10/15/2019

[0:00:00] welcome everyone now calling this meeting to order please stand with us we'll be led in prayer involving the gathering please remain standing under that for the pledge of allegiance heavenly father once again we gather in your name lord we pray that you would be with us lord to help us make decisions that would be pleasing to you in everything that we do lord lord i want to pray for uh steve faulkner in particular the lord jesus that you would just reach down and touch his body lord and heal him from his his problems that he's having lord lord i pray that you bless this media bless the city of south america your name we pray amen of the united states of america and to the republic [Music] with liberty and justice [Music] okay first on the agenda this evening is approval of minutes for the october 1 2019 meeting mr mayor move we approve the minutes of the regular meeting of october 1st 2019 with any additions deletions or corrections second we have a motion bomber in pain second of all brooks is there any discussion yes the motion carries next on the agenda is the fy 19. final budget amendment mr chris wilson mayor board is simply the last budget amendment of closing it out the fy 2019 year

[0:02:03] and it's prepared just close this out soon we'll go ahead and start with our audit which will happen kelly is there any discussion hearing none welcome yes that motion carries next on the agenda's resolution for lien's two assessments mr nick manley uh this is the resolution for those with though as you're calling me condemned the loss from 219 11 this will allow for those liens to be filed as assessments with the tax successor to be effective in taxes for fy19 i would be likely collecting fbi 20 tonight just need authorization for this mayor for the mayor to sign this resolution mr america resolution mayor is out there to educate the cost of cleaning property yes yeah okay but cost if you can't you pay the cost of cleaning property imposing a penalty and posing assessment of the same against property uh give you permission to sign president second we have a motion ball on brooke's second arm in pain 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 like to speak hearing or seeing none real complex yes yes the motion carries next on the agenda's resolution for the city of south haven um for the proposed uh general obligations bond project series 2020. this resolution will uh the resolution of intent um for the issuance of up to 15 million dollars in bonds by the city of south

[0:04:07] haven it'll be advertised uh over the next couple of weeks with um next time it's brought in front of you the second meeting november uh tonight you just need authorization for the mayor to sign the resolution of intent um and so to be published in the the seven times as well i'll make that motion thank you we have a motion by alderman gallagher second ballinger wheeler is there any discussion again just to clarify i did receive a couple of questions about this this is basically um you know the resolution to the startup process but we've not set a final dollar amount nor have we um you know completed a capital improvement plan that the board you know will do in the near future that has not been done yet and this is not committing the city to um to specifically how the money is spent so any other discussion hearing none on welcome letters that will go along with that too i can present those real quick online um letters with the resolution sure please do as part of the resolution the engagement letters um for bond counts for butler snow um fa for with government consultants and then randy james as the underwriter authorized the mayor to sign the navy played with all three of those entities as part of the bond issues absolutely thank you we have a motion to honor brooke second yes yes the motion carries next on the agenda is the mba dip grant

[0:06:10] agreement with medline and i'm still not i was hoping to have the final versions of those tonight um you know with council redline this afternoon we're still waiting in the final version so my thought tonight would be just the authorization for the mayor to sign those agreements contingent upon the dip grant being reflected that it's reduced by 250 000 that has a 10-year tax assessment i mean 10-year tax abatement um 300 feet jobs within the five with within five years following execution 100 jobs within six years six point five years of the fma execution for a total of 400 jobs and that they would medline will reimburse the city if those adults are not met which the city will then reimburse mba if it reflects those terms my uh thought tonight i'd be authorizing the mayor to sign that attention upon those departments being in the agreements for the uh moa and the site inspection agreement and then the next meeting those communities into the minutes um for the forward to have in the minutes um that way making the health speaking process alone but because i don't have the final version and we don't meet again in three more weeks that was not golfers tonight that's what they were thinking about i'll link that motion contingent on the term statement second bit of motion going the pain second bottom or wheeler is there any discussion and just to clarify that it will be reduced by 250 because 250 will be applied toward the a screen which will still be the same amount of money contributed to the product any other discussion hearing no welcome yes theory purchase or purchases i should say about planning the farmer yeah this is the resolution for the purchase of brackets and the sole source letter and the cost are included with the resolution switch

[0:08:13] britain inc and they will provide they have a special patent on the bracket that will be uh utilized by the city for the hanging of the banners the patent number and sole source letter are included as part of their sole source dedication that has been provided to the city and including the resolution this is meredith resolution they reported on the city of south haven authorizing single source item purchase by south african planning department that's presented on this state mechanic with a motion volunteer brooks second of all kelly is there a discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed say no i just haven't motion carries next on the agenda is a resolution for surplus property in the utility department and police department just stand in the resolution surplus there are two separate motions but my thought would be having a resolution two separate resolutions passed by one motion so that's how okay on board okay uh just clearance properly make the motion for both and that way you could be recorded i mean some resolution could be making motion remote samaritan week except the resolution for surplus broader property and both the utility and the southern police department as president thank you we have a motion to honor brooke's second balloon pain is there any discussion hearing none welcome yeah next on the agendas of our parks department contract with pepsi this contract will replace our current contract with pepsi and wes brown has done a good job of getting them to give us better terms in our current contract we've gone back and forth with current with revisions and pepsi has accepted the revisions and has signed the contract

[0:10:15] that will uh state the rainbow variety drinks at the parks which we've been obviously resold on the part of our parks program um so tonight just authorization for the mayor to sign the resolution with pepsi for that program to sell the um drinks at the parks department for resale and the cost thereof and having answered the questions real motion volume and pain second ball reboots is there any discussion here you're done welcome yes yes that motion carries next on the agenda's authorization to accept the city health insurance renewal mr chris or our wilson um work cut out for us again this year um we're basically down to two proposals one for uh read up the cigna they came in at about 17 increase um the recommendation is to change good united health care which they came in at uh 12 increase over current um you'll recall that during the budget process we uh 15 increase was already budgeted so we do come in under that so budgetary we're fine the the benefits it's not a exact match on the um on the benefit plan one united is both baptist desoto and methodist network so we do get baptist back in our network and zero copay for children under the united plan which i'm signing could not match and then at the end of the day though you're still talking about saving five percent on the bottom line to the city plan but that is a 12 across the board increase for all tiers and open enrollments should we decide uh tonight would be um first of november because making a switch would be recommended to do we'll take some time and um we want to make

[0:12:17] sure the employees have enough you know gearing up time to learn the new plan but on as far as the formularies prescriptions and the plans exclusions um it's a free standard across both plans so memphis is not the same damage back is to soda and this will be also contingent upon that rate is also going to be going with um united for dental and vision also and um they are proposing a 10 a 5 reduction in dental and a 10 reduction for current rates and vision so specifics of that would be i mean obviously within emergency care it's it's all network you get transferred out of network i think it well works they're going to transfer you to where your network is after emergency care is given but that's your recommendation yes second got a motion uh audra flores uh second by alderman gallagher i'll start at a little more discussion just so everyone will know as we discussed previously the city has experienced extremely high loss ratios with health insurance over the last three or four years we've a lot of past years this board has decided along with me agreeing that we don't want to take away benefits you know it means a lot to us to be able to provide the city employees with uh with a quality healthcare plan

[0:14:20] at no cost to them obviously they pay employees pay for the dependent care but it's a big deal for the city to still provide a health insurance policy for our employees at no cost to them and we've been able to maintain that in order to be able to continue with that it is important to note that we've had to make some changes to the carriers like we had to go to them and agreed to two different things like last year we have the same as chris said we got the same package um two thousand dollar deductibles with the city pays uh you can go dependent uh for your dependents you can go up or you can go to three or four but uh in the past we've allowed a buy down to a thousand and we don't that's not available this year and the reason that we did that again is to show the health insurance underwriters that we're serious about controlling our losses our loss ratio in 2019 was 160 someone pointed out that i was speaking insurance jargon so let me let me simplify that just a little bit what that means is is if you pay for the exact numbers let me give you the exact in 2019 we build 2 million 284 000 that's how much premium the insurance company got from us our claims were uh so far this is not a complete year 3 million 343 000. so i'll challenge anyone in the room if you want to take that business deal if not then i'd like to do some business with you after the meeting um companies are not just going to do they're not going to do it anymore i mean our losses are are just extremely high um we had to go to them uh to get a better deal to get the premium down to say hey we'll we'll do some things to help control our losses one of those is no more buy down a thousand deductible the other thing that we're proposing that um at uh sign in this open enrollment this year is uh the spouse exclusion and we talked about that in a past budget meeting a few weeks ago

[0:16:23] and what that is if your spouse has access to another employer-provided health insurance plan they will no longer be eligible for the city plan uh it does not affect dependents at all uh kids can can stay where they are if your spouse doesn't have another option no change uh that's still gonna be available but this spouse exclusion is something that's common uh throughout the united states a lot of companies and organizations have gone into this to control laws so chris can tell you what's the number was it 65 what was the number uh the percentages are claims over 25 000.65 so it just kind of lets you know that we have to uh we have to do something show the carriers something that we're doing you know to change our situation otherwise next year we might have the options that we do this year so um it's also my recommendation of the board i think united healthcare is a good option i mentioned this in the department head meeting today um it's common that people will say one company's better than another you know this company pays well there's actually no such thing as that i mean it's a standard policy it's a contract basically you're changing carriers the cover stays the same if there's something that's not paid that was paid on your other policy then you need to check and make sure that it was coded properly from the medical uh facility so it's basically the same coverage yes helping us control losses and as chris mentioned uh there's a few extra perks that we'll have this year that we didn't have last year and the city plan will be the 2000 plan that doesn't change so the plan is offered free of charge all the toys would still be in 2010 any other discussion hearing no no yes that motion carries next on the agenda is authorization to hire a paving consultant um alderman

[0:18:26] flores had a specialist that he's reached out to and uh and alderman if i'm understanding correctly he's agreed to come to a special meeting before we actually hire him so he's agreed to come and if it's necessary after that meeting then we would actually hire that person okay well that's that's a kind gesture we appreciate that i think that'll be helpful and we're waiting on him to respond back to you on when he can be available right here okay so i'll update the board as soon as we don't need to take action tonight so as soon as uh i know those dates uh we'll go ahead and set a special meeting we'll bring this consultant in and uh we'll have a special meeting to um to ask questions and seek any other discussion about that before we move on okay um next on agenda's resolution to clean private property mr mayor literally not the resolution training authority to claim private property on the state secretary bill motion baltimore brooke second baltimore wheeler is there any discussion among the board hearing none is there anyone in the audience as a financial interest in any of the properties that would like to speak hearings are seeing none wrongful place yes yes that motion carries next on the agenda is our planning agenda this is william cook our first application we have got a request for a conditional use permit to allow a full service car wash to be located on the south side of church road west of w rose parkway if you'll remember the last meeting we approved the lot it's actually located next to the convenience store that was already approved on the hard corner

[0:20:29] what we looked for in the conditional use is just to make sure that barry went saturated with the use requested uh the closest one we found was over by lowe's because there's a full face polish i did fall in line with the character of the neighborhood and that everything around it was commercial uh so the planning commission did vote unanimously in favor of the conditions is there any discussion theories number two with the design review for that structure and for the uh office the pay station and building itself uh you'll see it's two tons of brick it's stacked stone uh it does have some bronze awnings uh we had some comments from the planning commission in terms of the colors that needed to contrast a little bit better we got those today we're going to bring it with those uh they didn't have to add in a decorative lighting they had extensive revisions to the landscape which they did comply with um so with those changes the recommendation is to approve as administratively submitted mr mayor i move that we have provided number two as presented when i have two we have a motion bottom and gallagher second volume of the wheeler is there any discussion the impressive dresses off church the ingredient rest is a shared access point off of church road and it also shares across access over w ross parkway with the convenience store okay can you have a discussion on two very nine roll call yes our next application is by tri-state

[0:22:35] voters for a conditional use permit as stated in their request was for a minor vehicle repair shop together north side of rotating drive east of 51 more specifically it's 1376 blue haven drive this has been a better vehicle pair in the past it's now being occupied by the applicants we have had them vacate the use for motor vehicle repair at this point in time because they were not allowed on that some of the things we looked at is um you can see on there it's a large parcel of land it's included with two other buildings and there seems to be a storage on the back side of the two buildings that are included in there and there's a lot of vacant space behind it it's adjacent to the old gossip salad yard so one of the stipulations we have on there is there can be no storage past with the fence line is uh they've agreed to that uh we have also had them put a more extensive list together like i stated they've decided to go with a minor vehicle repair and i explained to that that's a 24 hour 48 hour period of repair my repairs are quick you know oil changes and things like that what we found is that they actually buy insurance total cars revamp them and then sell them out so we had them revise it to a motor vehicle repair shop which was more extensive and we put together a more detailed list of the things that we'll be doing one of the stipulations we do have on there is that they cannot do paint there so there will be no paint booth uh and if there's more work extensive than this then they have to send it off to an additional shop that's more qualified for it they didn't agree to that and that was the stipulations from the planning commission so with that we recommended approval over one year with a four-year conditional use to be reinspected annually for four whole years mr mayor make a motion to improve item three we have a motion about honoring kelly second modern pain is there any discussion if you wanted to address it or if you

[0:24:48] wanted me to explain uh task order for the new design and the bid process for the city entrance sum if you will just continue since we have it there if you don't mind what we have is a task order from urban art to um design a new city entrance sign which has the curved limestone edge design detail which is a little different from what you have up here at 55 and state line road in addition to that um after this next sign that we're going to have to interact with the london goodman we'll have to go back out to bed for the remainder of the city entrance sign so with that um this task order includes the design along with the bid process the bid specs and also um construction inspections um on site per sign it does have a cap a nod to exceed number and it's got hourly rates associated associated with it uh the cap is at fourteen thousand five hundred dollars um and talking to urban ark and the project manager we don't foresee it coming anywhere near that number i talked to the mayor about it what we'll continue to do on this is having itemized it a little bit further out and things that we can take on and monitor ourselves now that we've kind of got our feet wet with the signage the things we can take on we'll reduce their scope of work on that and we'll take that on ourselves but we'll have an itemized list before we sign invoices and put them on the docket to pay so we're requesting approval for that this is for the rest of our signs the the signage that they're doing the drawing for now is going to be on the northwest corner of malone road and gibbon road so our entrance in from olive branch we do have additional signage that we're looking at for gatlon state line um starlanding and highway 51. um yeah well possibly goodman and get well at some point to do kind of district sign but this gets our our design specs put together it gets them out to bed we could do three or we could do seven just we need to get the bid out there we need to get those specs out there um so we don't have to keep doing this every three times so just to kind of add to that mainly the change is real simple like the uh the signs that we have that

[0:26:51] have a radius design they're orange just like the one that's at state line uh state line and northwest or the interstate right there basically when they when we initially started talking about this they were going to put those in districts and so he would have like you know west end district snow district metro district whatever we realized that um a lot of these are at city endless locations like maybe said malone and goodman that's going to be a grand city entrance location and since it's going to be at an intersection it's we realize that it's better to have the radius look to have the curve look but we need to change it instead of having district we're going to put south haven it will be larger because we have faster speeds the larger signage so we had to do a change up for those areas so that's all that's changing really uh but the most of the task order like whitney said would be we're into a new budget year so what we did is we allocated enough money in the beautification line to try to do at least two a year we may be able to get three um so when we bid it last time we just did it for uh three so we're gonna have to rebid so they'll be overseeing that but we really believe the more that we've done these we've got a tighter grip on it we're probably not going to need a whole lot of inspection right um so we're just basically approving an hourly rate you know for when we do need our car all of them do have the lighting package of what you see out here and the one by the way the the second one is at i-55 and star landing that is under construction now so if you've been on i-55 that it's going to have a grand loaf it's on that hill it looks good you know we we adjusted it upward a little bit so it's got good visibility it's going to be a great entrance to the city on the south side any other discussion okay we didn't actually have a motion though is there a motion to approve it you got the motion okay got a motion modern repeat is there a second

[0:28:55] second of all in brooks um any other discussion hearing none we're all called please yes yes that motion carries thank you all right next on agenda's uh mayor's report i'll start with the district's banner since we were uh just recently talking about that we can get some photos up on that basically just to recap some history here the reason that we're buying new brackets is we realized in 2014 when we first did the banners we um realized that the brackets that we were using were successful to win uh so that's why you've seen us have to replace a lot of the banners i've gotten uh you know tattered and frayed and so we realized that there's a better bracket that holds it more steady so that's why whitney has that on there to get the other brackets when we get the other brackets in uh we realized that it was a good time to go ahead and make whatever changes that we needed uh first of all let me start if we can go to the metro all right you all know that last year we created the metropolitan district which is our third business district in the city it's the church road i-55 area and the reason we named it metropolitan is uh we have prospect economic prospects there uh that will bring like an urban feel so you've got you know some luxury style not apartments but uh uh hotels uh that are interested in coming there we have tanger outlets it's gonna be a huge retail area we believe that we've got serious potential for possibly even like an upscale um multi-story office complex things like that that will really bring an urban feel to south haven that we've never had before the metropolitan district is that area so we needed a banner uh that's the banner for the metropolitan district and uh you may say before i say it wasn't aren't those the colors that we used on

[0:30:57] the west end and uh and you would be correct and so if we can flip to the west end that leads me into that discussion we decided or proposed that we would change the banner in the west end and that's just because we love for our citizens to be happy and even though we thought the other banners looked fantastic we had some of our citizens that didn't understand uh the black and tan logo they felt like the black logo for i'm still trying to understand this but they felt like the black logo um was not colorful and happy you know just kind of gave a gloomy look some people even said that it looked like isis uh i mean i heard a lot of different comments so um so hey we're listening so we we're gonna change that so we're going to make it colorful so in the original part of south haven the home of the south haven chargers what better color to bring than a beautiful ocean blue so there you go we got a new west end district color and i didn't take theater at any time in my life either i'm just like i'm just uh feeling a lot of past conversations coming out right now so um so excuse the theatrics on my part but anyway we've got a beautiful new blue west end district banner we've got the black in there to make it classy steel that's going to match the mast arms where they're going to be installed so these are actually on order now and when the brackets come in and the banners come in we'll install the west end district banners um not only were they uh where the black ones are now but y'all recall that on highway 51 in our original business district we added uh mass storms when we did our intersection modernization project there so we'll be able to add these banners on highway 51 too so we think it'll really improve the look of our city contrary to some of the concerned citizens we've had many many citizens that that understand the business district concept they've seen in other cities

[0:32:59] business districts have zero to do with residential neighborhoods they have everything to do with revitalization and showing the key assets that you have in a certain business district in your city we believe that the west end district has enormous potential to be revitalized and to be a thriving part of our city again so we're going to continue to do everything we can to promote the west end district so so we got that one there uh we got the metropolitan banner and then snoke the snowden one did not change we're just gonna uh you know have the new brackets to preserve them longer so anyway we've come a long way uh in trying to explain that the west end district and snowden district were never to divide the city they're again to highlight key assets of our city and so we've added a third one very proud of that we have big plans in the metro district there's a lot of interest in the metro district you know with the business uh business types that i mentioned and we hope that within the next you know 12 to 18 months you're going to see some things shapeless in the metropolitan district and uh it's going to be a thriving part in our city as well okay so that's another any discussion or questions about the match going back to the western district is that that's blue yeah it's blue it kind of has a purple hue in the in the photo but we actually took got a physical samples and held them and touched them and looked down just a suggestion and and not to do a whole lot to it i mean i like the sign it looks really good but what if we made this just the stars orange just to give it a little bit more of a charger charger field well just um my suggestion and that's one of the reasons why i'll just be real candid and open with the public and everybody if we try to lay out design a banner for 55 000 people and agree on we're going to be here a lot and so so i just took i don't disagree i just took the along with listening to my resources whitney uh is very skilled in her

[0:35:03] creativity christy faulkner you know i i really relied on them to give me some input on what what you think looks good but specifically the orange i think the orange would just my opinion is it's loud it's a little too loud yeah and it's not else it's going to take over right yeah i think if you add the orange in there you um we want to keep it um simple and professional you know that's that's why i think you know adding a blue for the original you know it's not just about southaven high school obviously but we can't deny that southern high school is a big part of our original you know um our city and uh so that's why i think the blue is good but i would think adding the orange there would be going a little overboard it would be too much you know southampton high school you know this district is more than southampton high school so that's that's just my opinion would you like to add to that i mean i like i'm i'm a simple design person and i do know that the more color we add into it that's a simple design the more color we add into it it gets more costly because they have to layer the colors on so we did what's called a two-tone on it um they could always redesign it but my idea was kind of stay as simple as we could and then if we added star color in that one it's almost like we have to come up with a star color for the other two to kind of stay a little bit more uniform so i mean that's just my opinion brooks is that a mushroom he suggested but anyways i just wanted uh everyone to see that and uh you know to open up discussion again and to know kind of where we are and uh

[0:37:06] you know why we why we have done what we've done but i think having the three districts and the new banners up are going to be phenomenal uh just related to that we uh we ordered uh christmas snowflakes this year um i've had a special citizen that basically is uh told me that uh that they that one time we had snowflakes in the city i don't remember that but hey evidently she knows what she's talking about so it's been a mission of mine um to make our citizens happy at christmas time so we're gonna have some sunflowers this year so the snowflakes are gonna be on the new mass stars on highway 51. uh we're gonna have some lit up snowflakes this year so we're proud of that all right so we'll move on if there's no other discussion about the banners um on october 24th we're going to have we're going to celebrate breast cancer awareness day our public communications officer tish dunning has had some great ideas and you know there's no one in this room that hasn't been affected by breast cancer and so we think it's important as a city that we do our part and you know and bring awareness to that so on october 24th we're going to ask everyone that's not in uniform to wear pink and that will be our breast cancer awareness day um also the month of october is national bully prevention month so there will be some things that we're going to try to do there just to call attention to that obviously our schools oversee some challenges there and as i mentioned to every school official that i've ever discussed with this the city stands ready i know our police chief and i discussed this this morning our police stands ready to help in any way possible and we certainly don't want to see any more tragedies we know that uh that bullying among young people is a is a problem in our society and uh that needs to end we all have our opinions on how we do

[0:39:07] that um but i think it's something that as a city we should call attention that to let everyone know you know that we will do everything on our part to you know to prevent the bullying of our children a couple quick updates rascal in tula homa we've been doing a traffic study there things changed dramatically as i've said before when we when we cut rasco through uh rasco has a tremendous tremendously higher uh volume of traffic on it now it is that it's an east-west corridor and so for that reason there's been a tremendous difference in the traffic at raskol and tula home we went back and did some research we thought maybe we could just put a four-way stop there at one time and uh the traffic studies show that we've already transcended uh the stop sign need we are at the level of needing a signal there so um when we get into further discussions in the upcoming meetings about our capital improvement plan uh that's going to be one of my recommendations that we had a signal that has gone to oklahoma um just another quick update the decorative streetlight ornaments we've continued to get new information back from entergy regarding that so um the latest price was not much more uh than just putting a standard concrete pole so now we've kind of gone full circle back to if it's just a few dollars more you know we don't want to take the ownership so and again i'm dealing with the information that i've been given at one time i was given a number that was four times what a standard concrete pole is the latest number is a concrete pole to rent from energy where they take care of all the maintenance they own the pole they handle all the maintenance and expense is 14 monthly per pull so now we can get a 20-foot decorative pole for 24 hours a month so if you look at a new development one of the most the most current ones to give you an example i wrote through it the other day encountered them uh the gardens of bell point has 24 holes

[0:41:10] so if you uh measure i mean i do the math on 24 times 24 uh you would look i think it's about 3 900 a year is what we would pay for the entire subdivision that's adding is about 300 houses so you're getting a large amount of new property tax revenue for just about you know 3900 a year so rather than a city jump out and require the developer to put them in and own them in the city to do it and then let's do the maintenance on for that small amount of money um you know not asking for a vote tonight i just want to give you an update if nothing changes with that in a future meeting i'll come to you and say i would recommend that we keep doing it like we've been doing now that doesn't change the fact that we have some key areas like may boulevard and main street where we want to go and replace the lighting for beautification reasons the cost of that was tremendously more to have the entergy do that so it's still my recommendation there that the city paid a cost of that project and not have any rental fee on that uh our public works department has already stated that that's not a big deal at all for them to maintain a few areas of polls in our city so i think we're getting and i think i know we're getting tremendously better value in those areas because of the boring costs are so much higher on those arterial roads than they are throughout a residential neighborhood so we'll get to that later too but just want to give you an update on that we are waiting on that estimate from a couple of lighting companies uh electric companies as soon as we get that i'll bring that back before the board uh maybe boulevard is going to be the first thing that's pressing as we continue to have development there in the towns of the town square style square we need to go get the lights up so as soon as we have those numbers uh whitney we expect midweek next week as soon as i get those i'll report back to everyone and that's all i have to say any other questions about anything i've said hearing none next on the agenda uh is our citizens agenda we had uh we have one person that signed up to speak um it's effort alexander please come

[0:43:13] forward to the podium mr mayor says mom is here i uh i find it quite challenging because you had such a harmonious meeting and frankly i found it quite pleasant to be here i'm afraid alexander i'm a native mississippian from monticello area i graduated from jackson state the university of illinois and economists where i'm training i worked for the u.s army corps of engineers for 27 and a half years and retired as a senior congress i'm also a pastor president uh pastor one of my southern baptist churches in memphis i tonight my service is interrupted for reasons that i can see that you will believe also that there's no reason for you to be here hearing me not meeting me here i would be at afternoon of jail uh serving as a volunteer chaplain there i served as a volunteer chaplain at um baptist minnesota i'm investing greatly in the state even though i live in memphis i'm presently looking at uh locating back on property to which i the very president to you my concern should i have to come to this uh county there are certainly some uh influences that i hope to have that nobody would be presented before you with such a frivolous kind of presentation of a code violation as a minister who owns 15 acres of property that is classified as agricultural as being also certified with the natural resource conservation service for wood and timber growth the case in general is this is that i

[0:45:15] received a notice as i was preparing property i have an acre and a third of 15 acres that are looking at building a house and so on and there you notice is this notice from code that's saying that i have a minute to connect with my property we can join this grandview hill uh granted hillary lake subdivision as you know in subdivisions when you put roads on the borderline of the property lines there's also to be a right-of-way area and sometimes the extension of my my property comes up to rivalry but on the property line of grandview and hillary i was notified that my property was a nuisance property uh by code and i'd like to i need to if i could i'd like for you to see a graphic outline of my property as i explained to you what it is that you've seen you're seeing that i don't my property does not enter into right-of-way at home but my property is wooded property and i happen to have taken some of the trees off as i was getting ready to compare a road and decided to do a different route and then i allowed it to go back uh start going back to the natural orange and that's the reason why i'm only mine because of the wooded property and i want to feel the country experience that i had in southern mississippi and the subdivision persons uh called and made complaints concerning the property and they've been doing that i hate this property 20 years they've been doing it every time i do anything on the property that changes the ceiling environment they consider their scenery in their environment but that's my statement but the point is they call

[0:47:17] they meeting one of the residents of the subdivision because treaty limbs and stuff were growing all over the road and they were a hazard to the bus and also uh children had to come the buses so they made great discussions about that and the city to my understanding came and cut a small area about a couple of feet in the limbs first of all that should have happened because that property is the property of the association of the grand version of the west celebration common property and according to what i made in the coast they were supposed to maintain uh the eastman area uh the rivalry area there their trees and everything there and they call complaining about me the person didn't know that i didn't own the property complaining about the writer writing these jadob treaties gnarls are responsible to do it in fact the association but instead code put on their property is where this was actually located but it was too many telling me that i needed to come and clean up the area and even the area that i had expanded on my own property which is 15 feet or more is beyond the right of way that i had to cut 30 yards back into my own property because it's the news and i'm going to show you pictures i've paid 19 to get this i want to show you pictures of and then i'll respond [Music]

[0:49:29] cla drive stock and i the picture i'm showing you here will show you how i joined the cedar lake um south with 280 feet i mean 230 feet a road front that joins their landline and their landline is about 15 to 20 feet from the road service and coding placed that and declaring my property as a nuisance and in fact if they had cleared the right of way as they're supposed to you know we're talking 15 feet back before you get to my car and my property has been a tree growth problem i took some of the trees out and see where you're seeing some of the growth there that's not my growth you're looking at beginning because it's 15 yards 15 feet to go before you get to if coding had made the requirements on the association that we should have not only the tree limbs been out of the road but the property would have been cleared back because you got the water lines and everything runs up under it but instead they assigned it to me uh mr tuttle came out after he had made notice to me and made arrangements for me to come out with him and i did i don't know what mr trouble knows but as an economist i worked for planning we did things that has to do with uh imminent domain and all these kinds of things i know about land i've actually personally pro se created four lawsuits that i covered myself all the way through the fifth district of appeals school and only lost those because i failed to start in time but for them to be to come to me never identify the landlines send me the notice and i'm here tonight

[0:51:32] and make it appeal to you that my property is a menace there are no buildings on it there's only a regrowth of weeds and stuff stuff that was there it's never had grass on it it was tree growth and i can tell you i will show all with you if you want i got all kinds of data but anyway tree growth natural growth which we are championing for and i'm trying to get there for that reason and this party tells me even after i cried to them the right-of-way is here i cut them back to the point of realize for the uh the water lines runs and all that 15 feet back before you get to my property this party then made this persuaded to me it says but you have been have created grass problems behind us this is behind the 15th and directed to me that i would have to clear up about half acre working 30 feet deep into my property because of manatee now i know why i'm here the appeal that was made from the association of curses there they started with the problem on the road the city actually came and cut about three feet back and cut the names off as a taxpayer really that's kind of insulting first of all because why are we doing their work but not only were they doing their work they released their voice that i was the responsible heart they're spending taxpayer money doing what the association should be doing and they're attacking me for the things that actually was there to do and our code enforcement persons wrote me up and made an appeal that i'd be here and defend myself if i may and we want to help move this along to a resolution now and please please stay if you don't hear now what i want to do is get um some accurate we want to give you facts

[0:53:35] and we want to answer your questions and result we're here to resolve it so austin would you help me so what is the first of all i'm not seeing that what is the violation what's the violation for what what is the violation of our opponents well he's violated 10-7 our new perimeter but we have he's over 50 acres but he owns all the way up to the road okay i can give you i got a survey let's speak to some facts here real quick so first of all like i said i want to try to get us to a resolution quickly so i'm listening [Music] and what he's saying is that before we get in and correct me if i say something incorrect if i'm not understanding but what he's saying is that we're giving him a violation for a foreigner cut when we have public limbs that are hanging over the street is that correct not sorry um see this picture right here the first picture it goes on a triangle that tall tree right there stops i like to see it for sure that tall tree right there stops the property and it just kind of goes into a triangle shape back towards the road on both sides so it's just right here this is the overgrown area that i asked that's basically what they're talking about so so there are no limbs this picture that he showed here this is only i'm from they were granny so this is these limbs these trees that are close to the road uh is this on his property or is this public is this in the right way it's in the right of way i mean we've had uh so we've okay so so the violation that he has has

[0:55:40] nothing to do with the tree limbs it's it's for the grass the grass perimeter i understand that correctly i'd like to speak first of all the word grass is being used when the picture that i can show you that you have this is a tree area all over the street [Music] okay that's what we're trying to determine tonight we understand so what is the property that's what he's saying is we're not talking about public property we're talking about his property what is specifically the violation on his pri on his property austin it's this area here on both sides of this driveway he put in there was a grass area he caught one side of the driveway which went back later that's not true and and i've got pitching history and just just to clarify this is not a municipal court all right this is a this is a public board meeting all i'm trying to do is make sure that our people did their job correctly and then we get everything by the code of ordinances but if you disagree with that then you can certainly go to you know talk to the judge in court but i just want to make sure that we are applying our ordinances fairly for everybody in the city that's not true and this is all i'm asking him because in the first picture about hand saw it's like a little triangle pod there's

[0:57:43] actually three different angles of it the second picture this is kind of looking back at it but it's just right here it's just kind of grown up you can so we're not really talking about a lot of land you know it's just a small one but it's on his property yes sir yeah okay is there some reason that you wouldn't want to cut that on your property exactly uh first of all all the descriptions that are being made here are being made out of context with the fact the fact that he showed you that tree line there and all that what has occurred there was i had moved some of the trees in an effort to initially was going to make a road through there and i decided not to make the road through it and i have allowed that property to to it is remember also that it is a agricultural zone it is also classified as whitman all of it and everything that you're seeing that that wood line that you see where you said that we cut back that wood line went all the way across all the way across there and they only cut back about three feet there's an easement the road easement is at least the property lines that are the property lines of their association they go deep at least 15 feet there and if you he said you're being treated the same throughout throughout the city i took the pictures just on my way back to memphis decided to take a few pictures of the roadside of property and everything that he's talking about if they had done 15 feet back you'll see the growth that's there that's just like the growth i have and he told me that we do this all over the city you're not we're not picking on you we're not just choosing you and i've got pictures and i can go anywhere in this city in any number of places in this city and the

[0:59:44] cutback from the right away those are the pictures i'd like for you to see and they are expressively exactly the way miners would look if in fact they were cut back to the property line of the of the uh uh association and if i they're not violating there's no way in the world that i'm around but is that association property is that city is that public right whitney right now you're not understanding what i'm saying i am saying that my property line starts excessive of the distance of that uh right away i'm okay then i'm also saying to you that you got exact pictures of properties that are exactly as i am where the areas the roadside that is right away and i should say the yeah right away has been cleared and the growth is exactly the life that i wrote these and he's saying to you now something's wrong with my growth that i need to do something even though it's 15 feet away by the way i know this no matter what the audience are that the 14th amendment which i carry through those other cases if there's no way that i could be put into any court system on the basis of the fact that i took a afternoon property and i decided to take a few trees off of it and and and they grow back that i'm a nuisance that i i define what a nuisance is that's exactly even what you call it the only area that you make any comment about grass and weeds which i understood that this was what you meant i thought was that there's a regrowth that moves beyond what is the standard of what was there

[1:01:47] that the standard of the hope was there was grass to be cut like when we set up a lot and somebody started letting weeds and stuff grow the standard of growth here was a natural standard of god that brought trees and bushes and things of that oil there's nothing to the no development been done and i'm standing here with someone telling me that i supposed to impose an unanswered situation on what was the natural because i took some trees off the property that i had i do understand what you're saying and if you're making a point that we're asking you to do something that the city is not doing on a public right-of-way that's the first question i need to be answered because that we would not ask you to do something that we do not do on our own so my first question i need to know austin is our right away grown up the same way the private property has gone up well on the front of this property where i'm asking them to cut it's cut and it's been cut back now the his property line has a wooded area on it where trees are thrown over into the road and we've cut those bags you know in the past for you know and i've asked bradley and sure we commonly do that so we cut them back we cut the trees that grow up that he talks about the school buses come through we cut those back i mean you see my problem you know uh what's coming did you say no problem i want you to note that and that's gonna come back before you he's saying my property line that's part of what i'm saying when he came out there i hate to say this but apparently there's some problem with understanding land and land layout well all this is not sir they have well-maintained yards all the

[1:03:49] way up to the street that they maintain the city doesn't come back and cut four or five feet back out of the public easement they just maintain that property right and that's not uncommon throughout the city we'll have areas where private property owners will cut all the way to the curb line and some residential and that's not uncommon what i'm asking is that um the area that you're referring to that the city that's not maintained are you is that is that in a public right-of-way yeah austin it's not that's his problem you hear that i want everybody to hear that now i've got everything in front of you excuse me just one more second and then what is that what show read the where's the ornaments it's 10-7-f uh the new one we just passed are we a warning state or has there been a citation issue well i could get on the property and then we could go and cut it ourselves tomorrow if we wanted i just be asked to speak with you guys so i held off to come here and talk to y'all you're going to get a chance to speak again i want to hear what the ordinance says and nick we need your help to inform them let us all know is you know if that's you know we're going we're gonna do it right or more acres shall only be required to mow and maintain 200 yard perimeter which this is less than that way less than 200 yard perimeter all parcels encompassing more than 10 acres shall be required to know the entire property so this uh his property is 15 acres so he's subject to the

[1:05:52] perimeter cut but the property that i'm asking him because i mean it's way less than that it's less than 200 so it's in a line is and we just actually we just actually changed that ordinance to make it more forgiving on a private property owner to have the perimeter cut so that's the one that you're referring to and how many just again how many square feet of grass are you talking like that uh it probably goes back maybe 120 feet and then the pic y'all can see in that picture the length of it maybe okay so it's a small area meeting i hope so i want you to look at that photo there i always have can i go there and come on point sure is this undeveloped um is here and it goes like this you see these tree growth and all of these growth is up here that's self-immediate problems the actual property is the property of is by definition a right to that area that it may be perpetual it may be endless but it is

[1:07:55] not the property of the city it is the writer that's the whole idea of having right now you said it for traffic safety correct that problem has a definitive use to be used for and it has that perpetuity but that property is the property that is of this group of people now harry said that i know that that's not good i'm sorry about that that that subdivision when it was platted and that road was dedicated with that plot was under basically a promissory note but that when it was finally built out with respect to the city the city would take it over own it and maintain their amount that includes the road this is not that has nothing to do with this discussion don't say that again we will end this discussion yes sir you go ahead and finish go ahead no you're trying to make this something that's not no i'm trying to answer your questions and be fair that's what i'm trying to do it has nothing to do with what you just said okay i don't know why i'm so damaged by giving my opinion like that because i said it again the purpose of the citizen agenda is to answer your questions regarding a potential code violation and that's what we're going to talk about i trying to talk about that okay you're getting an opportunity now but that's opportunity's about to end so i would encourage you to go ahead and proceed with speaking you're not going to turn the meeting into a circus let's go okay is there anyone else that would

[1:09:58] like to speak on the citizen's agenda okay hearing or seeing none next on the agenda is our personnel dog this is rarely to recruit the personnel doctors present on the stage thank you we have a motion monitoring brooks second monitor in pain is there any discussion do you hear your name yes that motion carries next on the agenda is our city attorney's legal undead mr i have two items no actually just hearing for the minutes uh first is just entering the minutes of that before clark um michaela uh easton uh or heston um in the minutes this is no actually in the minutes you're scoring like delgado uh i remember those naming and then also into the minutes um surplus agreement and waiver of liability agreement for uh jimmy bond with his retired dog of turbo which he will be maintaining under mr cody section 45-3-52 so just next on the agenda is our utility bill documents adjustments on the state second we have a motion balance second bottom and kelly is there any discussion hearing none low call yes

[1:12:01] that motion carries next on the agenda are two claims dockets mr mayor we approved cleaning stock at number one in the amount of three million four hundred and eighty nine thousand five dollars and thirty cents including demand checks second we have a motion alderman payne second modern boots on docket doors is there any discussion here yes it's our motion is there a motion to approve docket two this may remove docket number two in the amount of three hundred and sixteen thousand nine hundred and seventy five dollars and thirty two cents we have a motion by arm and pain second model brooks is there any discussion yes that motion phase okay next on our agenda is to determine if we have a need for executive session so second we have mushroom autumn and brooks second modern wheeler i'll ever say hi can you post say no i must have it motion carries the need this evening is economic development within the city and claims against public works there's no longer any personnel need we still have one okay and then personnel in the southern police department is there a motion to declare an executive session

[1:14:06] motion baltimore kelly second of honor with hoots all in favor say hi can your opponent say no i just have it motion carries the mayor award will now under executive session

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=prwnPH_yP_8