Okay, we will now bring this council meeting to order.

Uh first item on the agenda is a reading approval of the minutes June 16, 2026 regular council meeting.

May I have a motion to approve the minutes as presented.

So move.

Second.

Thank you.

Any questions or comments about the minutes?

Very well.

All those in favor of approval say aye.

There's anyone opposed, say nay.

And while Janine's getting it, I'll just remind everybody that you have three minutes.

Evan will let you know when you got 30 seconds left.

We will let you know when you got 30 seconds to try to wrap it up in that time.

Um I don't know how many speakers we have tonight.

Three.

Three.

I say three for eight.

All right.

And again, if you're listening on the computer, if you wish to call in by phone, dial star three to raise your hand.

We'll recognize you after the three people that are present.

If you're connected by computer, click the hand icon on your participants' panel, and we will let you speak after our three speakers.

Mary West.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, good evening, Mary.

I hope you all had a blessed fourth.

Okay, now I got a couple of things for you all.

Number one, Board of Public Works.

Now, when I paid to have that lot cleaned off, you all's alleyway.

Can you all allow them to come down and clean up what's left in there?

Because I pay to have it cut to keep the grass down.

So would you allow the public works to come down there and clean up the rubbish that's left in there?

And you know, I stood out here on these streets before and protested for money for the Board of Public Works to get paid more and to hire more people to work with them.

Because see, I pick up and down the street on LaRue Avenue so they don't have to come and pick the trash up.

I ride all up in the red brush and pick it up on the roads so they don't have to go and do too much of that.

I ride on my scooter and do that.

So if you all can help these guys out and do something to get more people for them, because the last time, the last administration, the little couple of dollars they did give them, the insurance took it.

Okay.

Next, there will be pox and wrecks.

New River Park needs that asphalt fixed up there all the way around the park.

So can you all get that done?

Because I almost had an accident up on the asphalt there at New River Park.

And you all know what I told you about the asphalt.

Because if I'd have failed, I would have broke more than a wrist of the day up there in that roughness.

But I don't want to have to sue nobody.

Because like I keep telling y'all, it's not my asphalt as City Beckley's asphalt, and you all know that.

So correct that problem out there.

The roads are terrible.

The asphalt is terrible all over Beckley.

So can you all get things done?

We would appreciate it.

And then also consider putting some more bumps down on LaRue Avenue.

Somebody came through the other night, and I thought it was thundering out there.

They run across that thing so bad.

So if they start complaining to you all and say 30 seconds, that you all need to pay for their um vehicles because they mess them up, tell them to go to speed limit.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh I will apologize.

I cannot read this second person that signed up.

It was Joyce, then crossed out.

Looks like something.

Don Hernandez.

Oh, okay, good.

Don Hernandez.

Um go up to the podium right there.

Um I'm here to talk about the partial closure of the archer out of the street.

Um six behind um black night pension club, and then it stops to a certain point after the church.

So public works put a nine up there, it's no longer uh a throughway all the way down to the end country club, like it is.

So the first page has the just the petition that we had started a few years ago and some signatures that we had at that point in time.

Um at that time.

But if you look at um the maps that I had provided, um particularly this one, it will show you that there's two arrows here, and that's kind of where the houses and there's tree lines and houses uh there that have put multiple things there that you're probably not able to allow to drive through there anymore.

So having that part saying that it's a street, um is no longer available, and I know parks and rent the sanitary property.

Um the public works department doesn't maintain that property here, family maintain it to the pavement, and then the rest is for the homeowners that have that property behind their houses to maintain it, and so like my parents have moved out that house for almost 30 years now, and we've been maintaining that property plus the department next door at the back of it.

Um and then the things below it, and I just showed on the second map was I highlighted the three properties.

I had gave you um on the net on the right side of the folder, and gave you the um needs to those three properties, just highlighted that to see so you can read it yourselves as far as what the property level is for those three houses instead of getting all of the needs for all of those houses all the way down to the end of the south while we're black made country club ends, and that's about it.

Um I have the last page is the pictures.

Um if you hold one up is the one with um taken in the picture sideways, so it's at this headed towards the church so you can see the pavement.

Then I take the second picture, and it's like looking down towards the property, the first properties, the first public properties, and then the last one is the last one show really showing um picture that there's trees over room there that's been there for a hundred couple years that you can't go through that street.

And of course, I think go further down because there were fences and stuff up there.

So we would like to shut the partially shut that off.

Yeah, this is on um and the street has never been paved all the way through.

So you're not wanting to open by you're not wanting to open the road.

No, we want to close shut it off completely so like the property owners could add that property to the deeds.

Yeah, we've talked about doing that several times with several properties that have alleyways behind them but are not true alleyways.

I mean, we've got grass and trees and everything else.

So did you is your phone number name and phone number in this?

Um if you want to if you want to give it to us afterwards, we we will look into it.

I mean it's something we've talked about uh many, many, many times about a lot of these properties that have these.

Yeah for those properties because they they have maintained it because like she said, he's been there for 30 some years or more, and they have tried to keep that property behind them up, and I just think the city needs to work with these people and I will tell you and help them out.

Thanks to Councilwoman Bullock, the three of us drove out.

I didn't even know that that piece of property was back there beyond that street.

I had no idea.

We looked at it.

Yeah, so uh appreciate you showing us that.

Stick around and give us your name and number.

We'll try to get you a solution or something.

So uh Tom Mosley.

Oh jeez.

How is everybody?

Yeah.

Um I appreciate those of you, Councilwoman Cooks, Mayor Neal, Mr.

Gerald that came out and checked out speedy on Hall Street and took the time to do that.

I appreciate that.

Um the other hand of it, someone from the city has come out and asked a few of my neighbors if they were cohorced and uh sign a petition.

I don't know who done that.

You know, we we don't uh we don't hold anybody down or force them to sign a petition.

Uh I wore my godfather shirt, but that's not me.

Uh for those of you that's old enough to remember that movie.

But um, but you know, we need something done, folks.

And you know, I don't like to come up here and fight.

I don't like to aggravate people, I don't like to call you all, email, but the speeding is getting worse.

I know the police department's been extremely busy and it's appreciated.

You know, if if we can't get her speed bumps, is there something else we can do?

Can we can we put a couple of concrete blocks out here and dead in the street?

Can we do something?

Because a lot of this is through traffic, and it's you know, the officers can't be everywhere.

I mean, they have made several stops out there and it slowed some of it down, but it just takes one, it takes one person through there.

And it's to the point my neighbor hollered to somebody the other day, they cussed her out.

You know, my wife said something to someone the other day, and someone threatened to kill her.

I mean, this this is the garbage we get for would you please slow down, you know, slow your vehicle down.

So if they don't care enough to listen to us, they're not going to pay attention to a sign.

So we we need something.

I'm asking this council.

I'll meet with any of you anytime it's convenient to sit down and come up with some kind of a solution to this.

And that's all I'm asking of you.

I know I've drove a lot of you crazy, but we've got to have a solution.

You know, and I thank all of you for taking the time to come out, it means a lot.

But we just need something.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

That's what we got to mean.

Very good.

Okay, well, so we'll move on to brief comments from council members and city manager.

Uh again, let's try to keep it to three minutes ourselves.

Uh Janine, you want to go ahead and start?

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Um, thanks to all department heads, just thanks for all that you all do on a daily basis, and thanks also to Susan who keeps everything together.

And congratulations to councilwoman at large, Sherry Hunter on her retirement.

But 25 years.

25 years.

25 years, yeah.

So congratulations to you.

And happy belated birthday to Miss Mary West.

She told me she's the big 7-0.

So happy belated birthday to you.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Janine.

Frank.

Well, I want to thank the uh department of heads myself.

Uh thank everyone for coming out.

Uh, this is what we need.

We need for people to come out.

Uh the lady did present it to you just right here.

That's very good because not only did you show talk about things, you showed things that could happen, and that's what we need.

You know, if you come with a there is problems within the city, but if we all work together, we can solve those problems.

But it's not going to be overnight.

Sometimes it takes things a little bit longer.

Then also some things probably just been ignored too.

So we just got to get better at it.

And I just think everybody and glad to see counsel me.

It's been three weeks and I ain't seen none of you.

Just glad to be back on the board.

Is that it?

Yes.

Nancy.

Uh Tom, I do take your um problems seriously.

Um I understand it does just take one, so I think we need to have a serious talk, and Ms.

Hernandez, um, we take yours seriously too, because we went out and looked at that, and they're not gonna do anything with it, you know.

It may as well be in your name since you're taking care of it.

Uh we'll have to find out you know what it takes to do that for you.

But um, I can understand.

I didn't realize uh it was a dead end that soon.

I knew the road had been a dead end, but um thanks to Janine, we know exactly where and you know what you guys are doing.

Um hopefully in the near future, um the council maybe we can get together and work more with department heads on things that uh they need to help them do their job.

So uh I do hope we can get something like that established.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Natalie.

Well, first of all, I want to mention that the four young special Olympians that we talked about last time, two of the four came home with gold medals.

All right, yeah.

And they were in the paper.

Ryan Bailey came home with a gold medal in golf, and Mikey Shoemate for tracking fields.

So I just thought that was good good news.

Yep.

And Mary West, you may have to help me a little bit on this, but on Thursday at one o'clock at the VA hospital, there will be an event at the new mental health facility at the VA, and all council are invited to be there.

And third thing, Mike Bolan, I just received very high praise from a member of the public for you about how clean your guys are keeping the trails.

One of our constituents out there said she walks that trail all the time.

And she said she can see where homeless have been there and all, but she said it's very clean, and she never feels threatened or afraid there.

And so a big thank you to your guys at Public Works.

And again, employees, we can't run the city without you guys.

And Chris Graham, thank you for really getting on things as far as code enforcement is concerned.

We appreciate all of you.

We can't do things without you all.

That's it.

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day, uh, great celebration.

I I don't know if it was the World Cup.

The fact that the World Cup was hosted by U.S.

and Mexico and Canada that I don't know, it just seemed like patriotism everywhere I saw was like uh at like off the shelf.

Um country roads playing at the World Cup was awesome.

But um anyway, fireworks.

I know the city's put on a few good events.

Trish, if you want, I'll let you talk a little bit more about the Bill Withers Festival that was uh last weekend or and then what's coming up next.

But I still pay everybody had a great happy fourth of July.

Sure.

Um the Village Festival went great in spite of the nasty weather.

Um we did really well, and I was so happy that I sold a lot of t-shirts.

Um we had to bring it inside, everybody had a good attitude about it, and the bands were happy.

They were happy to be in air conditioning so they were happy um that it went really well.

And the anniversary celebration is the first Raleigh County Fair, it went really well in the fireworks.

That was fabulous.

Um the next thing coming up on the schedule is the part of the Appalachian Festival that the chamber puts on.

Um we're gonna have a new event called the Hometown Hall of Fame, and that'll be jumping with the Alaska Festival, and it'll be on August the first report part.

Um this is gonna be the unveiling of banner.

We hope I'll be honest at the state there is a firm.

We're gonna put banners on the ball uh of the state building for the hometown hall of famers, which are real visitors, Hazel Dickens, little Jimmy Dickens, Calvin Sherman, and Everett Willie, and those are all from Southern West Virginia.

Um so we're kind of excited about that.

Matt Bulman's at Hollywood.

So that'll be fun.

And then the next weekend of course we call the events of the Acolac and Festival.

I'm not going to go into every one of those.

Um they're online or on Facebook.

Um be a cruising with the case we've got to.

Friday car is still going on, so um you can have a Friday afternoon.

We used to have vendors there, and we'll need a thing.

And this week it'll be uh untrained professionals.

Um there's the farmers market that we'll be starting up, it's on top of um in a rolling gateway uh at the little litter.

It's every Monday, Lindsay and Friday from 3 to 5:30.

So it's different vendors there selling their low run food.

Thank you, Trish.

Okay, Sherry, go ahead.

Okay.

Well, we always like to acknowledge our future leaders of tomorrow.

So John Questenberry placed this on Facebook.

Congratulations to these flying eagle scholars who all passed the AP U.S.

history exam this year.

Lakin Halk, Madeline Turner, Sebastian Calvert, Connor Kavanaugh, Suleiman Jaweed, Logan Morgan, Ava Redden, Mason Schroeder, Sophie White, Gabriella Benna, Abigail Billlops, Raya Howell, Presta, Preston Lana, Preston Lana, Levi McCormick, Gavin Mylam, Amara Sadat, Hayden Vera Mesa, and Carson Williams.

Who knows?

Someday, one of those students may very well be sitting in one of these seats up here.

So congratulations to all of them.

I think they need a round of applause.

Very proud of them.

And besides being the mayor of our great city of Beckley, West Virginia, this gentleman right here doesn't need to be put on a pedestal.

But years ago, Ryan Neal took the initiative to make sure that the B and I golf classic was not going to go away.

This coming weekend is the Mountain State Golf Golf Classic.

And Ron, thank you.

Because that is a huge deal.

Nowhere in the state of West Virginia is there a three-day golf tournament at three different venues, and that's a big deal.

How many golfers you got?

We got a hundred and sixty and probably only 50 or 60 from Raleigh County.

The rest are from so it's it's a great for our economy because it brings people in, the restaurants.

I mentioned a fair person on your show today, the dish, uh, all the restaurants around us will will benefit.

The hotels will benefit, but it's 160 golfers is a record.

I'll just tell you we we had to keep it going.

Beckley newspapers, and we thought it was the best PR thing they did, and uh they decided one year they weren't gonna do it.

So my friends in Runick are like, well, we're coming up that weekend anyway, so figure something out.

So Mike Mace and I said just jumped in and took it over.

But it is.

It it's a really good thing for our for our community here.

Way to go right.

Thanks, Sherry.

You're welcome.

I want to thank Beckley Police Department.

What an impressive uh stop yesterday, Chief.

That was unbelievable.

Thank you to the officer.

Um I I do want to say, Tom, I I'm sorry that it's taken a while.

But I will say, when you first came to City Council, and you know that we moved quickly on the 15 mile an hour.

Unfortunately, that in and I mean we had we tried everything, and so it's it's taken a little bit longer, but we hear your concerns and we also hear Mary's as well.

Okay, so we're we're trying, we're trying.

Um this Friday is the veterans table at the um Linda K.

Epling Stadium.

Uh veterans and their widows are welcome to um come to get their food.

Um the truck arrives at nine.

Volunteers are needed from nine uh until the distribution, which begins at 10 o'clock.

Um, we are all in this together, and I do want to thank everybody that takes the time on a Tuesday evening to come to City Council.

Thank you.

You're invested in our community, and thank you, and thank you, Department Heads, for all you're doing.

Appreciate you.

Very good.

Cody.

Uh I don't think I have anything this evening.

Very good.

Mr.

Gerald.

Well, as usual, I just wanted to thank my staff for all they do.

Uh I attended the Bill Withers Festival and also attended the uh the uh July the 4th celebration at uh Raleigh County Civic Center and both of them was great.

I mean, uh, even though we had to move the uh Bill Withers inside, uh it was standing room only.

Uh and the bands was great.

Even the bands at Raleigh County uh Civic Center, they was playing my kind of music.

So that's that's very unusual.

Because it had big old school.

But anyway, uh also I would like to congratulate Jeannie Campbell.

She's not here, but she works for code enforcement.

She got us an additional $17,000 grant for the demolitions of our last bid.

So uh that eliminated uh us from spending general fund money.

So I want to congratulate her and uh Leslie, you said you had the biggest day you've had in a long time.

Three in a row.

Three in a row, down at the museum.

That's awesome.

The day of the tornado.

We had Paul's.

Are you open?

Are you over?

We've got to get to someplace safe.

I guess they thought underground was safe.

I don't know.

That was that was the easy day.

That was like 10,000.

The next day was 14,000.

Yeah.

654 people underground today.

Great to hear.

Thank you for that.

Uh I want to thank Chief.

And we did West Virginia today, Chief.

And we had about 700 people.

That's great.

I want to thank Chief Bailey and Chief Tompkins for your assignment of additional personnel to handle all my phone calls for the fireworks.

So uh I want to thank both of you for that.

Uh hopefully we did not have any accidents in the city of Beckley or outside the city of Beckley.

Hopefully, we didn't have no accidents.

Um, thank you for completion of the telephones and the fiber hookups for our staff.

And thank Evan and his staff for working on year-in processing.

So uh we're all ready to go with that.

So uh Evan's got his work cut out for him, but I'm sure he'll get it done in a great fashion.

So that's all I got to say.

And thank you all for attending the meeting.

Absolutely.

Um Mayor.

Yes.

Um, I'm sorry, Mr.

Gerald, did you say something about the fiber hookup?

Yes.

The Segber.

SEGRA, yes.

We we we changed all the switches and and we went to fiber to all the buildings.

Um that's been in the works for two or three years.

Yeah, I know.

So it's completed.

It's completed, yes, ma'am.

And the phones are actually installed, so everything's completed at this point.

Is that it?

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh second reading and public hearing of ordinance authorizing purchase of the 703 Hartley Avenue.

At this point, I'll turn it over to Mr.

Fowle.

Thank you, Mayor.

Tonight is the second reading of this ordinance.

Uh we will have a public hearing after I've read it by title.

What this ordinance does is this authorizes the city of Beckley to purchase on behalf of the Beckwood Sanitary Board property located at 703 Hartley Avenue.

Consideration to be paid will be 75,000.

That covers the cost of the property and any and all claims of damages they may have as a result of any flooding that's occurred at that location.

At this time, I will open the uh first read by title ordinance authorizing the purchase of 703 Hartley Avenue Beckley, West Virginia, and I'll open the public hearing and see if anybody has any comments either in favor of or in opposition to this ordinance.

There appearing to be no comments.

I'll close the public hearing.

Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Fowl.

May I have a motion to approve the ordinance as presented?

So moved.

Second.

Second.

Does anyone from council have any questions for Mr.

Gerald about this?

I just have a comment.

Today is your day, Mr.

Mr.

Moore.

All right.

And do you think about that?

It took a while, but he never gave up.

Uh so good job.

Very good.

Anyone else?

All those in favor of approval say aye.

Aye.

If there's anyone opposed, say nay.

The ordinance is approved.

Thank you, Council.

Move on to old business.

Uh next up is receipt of bids for two 2027 Ford truck, F-150 series police responders for the Beckley Fire Department, and seven Ford Police Interceptor Cruisers for the Beckley Police Department.

At this time, I will let uh council at large Sherry Hunter open the bids.

Just read them ready.

This is from mid-state Ford LLC, Arbeckel Road, Summersville.

Um in the amount of seal bids for two 2027 Ford Track F-150 series police responders and 7 2027 Ford Police Interceptor Cruisers will be received by the City of Beckley.

All right.

So the total amount is 417,160 even.

Okay.

That's from mid-state Ford LLC.

Okay.

All right.

This one is from Stevens Auto Center.

Um the same seven to 2027 Ford track F-150 series and uh seven 2027 Ford Police Interceptor Cruisers in the amount of 416,412.

Wow.

And that's from Stevens Auto Center in Danville, Virginia.

West Virginia.

Yes.

Danville, West Virginia.

Very good.

Thank you, Sheriff.

Anybody from Council have any questions?

Okay, very well.

These will, like every other time, these bids will be turned over to the police and fire chiefs, recorder treasurer, and to council at large for possible award at an upcoming council meeting.

Thank you, Sherry Hunter for doing that.

You're welcome.

Next is new business, coal severance fund approval of updated estimate.

I will now turn it over to Evan.

Okay, this is a just a simple administrative process we do every year.

Um all we are doing is updating the beginning cash balance of our coal severance fund, and we're updating that amount to 105,570.

So this does take a resolution.

Um so I would need a uh motion, a second, and then if anybody's not in favor of doing this update, then we can take a vote.

Okay, very good.

With that, may I have a motion to approve the update to the coal severance fund?

So move.

Second.

Thank you.

Frank, any questions or comments for Evan about this?

Yes.

Yeah, we um we don't know what the cash balance is going to be on July 1 until afterwards.

So this one we have to have in by July 15th to Otter's office.

And the next meeting will update the beginning balance of our general fund.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, with that.

All in favor of approval say aye.

Aye.

If there's anyone opposed, say nay.

So move.

Thank you, Council.

Next up is the receipt of proposals for community development consulting services.

Sherry, you got those two?

I do.

Okay, again, I will turn it over to Council at large, Sherry Hunter.

She will open them up and then read aloud whenever you're ready.

Okay.

This is for Hatfield Architects, PLLC.

Um at 10, Thomas Drive, Hurricane, West Virginia.

At this stage, we don't need to set it prices for this.

Oh, just the proposal.

I don't have to fine.

Just say that.

Yeah.

Just the one.

I don't have to just who's I don't have to do an amounts.

Right.

Okay, okay.

Okay.

This is Hatfield Architects PLC out of Hurricane.

Okay, that's one.

Erman Design Ventures LLC.

I don't have to think.

Okay.

And Burton Planning Services and Laura Cox planning and design.

Okay.

Thank you.

Does any member of council have any questions about what these proposals are?

This is pertaining to the remote.

And you want to discuss more about what this proposal for?

This is pertaining to the um engineering firm that handles the community grant.

Right.

And the administrative fee is paid out of federal hug grant.

Okay.

So we have to reevaluate each one of them separately and uh pick and choose uh the most qualified engineering firm.

Okay.

Not the one not the ones that's cheapest, but the most qualified.

Yes, ma'am.

Angela King had put out the results of this okay.

Okay.

So just it's been and just reviewing um this.

I was just looking at um it's several items here that we probably need to address once we get the consulting firm.

Um like the citizen participation plan.

I've never seen that.

The neighborhood revitalization strategy area.

It's just several things in here that once we um get the um consulting service.

That is just a lot of things we need to make sure that they are there.

And I think we can also look at uh at our comprehensive plan.

Yes, and see what meshes with what's our comprehensive plan with what they have submitted.

Anyone else have anything?

I do think we need to have a work meeting and revisit the comprehensive plan.

I absolutely do.

I agree.

I would agree.

Anyone else?

And again, these proposals will be turned over to recorded treasurer, city manager, Sherry Hunter, Cody Reedy, uh for review.

Yeah.

Um so there's no vote on that or anything.

So next up is potential executive session.

I think we are going to executive session.

Briefly.

And as always with the executive session, no decisions will be made, no votes will be taken.

But with that, may I have a motion to enter into executive session?

Summit.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

If there's anyone opposed, say nay.

If you're opposing to you, it might be in my office.

I get that.

I get that.

I get that.

I get that.

Just so you can have some fun and wind.

You cracked me up.

When Frank's like, please keep staying in each of the day.

Who casts right before a prayer?

Oh, as a yeah, no, I'm pretty good at reading lips.

He just forgot what's the case.

At least it wasn't in the middle of prayer.

Give me that.

I told Evan to hold the expansion.

Hey, Mr.

J.

I told you to turn the thumb stand up back there.

So we can get out of here.

It was it was pretty good.

Um I will go ahead and repeat, as always, with executive session.

No decisions were made, no votes were taken.

Uh with that may I have a motion to exit out of executive session and enter back into regular council meeting?

Maybe a second.

All in favor say I want opposed.

No.

No.

With that, may I have a motion to adjourn?

So move.

Second.