get involved so that's one of the issues the second thing is rental property and this board can tell you that there have been when i tell you the hours of discussion with our city attorney exploring all options to put restrictions not restrictions per se but a little more control over rental property that's where your problems are you mentioned all the great people that live in palmetto hills i can tell you right now there's people living in colombia hills that have been there for 50 years and and they have you go look at their house and they love they have pride of ownership their house was just like it did in 1975 they had pride of ownership but then they're mixed in now with these rental properties and so it's just a fact

[0:58:24] everybody knows i'm an insurance person it's an underwriting fact and it's a crime fact that a non-owner-occupied dwelling is a totally different animal when somebody lives in a home they take accountability for their home and responsibility for it statistically not everybody but statistically when it's not owned or occupied it's a totally different ballgame you get poor maintenance of the property you get you get an instability factor from a family standpoint and these are the negatives that are hurting colon hills and a few of our other neighborhoods right now and so i mentioned that we've researched this we're not doing research we're going to keep working towards finding a way with to do something about the rental property a lot of these event the event that happened on halloween night that's a rental house so many events happen due to the high percentage of rental property so we are aware that the other thing uh brooks mentioned the property manuscript that's what started the maintenance code is like you said a broken glass theory that's a fact i just don't agree with that criminals are going to come to areas that they perceive to be more attractive or that they can get away with what they're doing and a lot of that has to do with the condition what the properties look like when somebody drives a neighborhood they assess hey okay people there's a lot of real property here people don't really care um this is a good place for us or they drive to another neighborhood it sends a totally different message that is a fact so let me interrupt you on that i i know that that's an issue but i also have been seeing things improve as far as appearances in our neighborhood due to coding today thank you thank you we worked hard in our area because like i said my customer a vast improvement in the appearance of yielding that's helping but it's not solving our issue with the games because the games are what's the problem in our neighborhood

[1:00:25] no you're exactly right i'm not disagreeing with you what i'm trying to tell you is that that's where we are and the steps that we got to take to the things that we can do things about there's um housing federal housing laws that restrict us timing like if you left it up to me i mean i'll just tell you i can probably solve a lot of that problem but i can't do that because there's federal housing laws that restrict what we can do as a local government so that makes it a challenge for us but what you said like you noticed the things that were done on highway 51 at custer whitney how much time do we spend on that i mean that's something that we fought over and over we arrested a man in this building that came to me who refused to abide by the ordinance of our city and i vowed not to give up and uh and i didn't give up until he was arrested until he did make it right and to protect the ordinances and carried our artists in our city you can clearly see that there's an improvement anybody who's lived in that area for any time well thank you for saying it but we have more work to do you're right we have a problem and we are going to work together i had read something about some kind of game thing it's a youth program to involve the youth in some kind of anti-gay thing and it's a federal program i don't know very much more than what i read but obviously maybe people do get something some kind of program i don't know i just know it's a multifactorial problem there's no doubt it's not one thing it didn't happen overnight it took decades and decades to put us in this situation but no all those are good ideas and again uh it's not something we just started talking about we'll continue discussion on it we actually i'm going to tell you this board actually had another discussion about this i think it was at our last meeting about the rental property again so we're aware of the challenge but all i can tell you is i assure you that our police are working they understand they think that they're doing their homework they know the challenges that we have there i know the challenges that we have there uh and i can just tell you there's nobody i know

[1:02:28] i'm not the only one but there's nobody in this city that loves colombia hills more than i do and has concerns about it because it's not the neighborhood that i grew up in and i love that neighborhood and i'll just be honest with you this is me when i see the things that have happened over there it literally pisses me off and and i promise you i'm committed to doing anything i can as a mayor and i know our police chief is and we'll continue working to try to improve it any way we can okay the last thing about y'all though and by the way i was here by my garbage and that was resolved um with code it's hard to have an overwatch meeting so and we we need to have enough room watching charlie talk about this and get the police and people to come to talk to us if we come up with some solutions and things we can do so could we not have one outdoors i think there's a way like i stated earlier in the meeting there's a way to do things in a safe amended manner that we could do it safely obviously with it getting dark earlier you didn't want to have that uh during the daytime where you can have a nice weather weekend so to answer to your question is yes so maybe if we can all get together then we can schedule a meeting and just be an active neighborhood proactive thank you [Music] my concern with the rentals investors are buying properties they can be split and they are offering more than homeowners can afford to offer here's the list of price they offer above is there something we can do about that so that we can get home owners buying homes instead of investors you know but you just you ask the best question of the night if we can answer that question

[1:04:31] then we can solve our problem and and that is a very complicated thing you hit the nail on the head that's exactly what's going on and uh and we uh again back to housing laws how do you you know as a city for us to come in and tell someone that they can't sell their house you know think about that for a second i mean and that's what i'm saying if we could stop the rental properties or control the rental properties at least eliminate the degree of absentee ownership that's where you get the problem when you have when you have somebody who lives in south haven you have a lot of people like this who live in south haven and they have one to three rental houses it's a totally different ball game than some company in california that owns 50. totally different bargain and so if we can answer your question tonight i mean i think we can solve the problem but nick yeah i mean we've talked about this thousands and thousand times you just can't tell somebody what they can do with their property legally and i've moved to that earlier i want to hold their people fire whether it's the company you know he's over the company's california they come out here they buy all the properties i have friends on the upside down and they got a phone call over there or even their mail piece offering uh to buy property our home is not listed that's that's what's going on that's that's up there so it's it's there yes yes it's a city-wide problem and we we have bashed our heads up against the wall legal solutions being like he said they feel the federal government as well will save them and then we're both so there's no legal way to say during a home sale that it needs to be offered to uh first or medical laws i would be about you know having um i think we've discussed beforehand this will not be popular but having some kind of feed and you know figuring out a way to hold their feet this

[1:06:47] for now seven years that was one of the first things exactly we're gonna have a solution right now nick what would if we just hypothetically just to put this in perspective if somebody charlie makes a motion caller who makes a motion tonight and uh we get a second we voted in favor to to make it an ordinance our city where you can only sell your home to someone the owner occupies that how is that from a legal standpoint or for a time period for that house has to be listed for seven days only to owner occupied buyers i can't get in i was trying to sell my house i want something bigger i can't yeah i don't mean legally when all the two things legally it wouldn't hold up to me you can't the government can't come in and tell someone who they can sell and not sell to and that's just kind of i think they just they don't have to legally we don't have that power and then number two we did that power which we don't i don't know how it's enforced so say you want to sell your home and we have an ordinance that says well you can't sell it to anybody but uh you can't something like that lives in the city and it hasn't been under occupied what these companies can figure it out as to how they're going to charge me well the one way to work this too is to figure out how to make it unappealing for those companies in california want to come here and buy those until we figure that out that's what's going to that's what's going to continue doing what it's doing we have to figure out a way to make them uncomfortable not going to come here and and buy hold on in our neighborhood we had so many people that didn't care who lost their houses whenever they moved out and now we've got so many normal companies over there buying stuff i mean i think i pointed out maybe six or eight months ago they bought a house he paid sixty thousand dollars for the house and he's got a sign up front he's written that house with fifteen hundred

[1:08:49] dollars a month and then what you have is is he says section 8's welcome is that most functionalized with section 8. those people are moving in there they're living for maybe a hundred dollars a month living there the rest of the federal government pays for it so that's why it's so appealing because they can rent these houses for you know twice as much and then they can run about this record people because they get federally funded uh and that's that's that's the obstacle we i mean there's nothing we can do as a city i mean we've talked about having a rental orbits and the problem is i mean that's one of the things when i my first product when i came up with people that got noticed was can we do this and we can't i mean because you know there's no way you can enforce it and so really until people start having pride in what they have and say i'm not going to sell my house you know i have one you know one of my neighbors the other day and he's complaining for the last three years about all the rental properties and he said you know what i'm i'm through i'm moving his mama still just you know lives in the neighborhood he turned right around saw this house you know we buy houses you know i mean you know so they offered him exactly what he asked for and he's i mean everybody on the market 24 hours so until people start doing that have a little pride and say hey look i'm going to sell my house to somebody who wants to you know print it out it's not going to change uh i mean and unfortunately my thing is i just think that you know our police department they do a fantastic job but they're so short-handed as far as trying to get stuff done i mean we're they're so busy i mean these guys from the second league start their shift their work their brain calls them it's not like it was ten years ago whenever they could drive under that quick talk to everybody and that kind of stuff and and doing that kind of report with people that those days are gone uh and i don't even know if we hired you won't really swing the negative if they could change back to that because we're so close to memphis all that crime is coming over the lake i mean i'm i'm

[1:10:52] going to search today southland mississippi crime and it pops up they're talking i mean it's productive but the proximity is exactly why i listed you know one of the top 10 areas of the whole state as far as crime is concerned i mean we don't see it but it's because of the proximity right now without it talking about it that's what it is so i mean it's really frustrating i mean it is i mean you know just to see this stuff happening and um doing stuff like you like calendar tonight makes a difference i mean i mean we know i mean the mayor has to make a concern and some of the resources for about the problems over there but then the reason i wanted to bring it up tonight is to make sure that you know that you guys knew that the wedding whip service that you know we really knew what we're saying when we say we care about this stuff and that our chief is really over with doing all he can do and with what he's got and uh so because i mean you know what you're having with the social media everybody thinks although you're saying that to make us happy but you know it's it's really frustrating i mean you know being the new the newest guy here i mean i came in with all these great ideas and stuff they can you can make it happen only to find out you know i work tired i there's only so much we can do and uh but i mean i understand until people start having a problem that how they were gonna get especially like their rights mentioned the older people whatever it is they decide they want to move somewhere else and that kind of stuff you know or they tell their children today looking at them passing away how would you sell my house because anybody i want to sell to somebody else you know uh you know you'll live there and leave their house and take the community that's just kind of where we're at we've uh we've also interviewed other cities all over the state of mississippi and we can't find anybody that's doing it legally correctly the best thing that we've found to help determine terror crime is a strong homeowners association a homeowner's association has uh

[1:12:55] more power than than we do as far as our code enforcement like that so when you can get citizens involved and the problem with an older subdivision like colonial hills is you're never going to get enough people to agree to a fee that they've got to pay once a year or once a month to start a homeowners association so that's another another hurdle that you're going to face and just to let you know that this is not something that's not been contemplated uh we've had detailed discussions about the rental properties knowing that we can't which i what you said like i said you hit it on the head that's how you get to the root of the problem but we can't do that you can't tell someone who they can sell at home too but what we could do what we thought about is uh having a a mandatory inspection for any time the ownership like if somebody changes their water bill or there's another way to signal when the occupancy is changing in the home we've talked about having a plan to make it mandatory that there's an inspection of the home which you find out a lot when you inspect a home the problem with that is there are the occupancy of homes changed so much that's a massive undertaking we would be we don't even know how many people would take i mean we would be forming what uh in other places would be a housing department if we did that and so it would be tremendously a tremendous number of employees need a whole new department to do that so that's challenging that's one of the reasons and and let's just say it i mean to do something like that i mean you got to have a way of paying for it i mean you have to raise taxes or do something else that's just the facts but um but we do hear you and uh and just to set the record straight up i agree with alderman hoops but just to make sure on the same page we're not rated as one of the highest crime actually it's just a flip side which again is uncommon to our police department we're actually we have

[1:14:58] our problems now we're a growing city we're not a little city like we were uh in the past we have our crimes here um we're not making light of that but overall we're still rated the last rating i saw we were still in the top 10 of cities our size or actually it goes much smaller than us so it's a compliment to our police department we're still rated as one of the safest cities in mississippi so let's keep that in perspective we're not on the bottom it's saying mcconnell there's no doubt yeah memphis is a challenge for us but memphis all our crime doesn't come from memphis either just to let you know there's some we we have our own criminals and and there's there's other cities in mississippi uh that are hot spots that we face challenges for so it's not just memphis it's not our own challenge but anyway back to the issue what you said is correct is there a way we could do that we hear you but we're going to continue looking at it i'm well my ears are open i mean anything that we can do and like i said a lot of the things that we've talked about have realized that they're stricken by housing law federal housing laws to keep us from doing it but we'll keep working and we welcome the input so i appreciate you coming forward thank you appreciate y'all thank you and we definitely appreciate it you are noticed i appreciate that yes ma'am so i understand the legal issue i understand solutions i there was no cars on duty when that call came in saturday night he wasn't saying there was no cars well i mean when he said there were no cars

[1:17:00] i was stunned because when i tell you we heard the gunshots and we heard the sirens and they came and they were there and they responded and they hit their dog it seemed it was amazing because i i was shocked yes at the response time so i have nothing to compliment our police department but what i'm asking you people you said there was 280 000 above and beyond the budget already from one tax right there's 85 above and beyond the budget from another tax what are y'all going to do to get more police on the streets and our city we're already doing that now and what you said first of all the tourism tax by law that money can only be used for specified reasons it doesn't go in the general fund it can't be used by law to hire new police officers um the sales tax revenue does go in the general fund so that's why that's what i'm talking about that's why it's such a positive thing when you have growth in our city and again the same people that criticize our growth that we're all here we go building some i saw uh comments i got comments today like why are y'all developing on this corner this whole city is getting built out why are you doing that well when things like that happen it produces more money for the general fund which allows us to do things to hire more police officers in our recent budget we hired six new police officers uh we i don't know if you know this we went to a commitment to uh implement the first body cameras for our police officers uh we added 13 new squad cars for them so these things are expensive the police and fire budget are by far the two most expensive budgets for our city so there's nobody up here i can tell you there's not a person up here that's not committed [Music] yeah these are the things we need to be doing because what's going on in our neighborhood is going to be happening in five you're right there by years finger i'm telling you it's not going to stay in colombian hills and if our police department don't get what they need and our partners so let me make sure i

[1:19:03] understand are you suggesting that we're not getting our police for what they need i i'm not suggesting like i said we just added six new officers this year we don't need to be putting city funds into other things that could be put into that and i and i'm not assisting with anybody specific in anything i'm just saying every decision that it gets made by new people for the next 10 years needs to be is this something we really need or is this money that can go into our policies absolutely we couldn't agree with these people up here i know i'm speaking for them nobody could agree with you more and the things that we put money in this board sets the budget every year it's heavily discussed and a lot of things that uh i could probably guess what you're talking about but i'm not going to do that but the thing that also that you that i would encourage you to think about is there you have to make if you want to have a commitment to change your police partner have more officers which we do you have a choice on a given budget year you can either raise taxes which you know we're trying to we have to recognize that i mean we had to be fair to our citizens so we've not raised taxes we could we could solve a lot we if you want to hire a bunch of officers we could take a four mil tax increase right now but we this board has decided not to do that but we are conscious of the fact that we have challenges we are going to add more police officers what i was going to tell you and i would encourage you to understand this is a lot of the expenditures we make are investments in our city when you invest in your city you start seeing the 280 000 increase in sales tax so we're spending money investing to provide a return for our city that's going to put our city in a tremendously better financial condition which allows us to give raises to all our departments so you know to add more police officers so the suggestion that we're not uh committed to our police department is

[1:21:06] not true and i don't know if that's where you're going with that and i just want to make sure you understand well number two well over two thirds of our general thought book [Music] for the last five years five years the first two years of drugs for the last five years the number one priority in every question public safety and that's true every time so then my next question along those lines are is there something we can do to maybe close some of the entrances into our neighborhood so that those people that come into our country into our neighborhood and perform crime have fewer ways to get out [Music] that was the purpose of it but it served right but i'm explaining to you that that's not the purpose for that street closing was due to a drainage crop we had to take out widen the ditch because the homes and plum point and backed up that were flooding that had nothing to do with restricting access but is that something that can be done it can be done but but just so you know you have to be careful that when you start restricting access you're also restricting your own public safety people from being able to give to someone in a hurry so not just a police but an ambulance you start making somebody drive three weeks out of the way that could be the difference in a heart attack somebody dying or living from a heart attack to you guys to consider because again we we know the problems we're aware of them

[1:23:08] sure but we we're trying to find solutions by the same token but you might want a road closed i'd [Music] you know we we are just all trying to figure out ways that we can and i and i was alarmed to hear that on a regular basis we have all of our officers dedicated to different things but you know didn't you just say that i'm just just being fair didn't you say did you just praise our police for how quick they were there well they're amazing they are amazing but my point is no matter how many police officers you put on the street they're gonna respond and it definitely it's it is a numbers it's a number game to a degree but it still doesn't stop a criminal from getting bigger and the bigger we get the more there are and more are going to be required and that's i i that is what i gathered from all the conversations that we that i heard tonight we are getting bigger and it will not stay in the neighborhood it will not stay in two wars it will move certainly and just i know you weren't here in our public budget meetings but as always in florida stated we talked about this heavily in public meetings during our budget just to update you uh we talked about a plan of adding and again i don't want to quote the number of officers because that's something we don't want to tell the criminals what we're doing but we have a plan uh we know we're looking down the road like for the same concerns that you expressed we're not looking for just this year we're looking down the road we have a plan each year how we financially get to x number of officers because we know what you say we're doing that i just i just want to

[1:25:09] assure you that i just felt like when you came up you were basically suggesting that what happened was because we don't we're not committed to our police and that that's not true that's what i said i i feel better now that you're telling me y'all have a plan absolutely because it was alarming to me to think that you know i don't you there needs to be playing not reaction with man so life has not changed 10 15 years down the road and we don't have a knee-jerk reaction like i'm saying i know it's emotional for people when something happens like happen over the weekend it's disturbing i understand that it discovered me when i found out about i found out about it immediately i was very disturbed about it as well but what i want you to understand is we don't have a knee-jerk reaction we we i don't want to say that we're not surprised because we're always surprised when something like that happens but we're in the business of being prepared so we know that we have to make changes and we're not city of south surprised and i'm just telling you we've not had this kind of social media and even in our neighborhood where we have had crime we've not had these kinds of things right but i do want to again when i said earlier point out that it's not 1980 anymore and exactly and our kids are different and we could talk about this for hours and hours we can't solve this we have their social problems in our country and in our city and and so it's not like it was when we were growing up we did we do have challenges that we didn't have then and that has nothing to do with how many police officers we have it's just it's challenge that we face but we're i'll leave it at that we're committed to that and we're committed to our police like i said in this budget this board added money for six new officers and i tell you we had to do a lot of carbon to find that we did that without raising taxes um and again that's a that's a decision for this board uh state law allows us to go what is it four mills nick it's up ten percent yeah four meals for our purposes but ten percent yeah so ten percent would be between four and five meals for the city of south haven

[1:27:12] so we could take a maximum tax increase and dump all that money and hire new officers that's a that's a decision for this board but we have to be conscious of our citizens too because there's a lot of people that would not back you on that okay they would come up to this meeting stand right behind you and disagree with uh with raising the taxes so enough talk about i just want to assure you that it has nothing to do with this board and me being committed to our police department because we're certainly committed to that thank you yes yeah i did my best to keep this short because i know we've been here probably longer than you planned my name is barrett wilkinson i on brookhaven drive i've been there for 10 years i first moved into south david in 1970 i have lived in that area for a long time i've seen a lot of changes and as you all know in the last four or five years it hadn't been so good basically all i can do right now is let go everything that these other people i guess that's the advantage of going probably last because all i can really do is let go of what they said we've got a lot of concerns i get i'm one of those people that i get out and i talk to my neighbors i make myself available to them they bounce their ideas off me i do the same with them right now you got people in that community some that i've talked to more than one that are moving their master bedrooms from the front of their house to the back they're moving their kids out of their bedrooms that they've been in for years into the dean of the living room whatever's on the backside of the house that's how afraid the citizens in that community are and they have every right to be i'll say this listening to everything you guys have said it's been very educational this is my first time at one of these meetings i'm actually quite impressed what you guys have said what you've done what you've looked at in the past how you've

[1:29:14] tried to be proactive i guess in all the one thing i can ask that you do and i realize there's so many things to take into consideration before you do a tax increase to hire more police officers but more firefighters are more equipment there's so much more that goes into that decision than the average citizen knows and i appreciate the tax rate that we've had i think i'm going to be the odd man out maybe on this statement though i would be willing to pay more in taxes to see chief more add more officers on the street uh follow the efforts that you make i'm not here to criticize anybody i appreciate the city i live in i've been here 40 plus years today i will tell you how much i like to see it's a great place to raise your kids the house that i'm currently in i purchased it 10 years ago before i made the decision to buy that house i pulled into the driveway for about two weeks and i may seem little watch but i just got around rush hour just to watch and see what happened in that neighborhood if i were making that same decision and those same actions right now today i wouldn't i wouldn't buy that house i just win i hate to say that it's not something that i look forward to saying but this city i'll just leave you with this this city is almost as strong as its weakest line and right now the neighborhood i lived in is the city of south haven's sweetest land and we need your help we need your help i appreciate what you do you're a good

[1:31:25] man this guy used to chase me around in you know where you need to be right now boy you ask police officers and teachers do the jobs appearance this is the recipe for disaster this is what you get that's all you're exactly right the issues that i've had and nothing well one major issue i had a young man draw a pistol on the outside that would rotate and drive simply because i yelled at him to slow down he was in hotline and he burned the tires from brookhaven's highland circle i lived four houses down and he passed my house he was still smoking those fires and i said hey slow down the way he wanted to solve that problem was to come back and draw a firearm fortunately i had one as well but that's for another day but that's the kind of issues we're dealing with it's the young people they have charlie boots i think i saw you on facebook there you said something about the kids these days they have no respect they don't know what it is and we all know where that comes from they're not being taught that at home and we can't come in here as citizens of this city and look at you guys and expect you to create the united states that's needed to take care of these kids that's not what you do we're sentences too like we're just lucky who's that up here we love everybody up here loves us that's what we serve so there is i don't know how to look at us versus the type thing we we live in the community as well well again

[1:33:33] i'm out of here right now but we are only as strong as our weakness very well said thank you for coming forward and i do want to share one other thing with everyone since we're having this discussion it's not a secret that it's a challenge for our for our police departments not just south haven but for all the departments all over the united states of america for obvious reasons now to recruit new officers you know look at what's happened just this year the disrespect to police that affects us in south haven too for the last i can tell you before chief moore started with the city until uh on july the 10th of 2019 for the three budget years before that we discussed every budget here about how many police officers we're going to add or what you know how much money do we have to add police officers so when that request has made those three years we had on average about 10 vacant positions well we're not going to go uh hold up money in a budget for a position we can never feel that doesn't make any sense so we didn't allocate money for additional officers because we couldn't fill the spots already funded the city already had those positions budgeted for the money sitting there but we couldn't film because we couldn't recruit and get to get the position still so that's one of the reasons like for for about the last three years well then i commend chief moore chief moore came in and in his first year he was able to fill the position so when he filled the positions that's when this budget with this board this budget here we said hey we're in a different situation we've been in four years we got our other positions are full we can look at expanding officers so we did we expanded without raising taxes uh we expanded six new officers this year and we have a plan again we're not gonna name numbers because that that doesn't need to be quoted we have a plan to continue doing that to track it because you said a great statement and i agree to 100 you're only as good as your weakest link and and when i tell you and i'm not here to crown anybody's shoulder when i tell

[1:35:35] you that i think about colony hills daily you listen to me i think about calling the hillsdale and uh when i celebrate the things in our city that are great uh all the great things we have going on there's also at the end of that great feeling there's a little uh bittersweet at the end because i worry about falling again not just calling him but conan hill's because it's special to me personally so i just want you to know that we don't just start thinking about this tonight we had this long discussion this is something we understand the issue i agree with everything you said i hate the same things about what's changed in kilometer hills that you do yeah but we're committed to make it better and i'll just leave it at that did you want to say something else yeah i have a question do we have a boys club in this community a girls club there's a ymca um let me finish if you will ymca is involved a lot of things like that we've recruited ymca for south haven they have radius guidelines so since they have the one in olive branch and they have the one on elvis presley that disqualified us i've had one-on-one meetings with the ymca trying to bring them here and so you want to expand you're not just talking about that if you're talking about a true boys a true boys and girls right we don't i mean obviously you know we try to have opportunities for kids to get involved and a lot of the recreational not just sports before anybody says it's just it's not just about sports it's about other things but sports have proven to be a great way to take um underprivileged neighborhoods and give kids something where they can use that sport for their education and to change their life so our recreational sports programs do a lot of that there's so many men and women that this parking lot couldn't hold all the men and women over the years that have donated their own money providing equipment registration fees going and picking the kids up and taking them home after practice when they're

[1:37:37] hungry they're ready to get home with their family they're driving all the kids home so there's an enormous amount of outstanding volunteers in south haven to help kids like that but uh i just want to point that out because that's kind of what we've been able to do in a positive way in exchange for a voice club um but long way to answer your question no we don't have an official voice club of america [Music] you can have a police car on every street and it's gonna solve the problem yeah because then they'll just go the next street right wherever we need to address the problems and the game situation i agree a lot of them aren't going to be interested in sports but maybe if we can get a boys and girls club or some other things like that and if they get into trouble or something maybe they need to get their voices up for a while or something i don't know well we did just again fyi we did have a contract the city gave money to an organization called new solutions for several years and then that long ago and uh the founder of that was a former gang member and that was his purpose to go back into communities and try to prevent kids from getting into games and we don't want to get into all that tonight just to let you know people don't get in gangs when they're old enough to drive a car and shoot somebody they get in games at a very early age and the reason they do that is because of bullying because they're looking in a lack of a father figure they're looking for someone to take up for them and to direct them so when there's not a father figure and there's not money and things for them to do they migrate towards a game that's how it happens so so this group was uh we city gave money to support this group to come into our communities and to work with gangs we know that we're at risk of gangs

[1:39:38] the other thing was um um there's an organization called desoto grace it's in our south haven program it's not just about sports but they they do help kids with sports clinics but they often also do after school tutoring and uh and when i say these people are incredible they don't just bring these kids in there and help them with their homework they feed them that's one of the problems they're hungry these kids these kids have to go to school to eat they don't get to eat uh there's many organizations that pack lunches for the weekend in our schools because when these kids leave on friday as sad as that sounds they don't have food until they get back to school so they will pack these lunches for them to eat over the weekend so they can get back into school so these we have these organizations now they're doing an incredible job and i know that doesn't it's not enough but i just want you to know that there are people in our community that recognize the problems that you've expressed and they are working you know to try to help them sound bad yeah the church i go to the backpack program and it's a great thing but i think we have kids too that are just out of the streets all day nothing to do and at least probably if they have other alternatives absolutely and uh and if you will will you um you can go to my uh front page or you go to page the city website and uh you can email me directly just go to services and you can click and i'll have my email address there send me ideas if you're just any day if you just whatever something comes to you and you say hey you know what this may work in south america email that to me you know if you are if you have a contact of a voice club or or any kind of girls organizations anything like that um email that to me i'll share that with the board we'll take it to committee meetings and talk about that because we're on the same page we have the same goals as you we wanted to be better did okay we do have to move on i appreciate the discussion those are some uh really good concerns and uh very well said by all of you so thank y'all so much for uh

[1:41:41] coming forward okay next on the agenda is our personnel document mr mary i'm going to be a good person got a motion broke second monitoring gallagher any discussion okay roll call please yes that motion carries next on the agenda is our city attorney's legal update this afternoon uh first is awarding the water treatment did i know chemical uh city received two bids emissions and item chemicals the only one that competes back so tonight award the chemical we're dead to water water awards water treatment chemical via to audio chemicals for one year with the one year when you want some move we have most bottom and gallagher second modern wheeler is there any discussion [Music] uh no change in price last year it is let me pull it up right here the uh the different the soda liquid how the total list would flip a few percent uh 39 cents um for performance acid 40 cents any other discussion and the next is uh

[1:43:50] police vehicle equipment physical uh received bids to employment bid was received um it wasn't from conservative memphis this will allow for the police to uh provide the new provided equipment for new vehicles uh to come serve the bid it is going to be in mountain light exceed 124 thousand dollars we have motion bottom floor segment wheeler is there any discussion hearing now all right next on the agenda is our utility bill adjustment document mr mayor immediately approved to tell the oldest documents we have motionballer brooks second mother of hoose is there any discussion hillary yes that motion carries based on the agenda are two claims dockets is there a motion to approve document one smearing recruit number one forty four thousand eight hundred fifty dollars thank you we have motion caller brooks second homes is there any discussion very nine or alcohol yes yes that motion carries is there a motion to prove doctor too samaritan's approved from two about fifteen thousand five hundred thirty one dollars and eighty four cents we've got a motion phone that brooks second monitor flores that's our discussion here you know roll call yes

[1:45:57] motion carries next on the agenda is the purpose of determining the need for executive session can't wait that moment got emotional on the gallery the second law of the wheeler say any hi they know eyes have emotional queries and they deceiving as claims and litigation involving uh city infrastructure in the san diego police department and economic development within the city is our motion to declare executive sessions um got a motion on the dick's second one gallagher all the favor saying all right you opposed to say no i was having motion carries the mayor on board okay

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