The Biloxi City Council convened on November 18, 2025, to discuss the Governor's Report on regional insurance mitigation, hear presentations regarding community events including powerboat racing and Christmas activities, and conduct a public hearing on the removal of protected trees in the Hawk Creek subdivision. The council concluded with several routine resolutions and community comments regarding local services and charitable organizations.
November 18th meeting uh to order. The chair will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. So moved by Mr. Creel. Do we have a second? Second by Mr. Tisdale. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed. Motion carries. Mayor's report. Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. See a lot of smiling faces out there. Can you hear me now? Very good. I think a little bit on the agenda. Frank Bardot I was supposed to do the pitch all along, so Frank's not going to do this. But I'm gonna give you, you know, return. I'm a little jet-lagged today, but we did return from London. Uh in uh first slide somewhere. But all last week we were uh had talked a little bit about this uh entity that's called GovPro, which is made up of 12 of the uh you know best of class um uh public entities that the legislature has actually uh allowed us to do, where uh using you know the best in class and some of the mitigation that we've done since the storm to enable uh the very best premiums that we uh uh can be afforded based on some of the uh mitigation that we've done with roofs and and uh different uh things that are done. But it's called as soon as the technology gets up, it's called GovPro, and it's made up of of uh entities, 12 entities, 12 best in class entities, uh school districts, uh City of Gulfport, City of Biloxi, Harrison County Schools, uh inclusive of Memorial Hospital. They're the biggest single uh entity, but Beluxin Gulfport Biloxi, inclusive of uh the uh Shucker Stadium, which is a big ticket item, and and the Gulf Board inclusive of the uh aquarium. So total value of insured value is 2.68 billion. Now there you go, that's the first one. But uh Frank with Gallagher and as well as Will uh Cooper from uh uh the brokerage that put this together. Next slide. Okay, and that's made up, as I said, of uh the best in class entities, and it was legislation allowed this group to come together. I don't know if you can read this uh too well, but you know the statutes. This is a creation of the you know, a creature of the legislature, and that gives us the ability to you know go out and meet with underwriters, and these particular underwriters were you know in and around Lloyd's of London and in London where pretty much the whole insurance world uh takes place. You can go to the next slide. But that's you know who we are. This is part of the pitch we were doing to I think we did 15 uh of the uh sessions, 45 minutes each, and all the underwriters mostly from Lloyd's of London and in and around that, but it's made up of just these five foot coastal counties. So that's gonna put us in a situation where we're not expanding to any other states and and kind of focused on some of the things we've done, the restorations that have been done, even to the Barrier Islands. So that was a big part of the presentation. Go to next slide too. So uh the the uh as I said, the membership is made up of course uh, you know, City of Biloxi, City of Gupport, and Guffort School District, Hankon County, Board of Supervisors, Hancock County Ports and Harbor, Hancock County Utility Authority, Hancock County Water and Sewer, Harrison County Board of Supervisors, Stone County Board of Education, Mississippi Coast Transportation Authority, Harrison County School District, and by the way, you can't read that, but uh represented by Dr. Michael Weaver, who's his younger brother. So, but we did a good part of the presentation together, as well as Memorial Hospital. So together we made some pretty good pitches, and goes to the last slide. That's uh to the right-hand side, you can't read it very well, but that's those are underwriters from Lords of London. Who wrote the insurance for the Titanic? Anyway, uh we're not we're not part of that Titanic picture. We hope we're much better off. But it was a very interesting uh set of information, and we were questioning it in every step. So each each one of these underwriters had aspects of why should we why are you a better bet than just the general population? So the whole of thought was as we grow and our insurance value goes, and I think uh not only was just the reduction, we're expecting about a half a million dollars reduction in our property insurance, just property insurance, uh uh uh premiums.