The city council held its third and final budget review meeting on November 20, 2025, to discuss the proposed 2026 budgets for the Community and Economic Development Department, Community Development Block Grant, Police Department, and Fire Department. The meeting began at approximately 6 p.m. and extended past 2 a.m., reflecting extensive debate on staffing, public safety, and fiscal priorities.
Okay. We're one of them. We are recording just so everyone's aware. Okay. Thank you, everyone. And anyone who's still funneling in, I will call the third budget meeting to order and ask Mr. Miller to call the role. Mr. Callahan. Present. Ms. Graham C. Smith. Present. We attack. Present. Ms. Laird. Present. This is Leon Present. This Wilhelm present. And Mr. Cologne. Present. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Just a YouTube reminder for our audience at home. If you want to follow along in real time after 6 p.m., feel free to scroll forward to the live portion of the meeting. Tonight is our third and final meeting to review the budget. The following proposed 2026 budgets will be reviewed this evening. Our community and economic development department, which starts on page 51, our community development block grant fund, which starts on page 301, our police department, which starts on page 137, and the fire department, page 153. After the appropriate administration representatives make their presentation for each item, I will recognize the appropriate committee chair and chair members and then open it up to questions and comments from other members of council. There will be public comment after the we'll do public comment tonight after I would I would say each item, but we'll probably just I'm gonna group community economic development slash community development block grant as one public comment. We'll do a public comment after the police department, and then we'll do another public comment after the fire department. I will remind everyone we have a five minute time limit as is custom for our city council meetings. And I ask you to limit your comments to the respective budgets that we're discussing this evening. Just a couple general things for anyone who's presenting, anyone who's asking questions, uh anyone who's commenting. If if you have a budget book with you, try to reference the pages you're looking at if you talk about certain line items or budgets, just so we could all follow along in our budget books. And then I expect we're gonna be here tonight. I welcome everyone's comments, I welcome everyone's questions up here in every presentation. I just asked to be mindful of repetitiveness. If I if I hear someone repeat themselves a few times, I'll likely ask us to move it along just out of respect for everyone's time. Uh I mean, I will acknowledge we have a number of members of the fire department here tonight. Fire department was last on the pre-planned agenda. I don't want to keep everyone here later than you have to be. So the we'll get started tonight. So starting with our community and economic development department, I'll recognize Ms. Collins, the director of the department. And again, that starts on page 51. Yes, um, good evening, council.