10/04/2016

[0:00:01] welcome everyone i'm now calling this meeting to order please stand with us we'll be led in prayer by walterman gallagher please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance uh we will be led by ferguson father lord we pray for your blessings tonight as we go about the city business lord we pray for your wisdom lord i thank you for the the time that you've given us tonight to be here lord lord i thank you for watching over our city lord we pray that you would continue to keep your hand over the city of south haven to keep us safe in your name we pray i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay first on our agenda this evening is approval of minutes for the september 20 2016 meeting mr mayor move we approve the minutes of the regular meeting on september 20th 2016 with any additions policies or corrections is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes okay and that motion carries next on our agenda is the acceptance of bids for the tennis expansion at snowden grove i can do an overview i know we've talked about this in the past but basically a part of our parks enhancement expansion plan that the board passed two years ago included a list of items that we were going to use the tourism tax

[0:02:03] revenue some of you may know that as penny beer parks so all that money has been used for expansion or enhancement projects not maintenance or not normal you know park maintenance or operating type yearly projects so it's all been used for larger projects some of which are the amphitheater enclosure that was done 750 000 was spent for that the senior center of snowden grove was about a two million dollar project uh the snowden many stadiums and bathroom concession additions were done this year that was about another two million dollars that was done pine tar alley extension which connects the current tennis center with snow grove park was completed last year and so all all of those things have been done in order the next item on the list is tennis expansion and what this will do is at the location of the current tennis center as you know there's four tennis courts there and the old building that um for those of you that have been here a while and grew up here that used to be the old moose lodge building and so the metal building there in the four tennis courts are there well the tennis expansion project is uh just to the west of there where the dirk mounds are used to be a former softball field but there's a plan in place to add eight more tennis courts there with uh bathrooms pavilion so it's a really nice project designed by urban arc we've been discussing it for two or three years and then we just recently had a design bid out so the bids did come up i guess that information is there the lowest bid is on one million seven hundred sixty four thousand dollars so any i guess can we have a motion and then we can open discussion second we have a motion to accept all the drugs second ballroom and pain and so i'm available for any questions

[0:04:06] and we can open up the floor for discussion what companies i thought that was all in the packet but the i got the details here okay there were two bids one was j khan for one million seven hundred seven thousand five hundred and the lowest bid was murphy one million six hundred and seventy four thousand is that roofing marketing sons that does include an alternate the alternate was a parking lot which would be connecting to the current parking lot on the east side make sure that that reflects excessive mercury and if you have to be specific without to include the alternate the alternates on the j-con let me just give the details the j-con bid was 1 million 515 000 without the parking lot the parking lot with them was 192.5 which made a total bid of one million seven hundred seven thousand five hundred and then the murphy and sons bid was one million five hundred fifty three thousand without the parking lot parking lot one hundred twenty one thousand for a total of one million six hundred and seventy four thousand so the motion is motion to accept marketing signs is a low bid amount of one hundred six one million six hundred seventy four thousand with the additional alternative or additional additive to the i only have two questions um and mary you can answer them not by the brian's hearing there's two points of concern for me here where it says lighting 240 0001 191 on the other and it says 60 he says that value is approximate so is that built into the contingency and why is it only 60 percent would you like me to address that please sir okay

[0:06:10] thanks uh brian bullard with urban r thank you raymond for the um for the question uh for clarification the um the star that i have there 60 lighting uh was a comment that i received from murphy and sons as i was questioning them about their bid and how much of the electrical number uh of 240 000 that they were that they had told me of was associated with tennis court lighting and uh he said sixty percent so that's what that clarification is but the everything will be lit at 100 that's correct that's correct and then the difference between 270 and 201 between the two bidders where except may save 80 to 100 000 out of the trees what does that got to do with that right there's really the only option the only option we could do is move the whole center to the east out of the trees which basically would kill the parking lot would not adhere to our master plan any longer either but that was just a comment um i made mulch i made a mention of different comments that the contractors gave me as i was questioning them about the bids this particular contractor told me well you know if we didn't have to cut you know all the trees or a bunch of the trees where that was so right western most tennis courts are going it might save you as much as 80 but that does that's not included in this price that is no no there's no deduct for that that would be less if we had made the decision to move it we could save potential money but it's not the recommendation of urban art or me because it would eliminate the parking lot which would hurt you as far as maple park i mean we don't want that yeah you would be you'd be cheap in my opinion choosing the project because you wouldn't have adequate harm parking lot's very desirable and i might add just from the standpoint of if and when the future phase has moved on you would have that parking adjacent to the to this center so that you could then do work over by the moose club building so okay you know i did say two i'm in three um last one is where it says landscaping that's a big difference in landscaping we're not achieving it by going to the

[0:08:12] university i mean i i just kind of feel a red flag right and i can dig a little further with them on that but as i spoke with uh they didn't divulge every single number two as i would talk to them about their bids they might tell me well i have about one percent or one and a half for two percent there so these these are not their exact bids if uh or at least the exact breakdown the total is correct um and as far as i was able to discern from them these numbers are fairly accurate um however if i were to ask them for a schedule of values if we if we told murphy and sons that we're ready to go with you all i would request of them to schedule values at that point in time we would have their real breakdown on the kids that information is not available to me this is our best estimate based on conversations with them what they said their bid entailed what did you take into percentage for contingency there is a um that's a good question i believe there's a 75 000 um that's correct that's involved so we go over we've got you got a cushion there to make sure if we dig up anything um a couple things i i would mention i don't get in the weeds too much but there's some you know utility improvements involved with this as well too or especially storm sewers that need to be addressed with this site thank you the murphy and suns would be the lowest bid with the alternative parking lot and the one out of all the one six seven that's correct we received five different bids on um on september 9th um i know the mayor said there were two the two under consideration that were close uh enough to each other were jacob and murphy but we did receive five bids all within a hundred thousand of each other but this particular bid with murphy and sums inclusive of the parking lot is the label it would be my recommendation to you

[0:10:23] guys that if we accept the bid to do it with the author because i i strongly believe and and i don't speak for brian but i think brian would uh also comment on that i believe if we moved it out of the trees which means you'd be moving it closer to the metal building closer to the existing torch to get out of the trees you would cut your parking space out right there so you would you would have parking issues and then especially you know long range if you're wanting to eventually do something there expand it even more later you know if you cut that parking out your you would be uh put yourself at a disadvantage for future expansion in this building this middle of this porch is that those restaurant facilities that's restroom facility um and it has power outlets for vending machines i would like to note i appreciate urban art with the fact that in in listening to um i guess tennis pros uh i've gotten some feedback and one of the big things there is having the course design where fans spectators can see all the chords you know and if you look at some of them you can achieve in the project by having your bathrooms and your pavilion concessions things like that at a different location but then again it makes it difficult for all of them to see to you know to see their like you have you know grandparents there they want to see their child play you know if they're on the opposite court it makes it difficult for them to have a good view so the way this is laid out you know makes it where the spectators have a good view of all the courts i think that's a plus for us yeah uh and then there will be a walkway to the to the other courts correct correct okay thank you i'm sorry yeah it's connected to the existing parking lot okay great thank you and then one other thing as we mentioned i think this last morning we talked about transportation pride alternate transportation projects that we've applied for the mpo uh one of which is on our list we're waiting on approval is to add sidewalks throughout snowden grove this complex the sidewalks would connect this with the rest of snowden park so you would be able to you know if you wanted to walk or ride bikes or

[0:12:25] whatever you know you would be this would actually uh make this you know this has been called the southampton tennis center but not affiliated with snowden but with the extension of planetary alley and having the sidewalks this would actually now be a part of snowstorm park so it would be the tennis center at snow grove farm so i think it just kind of adds to the you know to the value of snow and having it all connected and all together now with the sidewalks and the planetary extensions thank you brian okay thank you any other questions for brian or any other discussion what's the time frame time frame is um actually if we accept tonight uh around what 30 45 days before construction would begin we expect like late fall i mean excuse me late spring for it to be i believe it was a six month construction period yeah i would go on the safe side and just say um i would say very late spring i would say i would say may 1 maybe june right we are sorry whether you know weather is such an issue when you start having construction during the winter months it's hard to put it's hard to accurately estimate a completion date because you don't know the weather so i would just just in the little experience i've had with it always you know chucked on about 60 days well said i was gonna i was just gonna suggest through the winter time we would expect some you know some probable delays but uh and we will um vet each of the each and every delay claim that the contractor may have due to weather um they'll have to submit those to us and then we'll look at those and average those out as in accordance with you know what's expected in normal conditions for our location so but it's likely through the wintertime okay

[0:14:32] again we had a we had the uh motion ballroom bro second baller pain any other discussion hearing none roll calls one other thing i want to share with everyone before we move on to the next on the agenda tonight is we have been contacted by the united states tennis association and i can tell you that that many people are excited about our project outside the city of south haven a lot of people view us as a key location for tennis in the state of mississippi and which would be reflected on a national scale too as far as bringing in getting in the tour for national tournaments having people come to south haven i think our geographic location plays a big part in that with the airport here and also our already established parks program has a lot to do with that as well but chris wilson has done a lot of work for us reaching out talking with some people with the usta and actually we just got we got a contact today back from usda that i'm not at liberty to share a name yet but i can tell you it's an extremely high profile professional tennis player has already expressed interest in becoming a part of a groundbreaking ceremony so we expect that it will be a large deal probably some time we'll probably schedule something sometime in late november but anyway it's exciting because this person is um this is a this is a i said a high profile from a national scale that is interesting to come to southeast mississippi you know to promote our tennis so i'm excited about i think it's a great thing it's uh been something we like i said earlier we've talked about it for several years to try to make it happen and i just i'm excited you know that we've got this approval ready to roll but thank you next on our agenda is um resolution for supplemental donation to the chamber of commerce for a new app and i'll tell you a little bit about

[0:16:33] this since i was involved then i talked to carmen coyle our chamber director they've done a great job doing a lot of research on how they could help us promote south haven tie all of our businesses you know restaurants and other tourism opportunities in together to have like a visitor here that's real simple um i'll even admit apps are new to me i've not used a whole lot but that seems to be the thing you know of now and moving forward that is it's simple rather than doing research on you know where the restaurants are and where the things to do are in a city a lot of people just go to an house and they can find everything real quickly so i think moving forward that is key for our city we stay up with the times and do have a functional app that's outstanding so carmen and her group just worked extremely hard on that and this is new they've never had that before the city does have it out but we have a way we can tie everything together including our current operations that we use at snow obviously we have a ton of people you know from out of the city that visit that visit snowden so now we've confirmed that this will not conflict with the current program through scotty baker and the baseball operation chris shelton said that pose no problems from us as far as iraf but we believe we can tie it all in together which will help our city tremendously for our visitors here funding all the things that we have to do in our city um carmen is with us tonight if y'all have any specific questions but and correct me carmen if i say something that's not correct but for my discussions with carmen we believe in the future because to uh maintain this hour the chamber can be done with donations from chamber members but again as y'all know when you're trying to get a brand new thing off the ground um they want something to look at you know before somebody's going to say well yeah or whatever it may be you know to advertise there and and to have it maintained on a yearly uh operational situation we need to be able to show them something so she needs some the chamber needs some startup money so

[0:18:37] they're requesting a thousand dollars to help start that's what this is about for donation to the southampton chamber of commerce second a mistake we have a motion alderman brooks second ballroom and flores is our discussion i think it's a great idea mayor i talked to carmen earlier in the week she uh i think ridgeland mississippi has a similar one i downloaded it real quick it seemed real neat the fact that you can actually get alerts about different events that are happening so i think we can utilize it as a city thank you for saying that i agree any other discussions we'll make others tell us well we want to be as we've said many times and and carmen and her staff do a great job of having the same attitude and approach that we have as a city but you know we uh we believe south haven is obviously a leader uh you know not only in mississippi but in the southeast and we want to we want to stay ahead we want to we want to do things that are progressive and that that give our city you know the first opportunities of anyone okay if there's no other discussion roll call please yes okay that motion carries next on our agenda is a contract with hexagon safety and infrastructure mr nick manley this is the contract of hexagon this is the same contract that we introduced through last year with hexagon the city all the cities in the county committed to the same contract it's by record management services of our police department and provide support and we're currently switching over to another service but it has not been completed yet so in the meantime we still need to stay with hexagon to help with this with the rms functions so um any questions i'll be happy to

[0:20:41] answer i think chris shelton's here as well but uh like i said they've made the changes requested by all entities in the county and utmp will be approving it tonight our next meeting i'll make that motion exactly we have a motion bomber in flores second baltimore ferguson is there any discussions for a year one year yes sir and uh 72 000 450 is the number but each it's gonna be just divided five ways so our share is fourteen thousand roughly and that's on the second page is there any other discussion bearing known we're all calm yes from motor vehicle for hire this is a resolution for motor vehicle to hire for ms sparrow for her taxi service uh the courts and police department for the background check and upon improving this resolution she will then present the required insurance of the clerk's office before she's issued the actual permit value for the service i'll make that motion here we have a motion volume and pain a second alderman hail is there a discussion is this a like taxi for hire uber or patient transplanted uber it's a taxi driver it is taxi driver uber has their own statutes they don't as far as the required insurance

[0:22:43] as far as the required insurance goes is there a way that we're contacted it gets cancelled we're listed as an individual insurance who manages that the clerk's office the clerk's office will yes they provide that to the clerk's office so you have checks and balances to make sure that the renewal so we get the policies if it's not renewed the insurance company notifies us any other discussion one other question is there a reason there's only identification on two sides not on the third in the rear case that's what the statute requires that's just that's quite from the statute any other discussion bearing on roll call barton brooks yes kelly yes yes yes porter mcgallagher yes yes okay that motion carries all right next on our agenda is resolution authorizing single source item purchase from tracker products excuse me tracker products llc for the southeast police department this is the sole source uh purchased by south haven police department uh chief pearl's here you can answer questions you may have but it allows for um tracking of certain of the evidence so the police department can track evidence um in the event once they take evidence this company is the only uh company that uses these or provides this uh software and tracking devices so tonight's need an authorization for the police department to purchase it under a sole source we have a motion by alderman ferguson second alderman gallagher is there any discussion this is going to allow them to track

[0:24:45] like bar coded evidence where it's not logged in anymore it would be scanned possibly it would be probably easier yeah so that's correct right now we're uh we use uh just an excel spreadsheet uh system to track our evidence and this will take us into bar coding where every item that uh is taken in and we're in possession of has a barcode and we'll be standing in the computer so it'll be a computerized database time coming up in the world we're trying yes sir okay sounds good any other questions or discussions hearing none role calls yes authorizing single source item purchase from federal signal to our information technology and emergency communications department this resolution allows for the purchase of a tornado siren that one needs to be replaced and this resolution allows for the sole source purchase of the from federal signal the ones that we need developments who provide that and to provide the siren that's given by the city and the amount because let's go in for the federal signal i'll make this question a second we have a motion by alderman flores second involvement ferguson is there any discussion yes um i'm sorry um is this to replace one yes it is do you know which one it is sacred heart favorite sacrifice yes sir it's damaged beyond repair

[0:26:47] is there any way to tune them down to different frequency i'm just the only reason i'm saying it is like saturday when it went off in my area we had to sit in a house like this that's a good thing well i'm not saying turning them down where you i just said change the pitch it was so high pitched that it was hurting it was hurting everybody in my house's ears so there's there's no adjustment to the to the tones because the concept would be is if you were asleep and a tornado were coming you would be you would oh that would definitely get me up i would wake you up how long do they run the whole time there's a warning going on but on the test of three minutes with a three minute test i just i don't know how long i'm like sitting there with my fingers you might want to take it dry but noon take a drive right okay thank you any other discussion appearing on raw call i've been good yes kelly yes yes and that motion cares next on our agenda's resolution for assessing unpaid sanitation fees this is the resolution for those who have not paid the sanitation fee to allow for the collection through the tag and or follow the link mr mayor we adopt the resolution for assessing updates second we have a motion balance brook second ballroom in flores is there any discussion yes yes okay that motion carries thank you nick next on our agent is a request to award the decorative streetscape vid custom

[0:28:51] product corporation and this would be cook and we'll explain i think we talked about this last time if you will just remind everyone what this is about uh yes sir we have to bid on the 8th average on the 8th on the 15th for a 2-year term bid so it's not a total price amount it is a price per unit amount and this will be for your decorative street signs your street bowls your stop signs uh the master pullman suns uh we've got the city seal going on the top and they're gonna be black with white uh lettering so they're decorative in nature these people are out of jackson mississippi we've been working with them they are the ones that got our city entrance signs as well this is what they specialize in they were the only bid because it was such a specialized request so we are recommending to award the two-year term bid to them is there any discussion this price on here is for each percentage per unit it's per unit it's broken down from bracket to pole to sign the sign itself how many signs we're anticipating right now i mean we're i think on our actual mass arm signs we've got somewhere around 300 that we're looking at we got an initial quote for um to be more specific the green suns that are on your mast arms at your high profile intersections uh these signs would replace those signs it's a decorative sign that has a city seal on it kind of like what you would see in madison mississippi or collierville kind of thing um so what we did initially is we got a quote based on we gave them all of our intersections we did an inventory of our you know a check of all of our intersections that have mast arms and provided that to them so they gave us a quote back so the total is about what was it 50 was it 81 000. it went to 81 000 then we added in the decorative stop signs on our highlightable areas around the park areas we did the offset signs with the street and the thought sign on it and our highly visible areas around snowden greg and all that ended

[0:30:53] up hitting around 100 000 at that point so we just thought it'd be better to want to get a turnpike because we don't know how many we're going to need and we want to be able to build on it year to year and that actually was included in the internet signs which we do correct we did check those out yeah but this is the initial cost but the reason we're doing it per unit is obviously you know if any of them are damaged you want to go back to the same contractor so you're not getting a different looking sign so we bid it uh per unit not as a total so that's priced down that way two for one year it's a two year term right now and these funds just to update the board these funds are uh this is uh in the beautification fund you know we uh this falls within our 2016 budget for beautification you know i know y'all heard me say this a million times i'll be short but we had initially planned on doing uh like brick suns on the interstate ran into some issue they were going to be much more expensive but we ran into some other issues with the federal highway system with places you can put the suns so we end up just backing off of that for now we thought we'd get a lot more of our money and more suns by doing these signs which are a lot less expensive so we can hit a lot more uh entrances to the city with these signs and then i have the streetscape signs on top of that so it worked out to be a we thought a good idea and i did i wish we had a um we do have a picture of all that so the board i can't remember did i send a picture we had the city entrance signs at one point on one of the board meetings but i don't think we went and and showed them up it's going to mirror the city entrance side it's going to look like these are these if you want to look at this this is the brochure that we kind of started picking from so yeah so it's like that if you want to take a look at can you leave that for me uh just it's that one on the back it's the madison sign but it's not that cold it's black and white so black and gold they don't have to see the southern city still at the top of it that's like you see there

[0:33:01] okay is there any other discussion about those none all in favor say aye all right i'll oppose say no eyes have it motion carries thank you right next on our agenda is resolution granting authority to claim private property mr mayor i mean without the resolution granting authority to clean private property is presented on the state second we have a motion by alderman brooks second ballroom and kelly is there any discussion hearing now is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak regarding any of the properties hearing or seeing none real call please yes okay that motion carries next on our gym is our planning agenda this is when you could yes sir our first application is from southaven community church uh right there at plum point and airways boulevard an existing church they own three lots the church lot that you see in front there is a vacant lot that has a ball field and a playground behind that and they also own a portion of the creek line you see behind them what they're wanting to do now this is an existing subdivision they're wanting to revise the subdivision and take in the office and playground area which is located online too and put it into the church lot which is locked one basically that will increase lot more from 3.17 acres to 3.47 acres and lot to a decrease from 2.86 to 2.58 simple revision is an underlying zoning of c4 so it has to have a one acre minimum and have frontage on plum point it does comply with that um it's my understanding that this lot is going to be sold and uh the requested changes were necessary but it is compliant with what we require for commercial zoning

[0:35:03] subdivisions so we recommend approval i will be approved number one on the study agenda so friday one we have a motion monument pain second volume is there any discussion but still before anything is sold and anything is built on there all that's going to come before the claims yes we'll have the site plan in the design review for what we believe will will transpire there okay any other discussion on item one item number two is a revision to the rest with subdivision and this is going to be on your northwest corner of sweeney and church road it is an existing subdivision there are some homes existing here there's two lots which the applicant is requesting to remove from the existing subdivision will be locked four and five there's one lot that lot five i believe has a home that's on it like four is vacant life fellowship church which you're going to see right over there to the side of the large parking lot around it is doing a massive expansion they're going to not only expand the building they want to do some overflow parking going to the east there will be some of that on a small portion of one of these lots the main purpose for pulling these lights out is one they don't plan on doing single family residential with it but they just want to put an access drive to the church um with a point to swing one it's going to help our traffic problem and the congestion during church hours they have wednesday service saturday service and sunday service they'll put them in a light we have confirmed with them that the house will stay it's thought that the pastor may live there um but nothing else besides an asphalt drive with a grand entrance into the church site will be located on these lots we have informed them that part of

[0:37:05] the process when you go through a subdivision application ask for something like this it is required that the adjacent property owners sign off and acknowledge and agree to it so if you'll see on the bottom of the flats everybody will have had to sign it before we can plan it which will allow notification on behalf of the church to the residents there it is compliant with their requests we're recommended purple to make a motion to approve item number two on planning as presented on this night a second on item two we have a balance bottom of flores is there any of motion discussion so they'll have to get signatures from 877 5025 and all these other houses yes you'll have a few in the code that they're going to have to address and you'll have some located to the south of them but they'll have to have all those all the other signatures with an acknowledgement they agree to the change they can put a sign off swinging they will put an entrance sign off sweetie is there any other discussion on two hearing none all in favor say aye all posts say no eyes have it motion carries on too uh our final application is a request to vacate an existing 10-foot drainage easement between 150 150 and 151 in carriage real estate section b this was recorded in 1963 old easement we did relocate this uh line and therefore this drainage means no longer necessary so we would request to vacate it uh we will get the signatures like we just stated on there we'll go with the signatures from the property owners when it's when it's time for planning but we're requesting to vacate that easing second on three we have a motion ballroom in florida the second bottom with kelly is there any discussion hearing none i'll ever say i'll oppose say no

[0:39:08] i just have it motion carries on three thank you okay next on is the mayor's report got several things to update you on uh first of all there's two things that i'm going to ask with mr chris wilson about we have a y'all may remember this from last year but every year before we order our audit we have to do a municipal compliance questionnaire and we have to that has to be recorded in our minutes before we do that so um chris if you'll be available to answer any questions about that the other thing is we we have a budget amendment just to type some loose ends with our utility fund for fy16 and uh chris if you'll please speak to both of those issues so the compliance questionnaire is exactly what it says the auditor recommends we do one of these and it has to be entered into our minutes to kind of kick off our next audit season to get auditors kind of heads up just simply yes no questions throughout the document um have you complied with all these state statutes regarding clerk's office's departure seeing here this will i'll make that motion for a second we have a motion bomber in florida second baltimore ferguson is there any discussion very nun all favor say i i'll post say no i was having motion carries on the question the budget amendment like the mayor said it cleans up our utility fund for in year ending fy 16. that is about a 500 000 difference in utility fund where we up our estimated revenues and water sales and sewer sales and expense expense that back out in some utility line extensions professional services and other work they've been doing you'll also notice that this does clean up the prior year budget transfer that the board voted on with that one-time sales tax money for the roads we're reversing that back out due to the increase in sales tax so that was that fun balance in and we're just reversing that back out so it was cleaner on the on the audit side and then you will see an amendment to the fy 17 budget where

[0:41:11] we are increasing our tourism tax revenues um to fall more in line where they will actually project that again it only is for the nine months that we are scheduled to have the tourism tax um further appeals i'll make that motion second this is just fine for a second right i mean it's 500 000 in new revenues that's already there but we're just making the entries yes yes to offset the expenditures that are in the budget yes and just an attitude that for those that don't know the water sales a lot of times we don't know until late in the year because of the high temperatures in the late summer so we don't know exactly what the total water sales are going to be for the city until we get late in the year so the bulk of our revenues come in in september july and august months and this is actually under our actual revenues uh which you know keeping with practice is how this is what we do but right now we are water sales at 5.4 million and this request is taken to 5.15 so okay we had a motion baller mcflurros and the second ballroom in partisan is there any other discussion hearing none we're all columns yes okay that motion carries thank you chris all right a couple quick updates um just no secret uh when we did this swinney road extension uh we realized in january that we had some problems with the road uh there's some soft spots i know everybody's familiar with it because everybody's told me but um there are definitely some soft spots in the road and we're aware of that we've been aware of it since uh earlier in the year the reason is just now reporting to this now is we want to find out first of all what's causing it before we start spending money out there trying to

[0:43:13] repair it so we did have some other engineering analysis done had some specialists come in to find out exactly what the problem is obviously we had settling of some sub-surface near the culvert that was placed uh and if you've ridden down the road it's um you know it could qualify for you know mid-south fairer item it's really it's been bad but we know that but i'm here to report to you today uh that we've got that resolved there were crews working this week there are two soft spots that are going to be further south near the church and sweeney intersection that we're going to wait until the spring to address as we'll do that with the final punch list for the project they're they're very minor but the biggest ones there were five other spots that were terrible you know they were further down into the low-lying areas where the culvert was placed and those have been repaired either today or tomorrow they'll be totally done with those so you know ride down swing and check it out happy to report to you that we did find out what the problem was we've got a solution we've got that resolved um one other quick thing the airway state line mast arms we were late in the year getting this done this was budgeted um under our line item for intersection modernization just to remind everyone in the crowd that may not have heard this before you know we have a plan to in our original south haven in the in the west end district uh to go and replace all the uh span wire the old the not dilapidated but the old um traffic signals that have been there for many many years that don't have modern functionality like now to be a more pedestrian friendly city you need mass storms that have pedestrian friendly options so you can put crossing areas in there for pedestrians that will tie into future sidewalk plans things like that not to mention that but it just modernizes the intersection makes it look nicer so we're gradually doing that rather than going and borrowing money and doing it all at one time we've just been doing one at a time until we get them done we started with state line

[0:45:15] in state line and airways and that one will be done you may see that they've got some of the polls up now but that will be totally redone and finished by the end of the month so just want to let y'all know that that was fy 16 money that same budget line item for intersection modernization the next one on the list will be mississippi valley and highway 51. so we're getting permits from indot now to do that one uh we're going to get a quicker start on that one so we hope to have that one done much sooner but that's the next one on the list for fy 17. okay another thing that's been going on that's obviously a very challenging thing for our city as it is all organizations now is our health insurance situation we've done a lot of research met with our brokers we've checked a lot of options out we were expecting just as any any reasonable american would expect you've got to expect a you know some volatility with your health insurance well as many employees as we have you know any any uh you know increase in that can be significant well we have reason to believe we've um gotten two we've requested uh to negotiate with blue cross blue shield twice they've come back and they're standing firm with a 12 percent increase that may not sound like a lot to a lot of people but that amounts to 384 000 for the city of south haven so that's a big big concern we are conscious to the fact that we want to have stability with our benefits for our employees no one wants to change insurance every year you know that's a pain in the tail um so we've been very leery about that but we did seek other quotes and um we have another quote from uh cigna uh that is exactly the same and we can tweak a few little minor things to even possibly give a decrease in our health insurance the other benefit to going with cigna is the dental vision and the health is on with one company it'd all be with cigna

[0:47:16] the way it is now we have the health the blue cross blue shield and then we have the dental envision with two other and our supplemental products with two other companies so it would be a benefit to put it on with cigna that way to be simple for our employees because every all the coverages would be with one carrier i have an insurance background i'll be the first to tell you i'm not an advocate for a change in insurance frequently i know ottoman gallagher would probably agree with that but it's uh it's wise to you know to and simple you know to keep the same coverage if you can but we've been given such bad news that uh it's it's going to be my recommendation that we make a change and i hate to do that i know it's somewhat inconvenient um but you got to think about it it's not just a city's cost that this is affecting but it's 12 percent all the families too so all of all the dependents and spouses you know they look for their coverage that would be increased too which can be significant for households so the other disadvantage to changing that somewhat of a disadvantage that we're real cautious about is the current program of blue cross blue shield does have networks with baptist and methodists the cigna plan is uh is all methodist but with that now we've learned that most physicians if you're not using the hospital itself most of the physicians in the memphis metro now are going to be on both networks so we've we found down after doing a lot of research that it's really not most people are going to find there it's not going to be a change most people are going to be able to find their doctor it's going to be in network the only issue is baptist hospital and that's if you have a planned you know medical um you know procedure not an emergency if you're an emergency you can go anywhere that's covered the same but if you had a planned event you know baptist hospital would be excluded had concerns about that did a little further research and realized that 650 people that are on our health insurance our insurance we have 650 insureds only 14 use baptist hospital for a fleet plan a pre-planned event so we feel like that part of it is significant you know

[0:49:20] we just didn't want to have a lot of volatility with the services you know for our employees but we don't have to do that tonight but i didn't want to let you know it's my recommendation to you even though again i don't i don't like to change insurance i like to keep it stable but the financials of it and the benefits of it are clear to me that we need to change our health insurance to sigma the broker that presented this to us we did go back and and review the other major players in the group health insurance market which are humana aetna and united healthcare and as many of you know we've had uh we've had some loss ratio problems we've had we've had several terminal illnesses we've had some problems with our group we're not in 2016 we're not an attractive risk we were turned down those three would not even quote the policy they're not interested in quoting so those three and then having obviously blue cross blue shield and cigna those are your major players in the market and knowing that we've got it based on a 12 increase from blue cross uh to me it's my recommendation that we make a change to cigna tonight if y'all if y'all want to talk about it more i'm not i'm not telling you that to rush anyone uh we certainly don't have to make a decision tonight but eventually i need the board to uh vote to give me authorization to sign the new policy and change so uh either way is it do y'all want to discuss it more or is there any is anyone that wants to i'd like to discuss it just a little bit uh i mean as far as the benefits for the employees i mean are are there are the premiums going up they have to pay deductibles going up uh no this is this is for an apple staples comparison to keep it the same and then actually the dental envision would be slightly less so it'd be a it'd be a minor decrease for our employees but as far as the benefits the benefits would be the same deductible options you know comparable just like they were now but as far as when i said discussion i meant like do i wanna after tonight you know

[0:51:23] meet my committee or anything like that do you wanna do that or any any questions i'm i certainly answer those tonight i just meant i didn't want you to feel pressured to uh vote to change tonight i just remain anyone to update you but but again to answer your question the benefits of the same okay is it november one chris january woman enrollment we have to decide pretty soon because you have to start enrollment november but it's january 1. okay that's no problem i just wanted to kind of know you know what we're faced with and then we do have a good solution uh obviously taking a 384 thousand dollar hit is not uh that's a very bad thing you know anyway it's gonna be it's gonna be that it no matter which one you went with no no that's what i'm saying right now the employee only the base plan is 438 a month that's a 2000 deductible that's offered to every employee cigna is proposing to take that down to 431 that's what the city pays our second is employee and children we have 28 families on that and child right now that premium is 678. blue cross blue shield is proposing to take that to 760. cigna's coming in at 667. sickness coming in is a decrease on the premium for the employee now they're now again though we're talking about i mean we'll get into you know more on the co-pays but those are still keeping with the thousand dollar deductible what you buy into or the 3 000 or the 2000 days awesome and which is what it has been it's been a standard 2000 and you could buy down to get the thousand deductible or you can go take the three thousand deductible and reduce your thing that's what we've had with what promise yeah i'd like to see it a little a

[0:53:25] little later as far as the out-of-pocket expense for the employees i mean as they if they take this what is their ideas that's what i'm telling you it's a it's a apples to apples comparison it's the same but we don't again i didn't i didn't bring that we're not we're not that big of a rush we don't have to do anything i just mainly want to update you on that because it is such a significant decision for you know for the city to change anyway we'll we'll discuss that more and just have that on the agenda for next time to uh make it formal with what you know decides to do okay and that is um back to the swinney road repairs we want to tell you one other thing you'll notice that after we did the repairs we're gonna have to restripe some sections so that's not done yet we're going to do that we have a striking crew that is working on our street improvement schedule so as they're doing our other streets they'll come back and hit swing too so you'll see maybe a few weeks delay before you see the striking but everything else should be done by tomorrow will they hit the northern part of that as well while they're doing the southern part of that no striker no i mean the striping would just be for the areas that they had to go back and fix you know with the extension part but but if there's areas north of there then we can we can we may address that in-house okay that's all i have this evening um next on our agenda is our citizens agenda mr charlie spearman uh had uh signed up and planned to come speak to us and uh he's the executive director of the region for mental health services so mr spearman if you would please come forward thank you mayor multiply the board of members and i want to say thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here today to talk to you just briefly about some of the services and some of the goals that we have for region 4 mental

[0:55:27] health services we were all the state of mississippi was developed middle health regions was developed back in the late 60s by the legislature the law that past setting us up said that all 82 counties would be part of a community so we have always since 1972 we served the counties in northeast mississippi which is all corn apprenticeship with tishomingo counties back in 2010 we were asked by the sony county board of supervisors to come and be their community mental health provider here in this county we were glad to do that we knew they had a lot of a big task ahead of us we didn't really know exactly what all we did had to overcome but one of the biggest obstacles the board of supervisors said they had when they wanted us to come that they was having on any given day 30 to 40 people that was being housed in the jail that had a mental illness and i think we all agree that you know these people with mental illness are not criminals and they shouldn't be housed in jail so when we come to desoto county one of the first things we we started looking at was where was all these people coming to from and and most of the vast majority was coming through the science of the emergency room we know our sheriff's department and police departments did not have any other alternative to to deal with them except carry them through the emergency room so after we become part of the saudi county we have set up a working relationship with baptist hospital where we keep professional therapists mental health therapists in emergency rooms all the time we offer a wide array of mental health services here in the southern county we we have we serve the idd population the intellectual developmental dislab we've opened up a day program down in all the grains that serves that we won't open up additional programs in south southaver somewhere in this area we also have a

[0:57:29] we serve what we call the smi the seriously minnesota where we have a day program that comes in to sweeney road here that we would like to expand that from we we operate two inpatient facilities one in basement which is a commercial crisis center and one over in corinth mississippi which serves those counties in that part of the state we are the only mental health provider here in this county that provides services to indigent folks we by law we're required where anyone has money to pay for the services now we're provided we are mandated if we provide these services as i say we have a wide array of staff we have psychiatrists we have several site-certified nurse practitioners we even have them in the schools it's a full-time basis the science certified nurse practitioners we we feel like that we're serving we know we're serving somewhere about 8 000 folks right now we have a total budget of 28 million dollars and we feel like that we're not providing services that we need to here in the sony county although we would like to because we're located at in hernando you have a lot of citizens probably here in south haven horn lake walls all the branches don't really have transportation to get down there we have found a piece of property located here on church uh church road i believe it's most of what i believe is submitted church road where the pentecostal school used to be in a church and we we we would like to be able to buy that property centralize all of our services where they've been more accessible to people all over the uh desoto county we we have invested several millions of dollars into soda county already we continue developing and we can't do any more until we get some additional office space because we've got people that stacked on top of each other basically and we we're we're dealing we have about 100 stock movers and we need

[0:59:31] three or four times that many to do even to scratch the surface on what needs to be done here in the southern county we realize that there's going to be several millions of dollars that uh that it's going to cost to buy this property develop the property but if we're asking we're asking we've come together with a plan where we're asking this the county to come up with an additional fifty thousand dollars a year to help us and we're asking the five cities to come up with additional fifty thousand dollars to help us this would be an ongoing basis but i think it'd be a good return on your money we're a non-profit organization if we ever cease to go after everyone out of business all of our assets would go to the county industries uh not sure how to be divided up but we're asking for your help uh and and coming up with the money that we do we're talking about investing several millions of dollars as far as buying the property and over a period of time developing to meet our needs it would allow for future expansion there's 12.59 acres of it and we think it would do it wouldn't be an eyesore for this city of south america we would clean the prop up i know it's been said for many years and you all know a lot more about that than i do but we would clean the property and i think it i think it would be beneficial to the whole county as a whole uh i would appreciate any consideration where muslim-wise you and the board can give us yes sir and the property is the church of god on church road that's the property he's referring to yes just down yeah and then mr spearman came to the council governor's meeting initially and told all the mayors in the county and the supervisors we had a meeting and i explained to him that you know we've just passed a budget year as far as that but but this would be something that we would we would consider you know for future but the board board has already set the budget for this year it would be something we had to go back and reevaluate when is the time like

[1:01:34] when is the time that you're planning on securing the funding and moving forward with this sir i would like for it to happen as soon as possible before the property's gone and and we cannot grow anymore i mean we we have grown every day that we've been in this county but we can't do any anymore we've gotten a couple of sizeable grass we got one from 964 thousand dollars that is an infusion grant that was ongoing for six years it could be you know all by it'll be a decreasing amount but it's still a substantial amount of money we're working with where uh chief pearl right now and all the police departments and setting up a crisis intervention team where we can provide get your officers certified cit certified without you having them send them to meridian or memphis for that which is a week-long train and very expensive to the city and we've applied for a grant and if we don't get the grand cheap part of the vision for is probably going to go ahead and harden the trainer and start training officers there's so many things we want to do that we can't do because we don't have space so answering your question mayor we would like to do it as soon as possible whatever that might be okay and just additional information from the board after uh when you spoke to us at the council governor's meeting then talked i talked to chief pearl and chief thornton as well but it is an issue for our city too you know when they have a someone that is struggling with a mental illness you know there's limitations sometimes we can't take them to the to a certain hospital and then um obviously we don't want to like as you said initially it's tough on us we don't want them to go to jail because they're sick and and i found that um you know because of funding limitations throughout the state a lot of times uh these individuals that are struggling are released back on the street now with no with no help and and so it's a really a sad situation for our state so we do see a benefit it would help the city of south haven as well but i just want to add that obviously it'd be something the board would need to seriously uh think about you know and

[1:03:38] then you know to be able to provide an answer later but are there any questions for mr spearman while he's here about that actually my question would probably be cheap purdle and you can answer so are we will we be able to take some of these patients to this crisis center and set up the baptists or chief thornton's folks take him to the baptist or is that what we're talking about yes we've got we've already got probably close to 30 officers on the department that are cit certified at this time we've been doing this program since the 80s uh we just didn't don't have any options this this would give us the option of uh instead of uh not having any place that we can take them to rather than arrest them and take them to jail to start a commitment process this would allow us to take it take them to either batches to sodo especially if there's a medical situation going on or potentially if this facility opened up we could go straight to this facility yes and not not put them in jail when they don't need to be yeah can i follow up we we probably the large the biggest percentage of our clients that we have in the basement crisis center that is one of those 12 uh seven crisis centers that was built several years ago the department of health they asked us to run two of the seven and we take a lot of folks probably uh don't have a number 80 of the folks who goes to the veterans crisis centers probably to some county residents right now that's that's at no charge to them and we keep on average stay 10 to 14 days when they go there we also haunt you partly verified this fact that we have a crisis team that works after hours weekends and nights and i think they they're called regularly i think we have 12 people in search of this crisis team and they go with the chief part of his his officer the sheriff's department he

[1:05:40] won't has idea that these people may have some mental illness uh that they call their folks and we we we're at the scene with them many times well it's know scotty can probably call the referrers and keep already tested i know i can't and similar i lost 51. we came across i think they had to arrest the individual so i can understand how many officers possibly get trained every year on cit training that we can send how many do we have now that already cit certified i would have to go back i looked a few months ago but it's in the 20s but it's difficult to get officers trained because they only have one or two defenses we had this here in south haven all officers could be trained that is potentially correct yes sir actress hospital's already agreed as chief pearl said they've already agreed to make a single point of entry until we could come up with some other alternative to if they have any medical issues or whatever they've already signed a contract with us in essence of time i don't have time to talk about all the services where muslim why was kind enough to listen to me about an hour with other mayors board of supervisors i would like to leave some of our brochures and kevin gives us our information here and if you have any questions please feel free to call me and i'll be glad to try to answer any questions that you might have any consideration you would give us would be incredible appreciation and i think he'd be a good investment not only for all soda county but for all the cities thank you yes sir thank you mr spearman we'll pass this information so we'll be able to direct questions back to you okay next on our agenda is um our

[1:07:43] personnel talking mr mayor personnel doctor on this date second we have a motion bomber in brooks second baltimore is there any discussion we're okay with the special prosecutor right we got all that work done is that correct it was verified uh our hr director janna did verify that as far as it relates to pers that would be for him to just to remind everybody it's just a feeling roll so the amount of money is it's a small very small amount of money so i think that uh janna and thomas did answer the questions i don't think they see any concerns there but but if anyone else has any concerns we can certainly talk about it now no i i just that's i wanted to make sure we were we weren't jeopardizing anything yeah so and i think ultimately after uh janna's email that ultimately is his responsibility to make sure he you know looks after his purge okay was there any other discussion about uh personnel that's on the opposite side hearing none welcome yes okay that motion carries next on our agendas our city attorney's legal update okay two quick items uh verse idol uh just something this afternoon uh the utilities department needs authorization to go to bid for a dump truck uh it was originally gonna be for a vacuum truck that's been budgeted but it needs to be a dump truck uh we went to bid last year on it we can't hold that bid over some of the offices and go to a new bed if we're down the truck let's move a second we have motion modern florida second ballroom pain is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say hi

[1:09:50] i'll oppose say no i just have motion carries uh next item is we need to have authorization to remove a lien on a property that was filed the property is located 91 9109 highway 51. it was previously a bank court uh that court sold it in between the time the lien was noticed in the time the lien actually went to effect so there was no notice but a new owner was done last year just came to light this year and on top of that there was an assessment filed pursuant to that lien that has been removed already from last week's resolution it doesn't update the board on that but also approval to remove the lien in the amount of 339 dollars a second we have a motion balance second baller gallagher is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye all opposed say no i just have it but she carries and that's all i'm deceiving for the attorney's legal update uh next on our agenda's old business as you all recall we uh on one of our condemnation properties last time in 16 months on state line road for mr ms miles and uh as we left that well first of all since it's old business so we need i want to update i want to update all of you so can i get a motion to talk about old business just to give you another example okay we've got a motion alderman gallagher and alderman kelly second uh basically the update the way we left it uh is we were gonna allow the miles to go back and meet with uh my building inspector james gentry and look at exactly what needs to be done to the property um you know to get in a livable situation and first of all to bring it you know into a condition that's not a nuisance to the neighbors they have done that and they have been working out there immediately they met with mr gentry and they did

[1:11:52] come up with a list of items a detailed list of things that that our building inspector indicated would be sufficient for them to occupy the home eventually so it's the records our recommendation at this point that we allow them to start with the exterior items first just so it's from a visibility and you know aesthetic value and the effect it has on the surrounding property values that they would start with that and to give them 90 days to do that to get our not 90 days but what is 90 days to the given throughout the end of the year and then the other things on the inside are more significant there's obviously a after inspecting it uh we saw the inside the inside is has tremendous things that need to be done to it so it's going to take much more time but to get into compliance the recommendation is to give them until october 1 2017 to bring the entire home back up to compliance so that's the update i guess if someone wanted to make a vote i mean my recommendation is not to condemn the property since they are making a legitimate effort to bring it into compliance and that we allow them to have until and can we reflect just do we need to vote just to reflect that in a minute stick yes okay so my recommendation is that we have a board vote tonight to give them until december 31st to do the things that are on the list which that document is here is that accessible to everyone it's broken down in detail on what's exterior and what's interior so my recommendation is to make a motion to allow them to have throughout to the end of the year to complete the exterior changes and to allow them until october 1st to do the interior things to bring the full home back into compliance don't make the motion exactly you have a motion by army kelly second baltimore ferguson is there any discussion if

[1:13:54] if there's if work stops in between anytime between now and october 2017 does the city have the ability to bring it back up well i i'll let nick correct me but the city always has the ability we always have the ability at any time to make a motion and change next thing that's going to happen right and that's why like i told mr mcmiles uh last board meeting my only thing is it does not need to be just a you know an open-ended situation well hey yeah we're working on it because that's what's been going on this has been going on since 2010 and it's my recommendation that that that needs to change we don't need to get back into that situation with the city but giving them tonight if we can give them these definite timelines then they know hey it's you know balls in your court you know you got until october 1 to bring it in compliance and then i think it would be fair on behalf of the board to you know to re-evaluate and do something different if we find out that they've not done what they said they would do okay just to be clear that you answer your question you probably wouldn't have the authority to do anything until october one if because work could be stopped but as long as they get done by the deadline so when you say works can we stop it may not be happening but if it's done with that date so we've got two points we've got something very first of the year the first year and then october 17th it's being done by october 1st yes sir and whitney that was what we discussed today that's still your recommendation to my recommendation okay can we get any kind of type of quarterly updates or anything like that can we ask for something like that well i guess we could ask for it but based on what nick just said i mean as far as i don't know what you do with it if you got an update i mean all the interior's gonna have a permit with the building department so we can monitor it through the inspection process i mean we would be able to we would be able to tell that they were august or september of next year and pulling all these necessary permits yeah they were grossly abandoned and there's no work being done it'd be obvious because they wouldn't have the permit they and things like that so there'll be a

[1:15:57] significant permitting procedure the exterior of it is not something you're really going to need permitting for um but that's something that's easily accessible as you drive by because you're sitting here in august and nothing's been done you still are giving them talk number one i think what we do is maybe send a letter you know just acknowledgement saying what's going on and then just i know i was happy like my point is can we can we make the day the instead of making it october one let's move it back a few months and tell them that if there is some significant progress at that point then we will extend it to october you might get whatever you want you're talking about get an idea of where you're going if that's not done that's our first point of okay well that's the power of the council you have till january one if nothing's done by january one do you think you've missed a deadline by that point so that that means that's not the motivation there to get it done and i don't know but you can't my my thing my point is as you said if the exterior is done on january one then they do have october one to do the interior based on the motion that's being made now obviously you want you're saying i want to see progress and that's a very fair fair thing to ask for but uh progress is if as long as it's done by the date you you the progress is at their discretion it'd be hard to measure what's acceptable progress but we can as alderman gallagher mention that was just that whitney's recommendation was october once you felt like that was kind of but i i do like what um ultimate gallagher suggestion is maybe like a six-month time period going inspect we can see that there's plumbing roofing we can see there's electrical rough and we can see that there is some progress in the extension if you want to do it from there it is going to take the 12 months to get it repaired on the interior it just did there's significant work to be

[1:17:59] done my only other thing i agree with all of the brooks is where you know they're going to do the exterior by january first and they're working on it they're you know they they put they've got their concerns there's already more effort in the last two weeks than there's been in great years and i would i would agree with that or you wouldn't be recommending this so my only concern is this body may change january july 1. so why don't we make it for this by june 30th and then i mean that's an idea i mean like when you said it's probably not giving them adequate time to do it but but you could i guess at least say that um contingent upon review oh on july 1. yeah yeah yeah exactly because i i believe like i believe at this point they're going to do it but i just don't want to hold another board over that's what they may not be aware of that's right okay so we could uh we could just change the change the motion to uh exterior changes done by 12 31-16 and then um full compliance re-evaluated on july 1st 2017. all right so do we need to we need to redo that right now yeah we'll make a motion card okay like that just just said okay okay again we have a motion again just to make sure all on the same page minutes are right the motion is to allow an extension of time to not condemn this property to allow the exterior repairs to be done on december 31st 2016 and for a re-evaluation of to be in full compliance by july 1 2017. and that motion was made byron kelly a second among the flores and is there any

[1:20:01] other discussion i'm hearing none roll call autumn yes kelly yes yes yes okay god bless she cares thank you whitney okay next on our agenda is the claims doctor mr mayor i removed we approved the claims docket in the amount of two million one hundred and eleven thousand ninety three dollars and seventy six cents including demand checks second we have motion baller in pain second baller and brooks is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes yes okay that motion carries next on our agenda is there a is there a motion to determine the need for executive sessions closed captioning not sale and available of city property claims litigation against the city economic development personnel on the court and other other potential litigation now is there a motion to declare executive such a motion baltimore gallagher second alderman ferguson all in favor say hi all right all opposed say no nice habit motion carries the mayor board will now enter executive [Music]

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=q4NCbV2z-pk