Each month uh we open our first meeting with a prayer followed by the pledge.

I think this uh this meeting today has some special meaning.

Uh so I'm gonna ask Miss Ms.

Ardra uh Wilkes Danoa if she would lead us uh in a short prayer, and then I'll ask the mayor to lead us in the pledge.

Everybody would stand Lord.

We are gathered in the city of Biloxi in these chambers with our fathers, our city fathers, and our city residents, and we ask you to put the thoughts, words, and deeds in our hearts and minds in our voices today for the good of the whole of the people.

We ask that you bless us because many of us have families who are ill and injured or weak or have died recently, and we ask to lift us up and give us joy in our hearts.

But Lord, we ask you to let us be sincere.

In God's name we pray.

Amen.

Mayor, 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.

Thanks, Audrey.

Thank you for that.

The chair entertain a motion to we don't have any we need to suspend the rules.

Okay.

Chair entertain a motion to suspend the rules.

So moved.

Moved by Mr.

Creel.

Seconded by Mr.

Tisdale.

Clerk would read the revision.

Need to vote.

Need to vote, Ken.

All in favor.

Those opposed.

Now will the clerk read the revision.

To the consent agenda, we're adding 5L resolution authorizing submission of a grant application to Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area.

Thank you.

Chair entertain a motion to accept the agenda as amended.

So moved.

Moved by Mr.

Creel, seconded by Mr.

Tisdale.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Those opposed.

Motion carries.

Mayor's report.

Yeah.

Thank you, Mr.

President, and welcome everyone to our meeting here.

And uh I would ask Ms.

Hunt to come up here and have a special introduction for us regarding the Mardi Gras Museum.

Ms.

Hunt, you and control.

Red, she got Brent.

Hey.

Uh I'm really glad to be here to get excited.

Um, and you all know a great reading or all the weather.

So I think I'm gonna give you a little bit about Miss Danny Louis VIDA.

Graduated after the council.

So I can make out the lot.

Come to the museum lots of expansion, psychological and sale.

Fundraiser, customer service.

Come to us from eight weeks.

We love the president.

We love being here.

And headed the museum on 60.

So he's now our executor directory.

Well, she on proof is she undermined.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh you can take a little bit more happy.

Thank you all.

Um looks forward.

Great.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

And somebody our guy.

All right.

At this point, I'd like to invite like the Apostle Paul bringing some more good news.

Frank Bardot, he's up with regard to GovRo and some of our efforts to uh uh do some good things.

Thanks, Frank.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um in front of you is our property renewal along with our uh equipment breakdown renewal.

So this book is the inland marine, the equipment policy.

So the equipment policy is up from 209 to 276, but the values increase.

So it's not a rate increase, it's the valuation increase.

Most of that is due to the increased cost of fire trucks, quite frankly.

Um, and that's happening all across uh obviously the country, the cost of a fire truck has increased as you all know exponentially over the last 10 years.

Um but the good news is the Coast GovPro, your property program had a very uh significant decrease of $326,979.

So the overall decrease is 260,000 two fifty-six and twenty-four cents.

Um that is with an increase in property values too of uh almost nine million dollars.

In addition to that, last year, if you recall, we have a we had a uh half a million dollars that all the entities set aside for their all other apparels deductible, buying that down to 25,000.

At the end of a 12-month span, that's now 400,000 in the bank.

This year, the the y'all the committee, CoastGov Pro decide to increase that to a million dollars.

That's included in your premium.

And so all we have exposed is a half a million dollars, so there's 900,000.

Uh former councilman George Lawrence would be very proud that uh we're doing we're building up that fund.

The idea of that fund is right now we're enjoying a very soft market.

Uh that market will turn, and when the market turns, we'll be able to use those dollars to subsidize and stabilize premiums.

So the long and short of it is the program is uh doing what we expected it to do.

We are enjoying decreases.

Along with that, this year we brought in another product uh the equipment breakdown.

The uh that premium was down 30 percent.

That's included in your property premium.

It expanded coverage and lower deductibles.

So all in all, the program's responding the way it's supposed to respond, and we are having a decrease overall.

Frank, you might want to explain some of the efforts that we went through at the end of layout 25 with regard to uh you know, bang for the buck, and we are the best in class of the 12 members of GovRo.

We we will continue that effort and expand that to uh get better coverage and even for less uh funds.

I think that's the same thing.

Yeah, so you know, the goal when we brought this thing to y'all was to bring 12 entities together to create a buyer's group to get interest from carriers that typically wouldn't we'd be too small individually to have interest in our accounts.

And so we had uh in the fall, uh domestic markets and some London markets flew over.

We showed them our how we rebuilt the properties.

We actually showed them how we rebuilt have rebuilt the barrier islands, the billions of dollars have been spent on the Mississippi Gulf Coast since Katrina to really show them the the painstaking um efforts that we've made to mitigate loss in the future.

We're completely different risk model than what they anticipate.

And so the only way to do that is put their eyes on it, and then we also had a small group of members that went to London, sat in front of underwriters, and actually told our tale to those folks, most of which didn't write any capacity here on the coast, all of which are on our program.

And so we're very proud, and we're going to try to continue to expand that.

Um our limits in force have gone from $390 million collectively to $700 million uh and still providing a decrease um to the members.

And so we're we're operating the way we hoped it would operate.

We are in a great market, and it's a very, very soft market, so it's easy to do these in a soft market.

When the market turns hard and premiums start going up for others, and we're able to stabilize it, that's when you're going to really see the value of being in case GovRo.

You touched upon it, but you said smooth that those spikes, and I think they were appreciative of what we were trying to do, especially and I think today even some more good news.

We just had a uh a viewing of the new maps with regard to FEMA and the flood maps and the zones and so forth.

So I those are two good factors in what we do, and I think that may impact if we if we have to make another trip over there uh to go after it.

It's important to build those relationships in the markets.

Will we pitch to 43 underwriters or something like that?

It was a it's a long, long two days.

Yeah.

Okay.

I can answer any questions.

Yes, sir.

So quick question on the um on the deductible.

I see the change hospitals was is not included in it.

Is that a significant change or how does it very significant change?

So that's a benefit, obviously, as Memorial Hospital is part of this group, and there's another hospital coming in.

And that's the whole concept of this, is we package everybody together, and we take the difficult aspects of each risk.

We try to eliminate those by using the overall value of so like on schools, outdoor property was excluded in the hard market.

We were able to get those included.

That benefits schools, but also benefits cities and counties.

And in the case of the equipment breakdown, eliminating that hospital deductible is a huge deal to the hospitals that are in this.

Yes.

Perfect.

Thank you.

I think too, along those special needs uh regarding the stadium and as well as aquarium.

I think that was all components in the evaluation.

What was it 2.6 billion dollars of coverage we were trying to get?

Yeah, we're gonna be we're gonna be a little over uh $3.4 billion values this year.

We we did as we told you all we were going to do when we created this.

We're not going to grow this overnight.

We had 26 submissions.

Uh we've been very selective of those that join.

Um we we want to make sure that we're able to maintain this for long term.

And it's only in the the possibilities only come from the Lower Counties in in Mississippi, not across the city.

Yeah.

Frank, I just want to thank you for doing yeoman's work on this project, really.

It's uh it's gone very well.

Thank you, sir.

Great idea.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

And I can answer any of y'all's calls uh or questions if y'all have any after the fact as y'all go through this.

I know it's uh always a lot of information.

Okay, Frank, thank you, man.

Appreciate it.

Okay.

I got a couple of thanks, Frank.

Let me get a little a few uh uh pieces of information on Pops Ferry extension.

I think we're about 40 something percent plus uh uh finished and complete, and I think there's some uh on the south side, storm and water drain between beach boulevard and and railroad tracks is pretty much complete, and then on the north side, the retaining wall and infrastructure and everything is is is going white quite along.

I think uh uh there's gonna be some road closures just south of Paris Road, which is in effect uh Friday at 5 p.m.

And uh there's still some on the track and to on the the railroad track completion to to go forward, but it's it's moving along still uh uh as I said, 40 something plus percent, and hopefully uh uh that will work its way to near complete by the end of the year.

Uh and I think Chip filet building permits have been pulled right, Jerry, and and uh uh groundbreaking will be coming.

And that includes an extensive amount of uh landscaping and so forth.

I think uh so that's that's coming along.

And uh our beautification and our grass cutting is in effect, so they're rocking and rolling, rem uh used uh uh uh I think uh some of the labor free labor that we we get uh in a bunch of the crews and uh also be alert, we're looking to uh kick that off in May.

Roll that and uh we do uh remind as far as beautification, bag your leaves, don't put them in the storm train.

And uh that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council President, if I can see departmental reports on there.

I'm sorry.

Uh sir.

Just a heads up on the be alert.

Uh currently, right now, you know, we are changing programs.

So John is to say you're going through a significant amount of training on there.

That's the problem or the held up that we've got going on.

But we will be pushing that out, and then we're going to be dispersing that out to the different departments like uh Councilman Creel and I have discussed in the past.

At this time, I would ask Ms.

Lavata to come up and give just a summary of some of the reports from engineering and public works.

So I wanted to update y'all today on the West Biloxi Library.

Uh, we've had that library shut down uh for quite a few weeks now.

We've been trying to um get the the electrical service into the building, um had some significant damage, and we're trying to get that repaired.

Uh as we get these costs pulled together, I wanted to give you an update of where we stood on this building, because that building requires a lot of maintenance at this time.

So we've gotten the roof leaks pretty significantly there.

We have gotten quotes to replace the roof.

The lowest quote we've gotten so far is 307,000.

It's going to be about 10,000 to get the electrical fixed.

Uh we're still worrying, waking waiting on a second quote to try to get that.

Um we've been having some issues on how to get it fit how the means to fix it.

The plumbing, they have plumbing problems in one of their bathrooms.

The tile is at first we thought it was tree roots.

The tile is busting up, the foundation's busting up in one of the bathrooms.

We don't have a quote on that yet.

So we don't know exactly the extent of that repair, but we're estimating it's going to be about $12,000 by the time you bust up the foundation, replace the sewer pipes, replace the tile.

Um depending on one of the things we need to look at because of the roof leaks is the ceiling tiles will more than likely all need to be replaced or a significant amount of them.

Just to purchase those, if we do with them in-house, that's 40,000.

HVAC in that building, I think we've got it working pretty well.

We did some pretty good repairs to it a few years ago.

Uh same thing with the carpet carpet placed in 2023, so we don't need anything there.

But as of right now, to get that building back open and back in full operating condition, all the issues resolved.

Uh we're looking at 368,000 is what we need.

Um I wanted to let y'all know because it's a lot of money, and um I don't have the money in the budget to do it.

So if we choose to move forward with these repairs, I will be pushing forward for a budget amendment.

Right now, in the line item that would pay for these repairs in public works budget, I have $59,000 to last the rest of the year for all HVAC for all the city buildings.

Also, we have a separate line item that we budget every year for library maintenance.

This budget includes all four library buildings maintenance.

It has $935 left in it.

We budgeted this year $20,250.

So we've got some some tough decisions to make.

Um I'm gonna have to, you know, come forward to ask for more money if we want to make all these repairs to this building.

Um keep in mind this is only one of the very many buildings we're having HVAC repairs uh that need to be done on.

Also throw out there this is not on the bond list at the time.

We put together the bond list project um back the end of last year.

We thought we were only looking at patching the roof, so we did not realize we were gonna need a $300 and something thousand dollar roof.

So it's not on the bond list.

Um we also, you know, I know y'all know about all the other HVACs.

The visitor center, we've got it almost, I think we've got it almost done.

It needs some control work, but we've got civic center needs a lot of work.

We've got a lot of other buildings.

Public safety needs a lot of work, public safety needs a roof.

And I will reiterate I have $59,000 in that by that line item for HVAC repairs for the rest of this year.

Um, so I just wanted to pass that information along.

Um finally am getting prices together, finally getting contractors to get us what we need.

So I wanted to share.

Um, the next thing, any questions about the library?

Anyone ask?

Yes.

Yeah.

So before the library you had mentioned, uh, can you give us a brief update on the crewage AC, I think DMP was working on that one in?

It's complete.

The project is complete.

They're closing it out right now.

We're doing final paperwork.

Um, as far as the library is concerned, um, I know I've discussed it, I believe, with Rick and with uh a few other council members rather than invest or in in this building at this time and trying to get it up, it's been closed.

Is there not a temporary solution that we could possibly look at?

Uh maybe the second floor.

I know I spoke with uh uh director Lee.

The second floor of the Donnell Snyder has uh rooms or or offices on that second three three rooms that they could possibly remote library uh and and move it over there.

That that is since it guys would still give us four libraries or three and a half, maybe, but at the same time we would not have the four hundred thousand dollars pending hanging over our head for a building that is um in in dire need of things.

So if I don't know what it would take to explore, possibly opening up a temporary uh location on that second floor, the Donald Snyder pending um Dr.

Tisdale's approval.

I'm not trying to infiltrate your ward mic nail this, but anyway.

Uh but if we could look at a temporary solution that way, that would give us some time to look at this.

It's not um it it would serve the purpose um initially, and then we can make those tough decisions and or I don't know.

Uh I think there's been something passed around here lately about surplus uh adding something to surplus.

So maybe we can look at that idea in the future as well.

So but just a temporary solution.

Um that's no other questions.

Um I would like to move on with a little bit of good news.

I was gonna give you all quick update on our uh litter or inmate litter pickup crews that public works and parks and rec have been both participating in.

We started this project on March 9th.

So far, between Parks and Rec and Public Works, we've picked up right about 460 bags of litter.

And Parks and Rec has picked up, has used those crews to empty 680 trash cans.

So that equates to approximately 13,800 pounds of litter that these inmate crews have been able to help us with.

So they are making a tremendous impact.

It's going really well.

We and actually we we thought we would get more.

We're only getting about two each, so four total on a good day.

Some days we don't have any, but um it's going really well.

The program has been very successful.

So question on that would be um, can you give us a roundabout figure of how much money we saved and maybe temp jobs that that you would have had to uh to to use in in place of these inmate?

Um it's a shame and I know some of them don't want to come out, but you know, there's the program gives them uh time off their sentence by them coming out and participating in this in this program.

So it's it works twofold.

Um, and you know, heaven forbid we get a good employee out of it at the end of you know, people following hard times, and so we give them an opportunity, maybe it it they they come to work for us later.

But uh I'd like to know how much money we save just about, I mean, if it's give or take a few dollars.

Thanks.

That number.

Okay.

Um uh maybe uh we can save money, we can buy some more no littering sons.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Definitely.

All right, thank y'all.

Thank you.

Yes, that concludes the director's report as well.

All right.

Thank you.

We'll go with council reports.

Mr.

Gray.

Yeah, uh.

Is uh Ms.

Quaven?

Hey, can you come up, please?

Got a couple questions for you.

Can you tell us the process for adding land to the surplus?

And we do declaration.

What that does is that position where we can approach developers, begin to work with them, come to some kind of an agreement.

That's that's all the surplus declaration is really doing.

Isn't it saying that we don't need this?

Let's do something with it.

Once that is all worked out, whether it's we've decided to go to a bid, or we've you know, accepted uh agreement where we're doing it on the average of appraisals, that then comes back to council to be approved.

So the surplus declaration is not authorizing the sale so much as it's authorizing us to begin the process of trying to sell it.

The sale itself will come back always.

And and do you have to get how many appraisals do you have to get or put it out for bid?

I mean, what's there are three ways to do it?

The uh two most common are we can do it by public bids, and which we actually publish an RP in the newspaper.

We receive back, we review the bids and award based upon the criteria of the bid.

Or we can do the sum of two appraisals or some negotiated value in relation to that.

Uh I've seen some of them where it's you know, we've negotiated agreements where it's a guarantee to the sum of the appraisals, but is guaranteed to not be less than or something like that.

But we do have to equal some of the two appraisals.

Okay, now can they can any other city council?

Can a city councilman have the authority to sell or you know, sell to the city owned property or to a developer or individual?

Sorry, I'm not really following.

Does can one of us city councilmen have the authority to talk to a developer about buying this?

It all has to go go the way as approved.

So you can finally say is the council approval of a recommendation.

Right.

Yeah, by council.

Right.

Okay.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Over over the last over the next few weeks, I would like to uh for the city council and administration to look at rezoning parts of East Blocksy for RN 30, 20, CB or Industrial.

For the 20 years, there's been little to no growth in East Biloxy, very few houses coming back.

When the people left Biloxy, they left left behind vacant lots, parks, ball fields that the city cannot afford to take care of.

It's time to look towards the future of Biloxi.

Businesses with apartments on top, short-term rentals and buy right areas, apartment complexes, townhomes.

We have plenty of empty land to make Bluxie grow with the people comes to business and comes to jobs.

Rezoning is a must for Biloxi to thrive again.

To keep the taxes lower to bring the people back to to Bloxy to live.

As a city council member, still learning.

Maybe I should apologize for that.

But sometimes we have different things going on.

Um I know what the city can and should look like.

I just want the best for the city.

So we have to look at doing some rezoning.

And hopefully, I mean, East Biloxi is, you know, a lot of Memphis.

We have to try to bring back the people.

And the only way we're going to be able to do that is bring in developers.

And that's going to be with rezoning.

It's been like this for 20 years.

It's probably should have been rezoned five, six years ago, maybe ten, you know, to get it back to where we need to be.

Um it's probably never gonna be like it.

It'll never be like it was.

But we can make it move forward in a different direction.

So let's work together and try to come up with a plan to look at doing some rezoning in areas that that actually need it and will benefit us from it.

I'll conclude my report.

Thank you, Mr.

Green.

Mr.

Marshall.

Come back to me.

All right.

What do you say?

Oh, I didn't I didn't hear you speaking to the mic so they can hear you.

Come back to me.

All right, thank you.

Uh Mr.

Neil.

Yeah, um, look, I'm asking these questions because I get phone calls.

And um number one is um the Hill of Park bathrooms.

People want to know when are they gonna be fixed?

They cleaned up.

But when are we gonna be able to use them to Jamie?

I mean, it's been a long time since they've been broke.

Like I said, I'm only asking this because people ask me.

Yes, sir, it's a fair question.

Um, and unfortunately, I really don't have an answer that I can give that I feel comfortable with.

Now, I can't tell you that there has been progress on it.

Today, the electrician is out there installing all new lights and receptacles out.

Once that happens, then the next phase will happen, which is going inside and looking at the assessment of what we need to do to fix the bathrooms to see what that is going to entail.

Um as soon as we can get it done, we want to get it done.

I hope we could get it done maybe by the start of the summer, but that's not something I can that I can guarantee because we are having outside help come in and help us do this.

So it's kind of based on their workload as well.

We do have a meeting tomorrow morning with the KOPC group about some other projects that we might be able to get a little more information about this project during that time as well.

Um, but it is it is a process.

Um you know, we just we don't have a whole lot of money to invest in do that right now, so we're looking for other alternatives, whether it's the KOPC help that we can just buy the materials and they can come in and do the labor, but then that's also kind of based on their schedule as well on what they're able to accommodate us with.

But I promise we we are we are doing our due diligence and trying to get that done as soon as possible.

Well, what I was gonna say is I I know if this park was at other parts of the town, it'd be fixed right now.

You know.

And I just don't know why Hell A Park keeps getting put on the back burner just for bathrooms.

Well, I mean, like I've said, it's just it's the investigation and and trying to get it what needs to be done.

I can't I can't say exactly what needs to be done.

I mean, there could be plumbing issues, but we are we are going step by step, process by process, and trying to get it taken care of as soon as we can.

So we've never went in there, turned the water on, try to flush the commodo.

We don't even know last time we turned the water, it was shooting across the room in into and hitting the ceiling.

So I mean it it's a lot of it's it is a lot of work.

I do know that.

That's why the water has been cut off.

Let me jump in, Jamie.

Let me jump in and uh you know, by we'll have a nighttime report on the uh with the with the first meeting in May.

We'll give you a conclusion on where we'll be.

And uh again with the a lot of people might not know what the KOPC, but that's the nights of Peter Claver who have the trades and and volunteered to do that.

So we're taking, I think, advantage of what we could, but we'll uh we'll expedite that and uh uh you'll have a uh a definite time in in uh ribbon cutting if we need to.

Hey, that'll work.

Okay.

All right, I thank you.

Yes, sir.

And um course to broad water golf course ain't been cut.

The people is calling me, it's already summertime and grass ain't cut, they started and they just left.

So CSX went and cleaned up all their property and uh in the last week or two.

Uh Roy Anderson did the outer perimeter of the property and then all those equipment.

So we're still trying to find out what his plan is for the rest of the problem.

Um that's that's where we're at right now.

Because we know summertime is here, more of homeless people came in, and they're starting to go back out there again, believe it or not.

I see them new ones.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Connell.

Mr.

Cru.

All right.

Let's see here.

Um, Mr.

Bata, uh don't need to come up.

I just want to uh throw you a shout out.

Um thank you so much for the work that you have completed in the bluffs.

Uh I know that subdivision stays on the list due to their concrete panels, and uh so I appreciate the attention to detail in there.

Um I did get some information um from Mr.

Bond, who lives over on the other side, and we just did some work in front of his the area by the lift station uh where the buses turn and the the trash trucks is it need some attention um, I guess proactive before.

Uh and then if if we could uh and I know we have a lot, but this is concrete, this is a paving, so I don't know if that makes a difference.

And we but if we could add uh Wildler trace to the list just to to look at that subdivision as well with those those concrete uh pavers in there.

Um and that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Creel, Mr.

Tuesday.

Yes, uh one comment I noticed Ms.

Lavata mentioned that um talking about the bond projects list, which hadn't been finalized yet, but that the West Biloxi Library was not included in that, and also uh noting that uh I recall last week you and I had you had offered a comment on on what it would cost to repave or resurface Bay Vista subdivision, which will be, I would assume give or take two million dollars.

And that's not on anybody's list anywhere either.

I just want to point that out.

Okay.

Having said that, Mr.

President, I yield the remainder of my time to Audra Wilkes Danella.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

Biden, City Council, Councilman.

I am Audra Wilkes Danella.

I was born in Biloxi, and I'm the recent widow of Danny Danella, daughter-in-law of Severio, Dan Dinella, namesake of Danella Park.

Thank you for putting me on your agenda today.

And thank you, Dr.

Tisdale, for yielding your time.

Wants to declare Danella Park as surplus property, opening up their opportunity to sell the park and possibly the land around it.

Rezoning for high density apartments to house casino employees.

The resolution the city presented stated Danella Park is no longer needed or used by the city.

Headlocks have been installed, closing the door on over 50 years of Biloxi's history at Danella Park.

The City of Biloxi website has Danella Park listed as located on the east side of the city.

Amenities include providing numerous activities for the public to enjoy, ball fields, batting cages, concession stand, fenced areas, lighting areas, restrooms, and playgrounds on 1.5 acres of parkland.

Green space is important to every city.

There is an ordinance dating back to the early 1900s that required every subdivision planned in Biloxi who have a park.

Once you give up cities green space, you never get it back.

Now, I asked those present today who have played, worked, or supported Danella Park to stand and be recognized.

Please stand.

Burke played or support Danella Park.

Stand and be recognized.

Thank you.

Please note.

Most of them are in red.

This just shows how the how committed they are.

And that they do not, the red means that they do not want the park to be surplused.

Thank you on that note for standing.

I'm here today.

You know, it's not about Mr.

Dan.

It's not about the Danella family.

But I'm here today to speak first.

You got to think about old Biloxi.

To speak first for Sarah Kuhn family, who had sold the land to the city of Biloxi in 1901 for five cents.

Everybody has a document, I believe.

I passed now.

Go home and talk to your neighbors and friends.

This is Sarah Coon and the City of Biloxi's contract in the consideration for the sum of five cents.

I have sold and conveyed to the City of Biloxi one piece of ground in Coombs subdivision in the City of Biloxi, state, and county above mentioned, on condition that it be used as public grounds or to serve as a children's playground, not to be sold or used for any other purpose.

And it goes on to give the dimensions of the land.

Next comment though says to have and to hold to the city of Biloxi forever.

Witnessed by my hand this 20th day of July 1901, Sarah Kuhn, State of Mississippi Harrison County, personally appeared before the Underside Authority in and for the City of Biloxi, state and county, Sarah Coon, who acknowledged that she signed and delivered the foregoing instrument in writing on the day in the year mentioned.

And I'm just going to wave this around.

This is in Sarah Kuhn's own handwriting.

And this was just typed so we can have it today and it's legible.

And this was found in the Biloxi archives, and I appreciate the law office of our city attorney and anyone else that was involved in getting this into my desk.

Not to be sold or used for any other purpose.

I'm going to stand.

That clause is important.

It obligates the city fathers and the future lawmakers of Biloxi to be caretakers of the citizens' public and private lands.

This puts us here today with the responsibility to do right by Sarah Kuhn's wish and donation.

But also do right by Coach Danella's time, talent, and commitment.

To the youth of Biloxi who played little league at Danela Park.

My friends and family and supporters here today.

With a bit of refurbishing, could again be a working youth ball field.

If you build it, they will come.

Yes, they will.

Travel baseball comes to town, brings city recognition, hotel and restaurant revenues.

That they preferred open land, not with trees to buy, particularly oak trees.

I think for every oak you have to plant, you take down, you have to plant two more.

It can be very costly for a developer.

But open land, not with trees to buy, to build a casino housing for its employees, and if you don't know this, it's casinos incentify their employees by providing places for them to live.

Many of you may not know that.

So casino housing for its employees endeavoring to incentify its future employees to come to work and live in Biloxi.

Now, I know for a fact, because I've driven around East End, and nobody ever calls it the point anymore.

But it's the it's the point.

There are properties, particularly at the corner of Merlin First, next to St.

Michael's Church, that have no large live oaks and could be used for the casino housing.

And it's a great place for it.

Just to name one.

Is the cutting of the trees really the issue for selecting the flat Danela Park?

Clean the fields, refurbish it, let folks come and play.

Honor Mr.

Dan by putting a sign up on the field again and adding a memorial plaque, which shares his commitment to Little League in the city of Biloxi.

It has been over 30 years since the field was used regularly by Little League.

I've I heard that somewhere.

It could be a falsehood.

But I'm gonna say shame on somebody.

And shame on somebody that has put locks on that field.

Go over there.

Look at the field.

You don't have to live in East End of the Biloxi to use it.

I started the first Challenger baseball program in Georgia.

There are children, there are adults, there's girls, boys, all sizes of people, and even maybe a dog park.

I don't know.

They can use that field.

Take the locks off.

Give the Ispree another place to live.

But save that field.

Thank y'all for coming.

Thank y'all for listening.

Mr.

Tuesday.

I'm done.

All right.

Mr.

Shoebaker.

Yes.

I have a few things.

Uh Shucker Stadium.

And I know we had received a complaint recently about the uh one of the elevators not working, and it's on the Beauvaide side, I guess, of the bridge.

Is that do we know if that's a city issue?

Is that a that is a city issue, and it's on this side, but I've talked to Miss Luton today, and uh what the Boerbars told her was that she could go across that walkway and go directly into Shuckers.

That is a falsehood.

Wherever you come across that, you go back down, then you go back up to the second floor, then you can go across.

So I spoke with her and advised her that you have a second floor access of the parking garage, not the walkway.

We also have on the northern side of the uh Shecker Stadium elevators as well as uh ramps, handicap ramps from that.

She was very appreciative of those.

Currently, right now, the elevator on the north side of that is around fifteen thousand dollars to get repaired.

Uh you've heard Director Labontai talk, you've heard Director Lee talk.

We have to be able to balance those out in between.

So we have put the correct signing on those.

And uh, but that is a city issue, but we don't have the 15,000 right now that I want to put into that comparative to the other thing.

So I'll take the hit, but I did speak with her and I advised her that she did have incorrect information, and she was very grateful for that.

And she was very appreciative of the beautiful city of Biloxi and said she would be coming back.

So I did speak with her today as I said out on the text with y'all.

She called me back today.

It was no hit on you, Rick.

I was just asking to make sure my point is if we have an elevator, I don't know why we wouldn't fix it or repair it.

You just explained it, it's 15,000, and there's multiple other ways to get where she's going.

That suffices for my question, or if you put a sign on it, then I'm I'm certainly good with that.

Uh, secondly, uh Walsh Fayard Woodland Hills Drive.

I know I've said some things about it lately, probably not near enough.

Um, today I've got nine nine messages regarding some potholes, and it's it's no fault of public works because I've been in contact with them and they're repairing these potholes.

So it's no fault of them, and that's not why I'm speaking of this today.

I I guess really why I bring it up, and I know I've talked to Rick, Director Labata, Director Creel.

I don't know what else we can do, but the residents want something done, and and really I don't know what we can do.

The construction entrance is through this neighborhood, but we had another um cement truck last week.

It didn't roll over, but it did run off the road and get stuck.

So I don't know, just for you guys, please be thinking of something if there's anything we can think of that we can do differently to uh I don't know, maybe these vehicles travel another road.

There's not a lot of places for them to go, so I don't know that we have um really much of a solution, but I just bring this up because it's been brought up to me so much recently.

Uh and again, I'm not saying anything about public works, they've been out fixing the potholes as I report them and in the residents report them.

It's just please let's please think of what we can do.

And lastly, Director Shoemaker, yes, sir.

Councilman Schumacher, that one actually is on the Capitol Project request from there.

So Walsh Vayard is on here once we work through these different workshops to be able to get to that.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Total amount of that project is 2,995,000.

Okay, thank you.

And also that's gonna run some of that well, all that traffic is running.

This isn't something that regarding that capital project, but Woodland Hills Drive runs off of the north end of Wash Fayard, and it's one of the the really the main entrance, and I guess the construction entrance.

So anything we may can look at later, and I don't know that there's a solution.

Wash Fayard widening would be huge and fantastic.

So that is a plus.

I appreciate you letting me know that.

And lastly, I'm gonna say Hiller Park is not for sale.

I'll go ahead and repeat that for everybody who somehow thinks Hiller Park is for sale.

Hillard Park is not for sale.

Don't know where that came from.

I've never heard it discussed by anybody.

So Hiller Park third time is not for sale.

Now, speaking of Hiller Park, I will say it's not for lease either.

It's not for lease either, thank you, Mayor.

How we do not, and I'm only assuming we do not have employees that can repair a bathroom.

If we don't, shame on Biloxi.

I can repair a bathroom, I can payment, fix some toilets, fix some plumbing, and I'm nothing.

I and again, I don't know the extent of what the damages are, and I don't mean to steal your thunder, uh, Councilman Nail.

I'm just just I brought up Hiller Park and you have bought something up, so to your point, I don't know how we can't get that fixed.

I why we have to contract that out.

I'm assuming it's something major.

We should have city employees that should be able to go fix that easily.

City of Bloxy is to blame for the condition of that bathroom in that park.

City of Biloxi only.

Shame on Biloxi.

Biloxi needs to do better and get that fixed.

And that is all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Schumacher.

Uh I'll get you after unless it's related to Hiller Park.

You got anything on Hillard Park?

Okay, I'll come back to you.

I'll come back to you, uh, Mr.

Gray.

Mr.

Marshall.

Uh I'm gonna let Mr.

Gray began my time.

We sitting here over and over every director saying they don't have any money.

They can't fix this.

We got a roof out of the library, we got Bathroom and Hiller Park, we got a uh elevator out.

I mean, you know, we're gonna go back to Millage again.

For people that don't know what Millage is, that's that's the property taxes that support this city.

Give you an example.

Blocksy is 30 mills, Harrison County's 36.

Blocksley schools, 43.

Total of 109 mills.

Ocean Springs.

Everybody talks about how great Ocean Springs is.

146.05 mils.

Jumpport, 32 mils.

Long Beach, 44.

So that's where that's why we can't afford anything.

One is our mill is so low.

I mentioned last meeting that it's been over 30 years since we had a a millage increase.

And that's and we're paying the price for that.

Y'all heard it tonight.

Air conditioners, it's electrical, 400,000 just for our library.

Now we don't know if that's even the total number.

It can be 405,000.

We we don't know until you get in there as you start trying.

We have to look at doing something different than we've been doing over the last 20, 30 years.

It's not working.

It's not potholes.

We can go, we can sit here and talk about this all the time.

We can't afford to fix that at a ball field.

That's one of the reasons why it's in there.

Everybody is wanting to come donate their time to it now that it's been brought up to attention.

We have to start looking at Bluxy in a different way.

And I'm I'm sorry, I mean, I I I love Blocks City.

I'm from Blocksia.

I played at that ball field when I was a kid, and I understand that.

We have to start looking around it, and we have to start looking at rezoning.

That's just what we gotta do to make it grow.

I mean, look at it since Katrina.

There's nobody down there.

So y'all think about it over the next few weeks.

Let's try to maybe do a workshop.

Maybe next meeting we'll mention, come up with a workshop date and try to look at some rezoning areas.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Mr.

Gray, Mr.

Marshall, Mr.

Bate.

Did I hear you say that the library is closed?

Who's Ms.

Ms.

Libate?

Can you come up for me, please?

Come up.

Yes, sir.

All right.

How long the library has been closed?

Um it's been a few weeks.

I don't remember exactly the date off the top of my head.

But I also hear you.

Six weeks.

Okay, six weeks.

Who's responsible for repairing the library?

City of Biloxi, as far as I know.

City of Biloxi.

As far as I know.

Was the library being used?

Yes, sir.

So is the library necessary?

That's that's not for me to decide.

So we are short by how much based on your estimate.

Well, right now we're about 367,000.

What are the quotes I have for to fix that building?

So it's gonna remain closed until this city finds 300,000, basically, which is not in the budget anywhere.

Well, I don't know how long it's gonna remain closed.

It depends on if whether we choose to fix pieces and parts of it, we could fix some of it, but not all of it.

That's where there's a lot of hard decisions that are gonna have to be made here pretty soon about what we're gonna fix and how much money we're gonna put in the building.

How long has it been uh going deteriorating the roofing bad?

Is it just all of a sudden happen or what?

No, sir.

This is gonna happen.

So we so it's nothing we can call we can call the insurance company on and say, hey, uh tree fell in or something.

No, yeah.

This is something that's been deteriorating.

Yeah, we've been patching that roof for years.

Been patching it, patching it and yeah, yes, sir.

Anything in the bond money for fixing that that we were talking about?

Okay.

Not in the list that was been it's been working on to this point.

All right.

Thank you so much.

You're very welcome.

Ask her how much we spent last year on maintenance of the library on that library.

He wants to know how much did we spend on how much did we spend on the library this library last year?

Um I'm not sure.

I give you a estimate.

Yeah, probably.

Let's see, we did the carpet two years.

That was probably two years ago.

So I'm not sure, but I bet it was I bet it was close to a hundred thousand.

I mean, we've been patching it, we've been replacing roof tiles, we've fixed broken doors.

It's and we redid light, and lights that were out.

I guess the question was you know, is it the county's responsibility or the city of Bloxy's responsibility?

It's our building.

I don't know.

Okay.

So it's our building is falling apart.

So I mean, I can complain about the maintenance of my house.

I can complain about the maintenance of my car, but it's it's mine's right.

I'm responsible for it.

So what good me to complain about when it's mine?

This is the city of Biloxi's building.

Right.

It's been deteriorating, falling apart, dish different issues for a long time, been neglected, pitching it together because of financial issues.

It's it's become less.

Let me let me respond.

Everything we have is deteriorating.

Everything is 20 years old.

That's more than 20 years old.

There are other factors like limbs and trees and and uh certain events that have contributed to this.

I know we replaced the floor for about you know, because of leakage, we fixed that right in the corn, but the the actual shape of this particular roof system is making it is making it uh uh very costly.

So there's some things that my time, man.

You took my time.

Uh yeah, it everything is in deteriorating mode.

Uh and and we're just you know now coming up with the the total solution to what we need to do.

And and I agree, it is a city building, and that's why I'm presenting the issues collectively to everybody present them to administration and want to let you guys know because there are gonna be some hard decisions to make.

What as a city as a whole, do we want to fix in this building?

We need to fix the building.

We only have 59,000.

That's that's not for that library, that's for all the libraries.

So basically, unless somebody got a money tree somewhere, we're basically a broke city.

Thank you so much.

I want to add one more thing to that too.

And this kind of along with the bathrooms, is that we talk about you were talking about like how does it get here?

Well, I'll tell you, I have five building maintenance employees that take care of every building.

So it's not that we can't, for instance, fix plumbing.

It's that we don't, we can't, we can't, we're at a point where we can't stay ahead of it.

We're constantly, we're chasing our tail, trying to catch up to all these things.

Why is that?

Because we have a lot of buildings and only five people to take care of.

Why do you only have five people?

So let's get some more people.

Oh, I would love to.

But anything I'm asking the question.

I'm asking the question.

We can go on, we're gonna keep this going for a while, but the question is very simple.

The world knows the answer.

Why don't we have more than five people?

That's all that my budget will allow me to hire.

Money.

Okay, thank you, man.

You're welcome.

Okay.

The question that I get the most of out of everybody, and I'm talking to not the people in this room.

I'm talking to Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi.

Those of you who are paying the taxes, doing what you're supposed to do.

Those of you who are running your business the way you're supposed to run your businesses, those of you who are contributing.

I'm talking to Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi.

It is embarrassing.

I'm what 10 months in, nine months in, four of us are nine months in.

And we have had nothing but bad financial news from top to bottom.

We have people been on this council for 14, some I think some 12, 16 years even.

But we got people sitting on this council.

Now we pretend like it's just happened.

It did not happen.

That building, our library didn't just start falling apart.

We are the only city, the only city, not just in the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but in the state of Mississippi, and not just in the state of Mississippi.

You can add Louisiana, you can add Florida.

We have eight casinos in this city paying us a decent sum of money.

No other city has all of that.

But yet we're coming up short.

We can't, we don't have, we can't fix the buildings, not because we don't have the money, of course.

We don't have the money.

We have the people we did have the money to fix the buildings.

That's not Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi's fault.

That is the city of Biloxi's fault.

That is when people sit here over and over again, pretend like these buildings have not been falling apart.

When you got a police station that we are sitting up here asking our policemen to risk their lives for us, and we got black mole in our police department.

I like to say nice things, but when I see my fellow councilman members asking for the same thing over and over and over again, in the same answer, we're broke.

We don't have money to fix potholes, we don't have money to to have to fix our leaks on our buildings.

We can't say it because of a tree failing in a tree fellow we can call the insurance company.

I just heard my mayor say that for the last 20 years things have just been falling apart.

Well, who do we hire to fix that and address that?

It wasn't Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi.

They didn't knock on people's door, they didn't run TV campaigns asking for the job to address these issues.

But yet they pay their taxes because if you don't pay the taxes, you'll come and take the house.

So the taxes are being paid.

This is failure.

I can sit here and go over and over again.

We got bathrooms when we don't have people to fix the bathrooms.

Yes, we do.

But they can't do that because they're fixing other buildings.

And then we turn around, we don't have the money to fix the bathrooms.

That is a shame.

We are the richest city in this entire state.

We have everything that everybody else will want.

We have everything that you could even ask for.

We broke.

I'm for trying to make sure that we have enough funds.

But I hate to go out and charge Mr.

Mrs.

Biloxi more money by raising the houses, taxes, things, and we don't even know how to manage the money that we already have.

If you take away the eight casinos, then what would we have?

What would you be then?

Yeah, of your ocean space, Govort, taking your which city would be trade hands with us.

Well, in a heartbeat.

If they had eight, not just Rinky Dink Casino, we have eight of the most premier resort properties in the world.

I believe we're number six in the world.

But everybody's saying, Marsha, be quiet.

Marshall did.

No, Marshall was elected to come here to tell you the truth.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

I'm not going to protect people.

I'm going to tell you.

That is embarrassing, and it's a shame.

And I have to repeat the question that's always being asked.

Where the hell the money at?

It ain't being used properly.

Don't ask for more money.

Don't go out there and try to pretend like this doesn't exist.

But no city with the wealth and the potential that we have should be sitting here talking about our libraries closed because we don't have the money to fix a roof.

That's embarrassing, and that's wrong.

I want to say more about East Biloxi, but I'm just hurt right now.

I just got to put that out and just let you know.

Mr.

Mrs.

Biloxy, it's not your fault.

You've done your job.

You pay your taxes, you send your money.

We need to find a way to get your service that you need that you're paying for.

We need to get it to you.

Thank you.

I'm through.

Mr.

Tuesday.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Appreciate your comments, Mr.

Marshall.

Um, just a couple of things related to gaming.

I think gaming got underway and opened the first casinos down here in 1992.

Would that be accurate?

August 1st.

August 1st, 1992.

And uh at that point, the millage rate in the city of Biloxi was 59.06.

That's almost twice what homeowners pay in property taxes days.

So, you know, to answer your question to some degree, where does all this casino money go?

Well, your taxes, your property taxes were cut in half.

So, in essence, the city, uh, the casinos are paying for that half that the property owners used to pay for the last 30 years or so.

The last time there was a millage increase in the city of Biloxi was 1996.

It went from 57.56 mils to 58.31 mils.

You have to consider inflation and all of this.

Things cost you more today than they did two years ago or five years ago.

It's no different for the city.

The rate of inflation, I think in the last, what is it, Mr.

Weaver wouldn't know?

20 years.

What the last five years?

Right.

And there was an eight-year stretch when Mr.

Glavin and I came on the council where the the city employees, if I remember correctly, had not received a pay raise in eight years.

Part of part of where this money has gone, people want to know where's the money going?

You look at the salary increases.

Eight million since 2021.

Right, and those were long overdue pay raises.

You wonder, well, why do we not have more people in public works?

Well, for a while there, we couldn't, nobody would apply.

The pay wasn't high enough.

So that that's part of it.

The other thing is over the years, and this is just me theorizing, I have nothing to base this on.

I don't have access to the data, the historical data, financial data.

But it just seems to me if those employees were not getting some raises, that our employee or workforce was hollowed out because of the cost of everything else went up, whether it's materials, supplies, paying contractors, your property taxes didn't go up.

Where are we gonna find that money?

So I I think we I think I I could be wrong, but I think we've been trimming the number of employees here and there in order to save money to meet the other needs of the city.

So that brings us to where we are today.

I dare say I had a conversation with Mr.

Glavin.

I want to say it was six or seven years ago, Kenny.

And I said, I think we need to be looking at raising the millage here.

And uh but there wasn't a uh there wasn't uh enough support on the council.

It was just me at the time, actually, uh, for attraction, but that would there's never a good time to raise a millage.

But if we would have raised the millage, a mill here, a mill there, we'd be in much better shape than we are now.

Do we fix an elevator?

And there are some people, that's all they heard.

We don't even have enough money to fix an elevator.

I have people ask me, is the city broke?

The city's not broke.

We pay our bills, but there are a lot of other things that we can't do.

We now are in a reactive mode rather than a proactive mode.

If you have a maintenance schedule on every all the fields, the elevators, the building, uh the vehicles.

You know, if you if if we do a good job with that and replace things in a timely manner, there's a cost of that.

But what we continually hear from folks is we don't want our our property taxes raised.

Okay.

They hadn't been raised.

Here's where we find ourselves.

I also have people who wonder where did the money go?

Well, the cost of trucks when I came on the council.

If you wanted a truck for public works, I think the average truck we were buying was about 16 or 17,000.

Now they're 45,000.

So I mean, you need to have a schedule just like you would at home.

But at some point, if your revenue at your household does not increase, you end up like many people.

Now, do I do I save money for my next doctor visit?

Do I buy shoes for my kids?

Do I just cut back on the groceries?

The city is no different than your own household.

It's a it's a good example.

And there are things that we have to get done, as Mr.

Weavers pointed out.

We need to fix roofs before we can fix floors and uh walls and paint and everything else.

So part of this is the administration's gotta have a plan.

I know they're working on a plan.

Part of this is a decision has to be made.

How are we going to increase our revenue?

Conversely, how are we going to cut six million dollars from the city?

Would that be a good figure to use, Mr.

Weaver?

It's six.

I'm guessing here.

I know that you know, and you may not want to say at this point because we're it'll be a little more than that for the upcoming budget of uh balancing the budget like you have asked me to do, and we're gonna meet on that Friday.

Let me kick in on this thing too, because I've been kind of listening the whole time.

And business bit is really simple.

It's uh, you know, it goes to the bottom line.

We've been living on the bottom line, what we've made over the years, and we've eaten up the extension of expenses with the the balances that we've been able to do without raising revenues in the form of millage in the form of uh uh uh additional food and beverage tax or in the form of occupancy tax.

Those are the ways we had three ways to raise additional revenues in 1920.

I mean, 2021, if you apply the uh inflation hit 20 from that time to today, 24.5 percent.

Our revenue, total revenues, and I'm gonna address Mr.

Marshall's, where did all the revenue come from as far as casinos?

But bottom line, our 76 million dollars worth of revenues back then, or 69 million dollars worth of revenues back then should be about 84 million, okay?

But right now we're at about 76 million.

That's what we're working on budget-wise.

Yet we didn't touch any of those uh revenue sources.

Part of that 76 or that 76 million is last year.

20 million came from about a hundred million dollars that the casinos paid.

Now, who made the money off of those casinos?

I'll tell you, we had 23 million for Biloxi.

10 million went to the county, seven million went to the city's Bucksy City Schools, 3.6 million went to other Harrison County schools.

The rest, 80 million went to the state of Mississippi.

That's where the money went.

But we don't we have no choice on that.

We've been living good.

We've been doing the things we need uh from the the the revenues that we do generate.

And every time, you know, we look at at ways to uh uh possibly there's there's an objections one or another, but you know, we're in a time we should we should do some things to either one cut expenses or raise revenues.

Now, I don't know where I was trying to the point I was trying to make, but uh you know, bottom line, there's some tough decisions gonna come up.

Either you are now let me say as far as what shape we're in, well let me tell you, Mr.

Frisbee will tell you we're the only double A minus rated city, municipality in Mississippi.

That ain't bad.

So as far as being in between councilman said we pay our bills in a timely way.

We do everything we're supposed to do, given the constraints, but it's our collective decisions on what we have to do.

You know, we can't continue to cut and cut and cut without you know, trying to uh an effort again with what Councilman Brown uh uh Gray was saying, hey, we got some tough things to do.

We can grow, we can go one way or the other, but we got to do something.

Well, we can raise expenditures or cut ex uh excuse me, raise revenues or cut expenditures or a combination of the two.

True.

So it's easy to say I'm against taxes.

I don't uh not many people enjoy paying taxes.

All right.

But the second thing is good.

Then if you're not for a property tax increase, be thinking about what you're willing to give up to the tune of six to eight million dollars from these departmental budgets that offer the services that the city provides.

The biggest expenditure, probably, uh, in schools, but also in the city are personnel.

60 percent.

Lord knows.

I don't think we need we can offer services without personnel, but the personnel are the biggest fixed expense.

Please don't read into this that what we need to do is cut personnel.

We don't need to cut personnel.

Let me also while you're on the because it's all we're doing.

Are you gonna not make that point again?

I want to at the same point.

Given uh we're not uh you know, a city like uh, you know, we have 50,000 people, you know, as far as uh residents.

But any one point in time, especially on the weekend, it may range from anywhere between 50 to 150,000 people based on the the the revenue that or the uh uh visitors of Biloxi.

So we're a little bit our profile is a little bit different than than a regular 50,000 population city.

So we do have, we have to, we don't have the excuse.

We have to support those visitors if we want to maintain our uh uh our profile.

I'm sorry.

That's all right, you're forgiven.

So if you're if you're taking anything away from my comments today, think about what services in the city of Belux are you willing to do without to the tune of six, seven, eight million dollars if we're gonna balance this budget in one year.

It'd be great to do that.

Everybody wants the city to be run like a business, but the city is not like a business.

Schools are not like a business.

We're not like Ocean Springs, we're not like Gulf Corps, we have more similarities than dissimilarities, but our situations in each city along the coast is unique.

We have different challenges, and it's up to address those challenges.

So again, just leave it to start today if you're a citizen of Biloxi or you're watching today at home on the video.

Just think about which uh services you're willing to do without, which parks you're willing to close.

Okay, which libraries you're willing to close.

All right, which roads you don't want to pave.

Come back to me.

Thank you, Mr.

Honestly.

Thank you, Mr.

Tisdale.

Mr.

My name was called on there, but let me.

Mr.

Barshall, you like to be recognized?

Yes, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Uh, let me be clear.

Oh, before we start closing roads, before we continue to let our libraries be closed, I'm gonna say we need to get rid of the people being sitting up here to put us in this situation because you didn't do it, Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi.

We were put in this situation, you paid your taxes, you did what you're supposed to do.

If your solution is to put you down and say, we don't deserve a library because we mismanaged the money, or where's the money?

We don't know.

If you're gonna say we're gonna start closing roads, we can't fix the roads anyway.

We don't have the money to pave a pothole.

Sitting here 14, 16 years and then say that's the best I got after all of that time.

And then it threatened my citizens, Mr.

and Mrs.

Belux, you did what you're supposed to do.

Not one time did you not pay your taxes?

I would know, because you'll be sitting here telling us you took my house.

You paid your bills.

You deserve that library.

It seems to me that we're the only city on this whole coast that has payroll.

We're the only city that has employees.

We're the only city that has a police department that has to be paid.

We're the only city that has parks that need to be fixed.

But we are truthfully told, the only city with a library close that we can't fix.

That's not the problem.

Telling us that we got payroll, that's every city's issue.

Telling us that we got to pay gas, put vehicle gas now, vehicles.

Every city has those same issues.

But they still paving their potholes.

The city of Diabloville, I was listening to some of them talking.

They got plans of what they're gonna do in development.

They got plans of how they're going to increase so they want to come back to the city to their employees, Mr.

and Mrs.

D'Avivonville, Mr.

and Mrs.

Ocean Springs, or Mrs.

and Mrs.

Government's in, oh, we got to charge you more.

Are you going to do about your library?

No.

That's low.

That's dirty.

That's mean.

I don't like the sound of that.

We are elected to fix the problem and provide the services that we're supposed to provide because that is what the city does.

That is what that's all we do.

And we're telling that we can't do that.

How are we going to run for another office and say I want to control everything when you didn't control the park that you do have?

No, we don't do that here.

Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi, you deserve better.

I ask that you plainly speak up.

I can't do this for myself.

You have to speak up, Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi, and let the world know that with eight casinos.

We still can't pay our bills.

Eight casinos, our children don't have a library.

Eight casinos, those about a way to go online and research, can't go to the library because it's closed.

That's embarrassing.

We stop blaming it on our cities and on our employees.

Our employees are working.

We got employees.

Young lady just said we got five employees.

Can't keep up with enough work.

They're working their butt off.

Where's the money?

So don't pretend like we're the only city where we'll pay all the issues and things like that.

No.

That's not that's not their problem.

That's our problem.

Thank you.

Listen, let me let me add too.

You know, we're here together.

You set the revenue budget and you set the expense budget.

That's where we are.

We're coming up in six months from now, we're gonna be in a new year.

We better come to some conclusion.

Moving right along.

All right, Mr.

Cruz.

Just real quick.

Um, not to change the subject, but to change the subject.

Uh, I'd be remiss if I didn't uh give a huge shout out to uh supervisor Nathan Barrett, who I met with this morning, his road guy Todd Herring.

They're coming out and doing some patchwork over in Ward 4.

So just wanted to throw that out there and um uh keep you updated on the progress.

All right.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Uh thanks for getting to my report.

Let's say a couple of things.

Um, we've come a long way since uh Hurricane Katrina in the last 20 years, and uh a lot of things have been done in the last 20 years.

I hope we can look back on the devastation of of what happened during Katrina and be proud of the accomplishments that we sit here today that we're able to enjoy and enjoy with our our family and our children.

Um is there a lot more to be done?

Of course there is.

I'm not apologizing for not uh supporting increasing the millage over the last 14 years.

I believe it shouldn't be increased until it's absolutely necessary.

Is that time today or tomorrow, perhaps?

But we should, if we go in that direction, we should have a well thought out plan on what we're gonna do with that increased millage.

The other thing is I'm hopeful and I pray for there's a lot of finger pointing, and I hope the leadership of uh Biloxi rises to the degree of not pointing fingers and coming up with solutions.

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time because you don't want to hear, you've heard all of this.

You want to know what we are going to do next and what's gonna happen tomorrow so Biloxi is better tomorrow, and I'm praying that this leadership and our community comes together like you have today with the red shirts and somebody traveling all the way from Atlanta uh to deliver a message is good.

And uh hopefully we take that as a community inclusive and we we build these um solutions together.

All right, get that out of the way.

Uh couple things.

Um National Honor Society, uh the high school level reached out to me, and they were uh interested to see if the city of Biloxi has a program uh where students can uh gain those uh honor society hours.

Uh mayor, if I can ask that y'all maybe just review it and see if we can um open up a dialogue with Biloxi.

Uh uh they're interested.

I don't I think that would be an easy thing to take a student or two.

Perhaps they could shadow in the uh clerk's office or uh uh department and earn those uh hours toward their honor society uh credits.

Yeah, maybe they can cut grass.

Mr.

Creel suggested in my ear over here.

All right.

The other thing, uh, have a special announcement.

The United States Air Force Band, Airmen of Note, uh is going to have their spring tour.

It's going to be Thursday, April 30th at 7:30 p.m.

at the Biloxi Civic Center.

So a chance for our community to support the mission of Keisler and the airmen and have a good fun time showing what Biloxi is all about, what our community spirit heart means.

So please, uh, if you're looking for something to do, bring your kids out there and let's uh join in with that worthwhile event.

Okay.

Also want to congratulate uh athletic director Eddie Lofton.

Uh I know his uh retirement was announced recently.

Uh Eddie has been monumental for the uh success at Biloxi High School.

Uh he's been there for I believe 11 years or more.

Uh him and his family relocated here.

I remember meeting them their first day, and there certainly was a lot of excitement.

Uh, him being announced as the new baseball uh head baseball coach for Biloxi.

And Biloxi's had some good years with him, and as AD, they've had some uh incredible years.

Eddie is also instrumental in uh bringing battle of the uh battle of the beach together, and that's several it started out as uh boys' baseball teams, high school teams, and then it evolved to include girls uh softball teams as our fast pitch or whatever, and uh he should be recognized for those accomplishments.

So I want to wish Eddie the best.

He's not going anywhere, he's still working uh at Biloxi High School.

His son will be graduating uh uh next month, and I believe he intends to stay on the uh coast with his family.

Um I also talked to a board member uh with the uh with the baseball youth sports.

Um he reported that the scoreboards, the mobile scoreboards are going well, they're they're getting better at training uh the parents on how to use the app.

Uh he said it's been better and better, and it's it's almost where uh they're looking forward uh to maintaining it's a badge of uh of honor to maintain the uh scoreboards for the home team.

But he also mentioned one other thing.

I don't think this is uh uh a hidden uh deal, but uh the practice fields, that's always been how much time can I get on the practice fields?

And just as I delivered the message earlier about unity solving these big problems in Biloxi, if we get together, we can solve uh practice time at the uh facilities, uh keeping the maybe the fields open a little longer, the lights on, whatever that may be.

And I encouraged him to do so and keep an open mind.

So, Jamie, maybe you can get with uh your team, continue to work with them.

I know it's not an easy thing to do.

There's certain needs that have to match our capabilities, and sometimes I don't always fit.

Uh but let's continue that dialogue and see how we can get that um improved if possible.

Um I also want to announce that Coast Electric has announced that they will de-energize uh the power lines on Thursday, May 7th from 8 a.m.

to noon, and it's affecting a lot of uh neighborhoods in ward six, including Destiny Plantation, Hingham Place, uh Brodie Road, Live Oak on the Bay, Reunion Place, and Pops Ferry Landing.

So if anybody's listening, again that's May 7th from 8 a.m.

to noon uh Coast Electric will be uh de-energizing.

Uh they've been enhancing uh all the power lines, and um so this is a good thing uh going forward.

All right.

Um I want to thank uh Ms.

Danella for coming uh today and also our condolences uh to your family.

Um I want to thank you for that well thought out uh uh message that you gave to us, and I just want to conclude uh some of my thoughts on this because preserving Danela Park's history while responding to modern needs presents an opportunity for the Biloxi community to unite around a shared vision.

And what is that shared vision?

Uh we got an opportunity to uh speak to a developer, and perhaps if we go forward, so it it you know we tend to look at things black and white.

The council is uh looking to sell Danella Park, you know, and the council shouldn't do that.

We should keep Danella Park.

Okay, we keep it.

You know, what are we gonna do with it?

We already said uh note that we have problems with some of the budget.

Uh how are we going to put improve the lights, uh, the the plumbing, the drainage, the field conditions, the parking, and a host of things out there.

That that's certainly a challenge and a solution we've got to come up with.

But perhaps just looking at it as we're uh I don't think the resolution says we're selling Danella.

What it says is there's an intent to declare it a surplus property, and we have a developer that is looking uh to perhaps put some workforce um dwellings on there, workforce uh residency.

And just perhaps this spot of land they can incorporate in their development and keep it as public grounds or a playground or some kind of public use that not only can the workforce development use, but it can be open to the public as well.

And I think we would look at that, because I don't I don't think we have a contract or the the council is voting on the sale of the property or the actual development of the property.

So I would urge everyone, keep an open mind on that.

Let's let's work together as a community and not be so skeptical of some of these developments and let's engage.

Maybe maybe we get a committee of some of the citizens as we move forward uh or however we move forward and be involved in and and work and see uh what we're doing uh going forward for for Biloxi.

I can support um exploring that.

I am hopeful that if a development develops around Danella Park, perhaps they can preserve Danela Park that it is going to be used by the families in that workforce development and by the families in the surrounding area, and that they're playing together on a playground or or some kind of recreational facility down there.

That's the vision that we out of the box thinking that we need to look at together.

So uh I don't want to point fingers.

I want to come up with solutions that tomorrow is better than it is today.

And with that, I'm gonna conclude my report.

Thank you.

We now move on to uh citizens' comments.

We have a total allotted time of 45 minutes.

Uh when you recognize raise your hand, you'll be recognized, and you'll come up to the front.

The volume must be turned off.

Um to be recognized, state your name and address for the record, and also write it down on the uh piece of paper that's on the desk.

You'll have three minutes when you hear the bell.

Please uh stop your uh talk and and we'll move on.

Uh this is not question and answers.

This is just uh your portion of the meeting to talk about any topic that you're interested in.

So with that, I open it up to my left, your right.

Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

Um Sarah Chrysler Ruske, the director of the Harrison County Library System.

And um I wasn't expecting to talk today, but since we have some updated information on the West Velocity Library, I did want to make a few comments.

The first being to Mr.

Mar some of Mr.

Marshall's comments.

The roof has been a problem for I've been here eight years, and I know that it was an issue prior to my arrival, so I would say at least a decade there have been issues.

We first started trying to get the carpet replaced probably five to six years ago, and that did happen.

We are very pleased to have a new carpet and then the HVAC that was pre-Catrina failed, and that was replaced just after COVID because of supply chain issues.

It took about a year and a half for that to happen.

So uh just to give you just a little background on why there are so many problems, it's because the roof has been it's been an issue for a very long time.

The plumbing similarly, I'm not sure what is wrong with it, but my staff there have complained about weird smells and stuff for again as long as I've been here pretty much, and I don't think there was uh anything that it was a complex problem perhaps.

There like I said, there have been a lot of recent investments, so uh that price tag was really shocking to me and then just stressing, but there have also been a lot of investments that you put into that building recently, like the carpet and and um staff, my the library staff personally painted the interior uh after that happened as well.

So there's a lot of sweat equity for from the staff in the building as well.

We're very proud of it.

Um I would hate to see the roof not get repaired because then we we'll get in the unenviable position of something like the Jackson Hines library system that had a closed library full of 30,000 moldy books, and uh we we would certainly hate to have that happen.

I I uh think I understood to hear that there was perhaps some consideration being made to move it temporarily into the community center, and I would really like to request that someone get with us to discuss that really soon because with the humidity and the temperatures right now, we are we are at a critical temping point where the the equipment, there's a server, there are multiple computers and all that kind of stuff, just besides the books and the furniture that are gonna be in danger.

So we want to plan that and we it may not be a thing that you think about, but moving 30,000 books is quite an enterprise.

It took days, maybe a couple of weeks, I'd have to remember.

We had staff boxing the books, then we had uh professional moving company palletizing items, and again, that's an expensive and time-intensive endeavor.

So we I really urge you to please get in touch with me, our board, or however we can do it to to make that happen.

Um I think there is a deed with the library that is to be used for a library.

Thank you.

All right, so thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else on my left, your right?

Raise your hand to be recognized if you want to come up and speak.

We go on to my right, your left.

Yes.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

My name is Bobby Gillen.

I'm the board president of the Greater Biloxi Economic Development Foundation.

I wasn't planning on coming up here today, but I felt obligated to.

Um today we hosted our first Pass Road Possibilities tour.

And that was uh an endeavor, a public-private partnership with Mississippi Power, the city, and a local real estate firm.

Three of our councilmen that pass road goes through, attended the tour, Mr.

Creel, attended the tour.

And what we did was we brought together local developers, real estate brokers, investors, and we got on a bus and spent four hours driving up and down Pass Road, looking at opportunities.

And you'd be shocked, everyone walked away, energized, excited about the opportunities, excited about what's already going on in small pockets, and most importantly, excited about the way this city is embracing working with its local development community.

And we talk about developers a lot in real estate.

We think these out-of-towners, let me tell you what.

Pretty much every single one of the 30 people on this bus was either first, second, or third generation Biloxian.

These are folks that have been in this community for generations.

They own properties along Pass Road.

We all know that we have we have our our work cut out for us with Pass Road.

But I want every one of these counties, Council members, Mr.

Mayor, everyone in the city to know that there are people that are in this community investing, working hard, trying to build that better Biloxi.

And we're here.

We had a great morning this morning, and we're looking to continue that growth.

So please keep up the good work, and we're welcome and looking forward to those creative out-of-the-box thinkings, thinking about zoning, what we need, but it's what the community needs.

And we're here.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate your partnership, gentlemen.

Thank you.

Anyone else on my right?

Your left.

Did I miss anybody on the other side, maybe that had a change of heart?

Anyone in the back like to come up and speak?

All right.

Citizen comments is now closed.

We'll move on to the uh policy agenda.

Ordinance to adopt the updated version of the National Electrical Code.

Need a motion?

So moved.

Moved by Mr.

Tuesday.

Second by Mr.

Gray, discussion.

First question.

First reading.

Move on to second readings.

For a change in zoning from RM30 high density multifamily to downtown for zero, 166 and 170 Nixon Street and 640 Cop Street.

This was moved by Mr.

Tuesday and seconded by Mr.

Shoemaker.

Mr.

Tuesdale.

Yes, these are four properties that face Nixon Street.

They are uh it's asked to be rezoned to downtown from high density multifamily.

Um these are four lots, correct, Jerry.

Let me uh let me go to good.

You have a diagram.

Thank you.

Explain and also explain setbacks on small lots.

Um when you can't meet the setbacks, but you're trying to make the lot buildable.

Yes.

Thank you.

What this is, this is where the community development building is located on uh Martin Luther King, Howard Avenue, right?

Nixon Street runs right beside our building.

The property here uh where they have the uh they had the real estate office and they have the little spa that's there all the way back to Cop Street is already zoned downtown.

And the property that's before you today is the property from Cop Street going north all the way back to Peyton, and it's just this one side, so it's just a continuation of what's already there, what he's requesting.

Now, the reason that Mr.

Seegers is requesting this is because he owns the property.

He has his engineering office right here.

He owns the property next door.

That property is only 51 feet depth.

Uh it's zoned RM30 right now.

So front setback in RM30 is 20 feet.

The rear setback in RM 30 is 20 feet.

So it makes it an unbuildable lot.

He's not able to meet the setback requirements.

Okay.

That better.

He's not able to meet the setback requirements.

And so he's asking for downtown zoning because in downtown zoning, there are no setback requirements, and what he can do is actually align the house that he wants to build there.

That's what he wants is to build a house on that property and to align it with the front of his building that's already there.

So it's a reasonable request.

The Planning Commission voted 12 to zero to change it to downtown zoning.

I know there was some concern.

Mr.

Marshall had asked me about some of the uses there, like uh couldn't they put a bar there?

Well, downtown does allow a bar, but it also has a 500-foot uh distance requirement from residentially zoned property.

So that in itself, you know, would prevent someone from putting uh something like a bar there.

Question.

Thank you.

I have no other comments.

Thank you.

Mr.

Crew.

So quick question.

So the the two properties are the two parcels rather that are on the corner, they have Nixon Street addresses, correct?

They don't find the front cop or payton.

The the one at the corner of Nixon does face cop.

It does.

I said it does face cop.

Mr.

Seeker's office faces Nixon.

The next property faces Nixon, and the next property actually faces uh Peyton.

Okay, so question would be by designating those two downtown with the adjacent properties to the east be affected because they now that that uh that cop street and Peyton Street now has a downtown zoning on it, is it gonna affect the adjacent parcels?

No, sir, it won't.

Okay.

And no opposition, no one was at the point of commission, I believe, that spoke on negatively about this on either side.

Well, there was one lady that showed up, and I think she thought that her property was included in the zoning change, and it wasn't she saw the sign across the street.

Right.

I think she was across the street on the on the other side.

Uh she's not included in this request.

And so there's no adverse effect to the adjacent property owners that fate that that are next door on cop or painting.

No, sir.

Perfect thing.

Mr.

Schumaker.

I have nothing further.

All right.

Um high density.

What's what's I'm just asking a question right there?

What's the high density you mean?

The density in that area, it's 30 units per acre for the what he has right now.

He could he could actually, you know, theoretically, he could put in apartments there at duplex, something like that if he wanted to, under the current zoning, but he's not asking for that.

He's just asking for the downtown zoning.

And um if we approve this, what's the city get out of?

I mean, what do we gain from this?

Well, he's proposing to build a house there on the property, so there we'd get the land, the land taxes, which we're already getting, we'd get the uh building uh improvement taxes off of it, and we'd get more residents in the city of Biloxi.

Okay, all right.

That's it.

What I got a question for you.

What does he want to do here?

Build a house to live in?

House, yes, sir.

So why does he want to change it to downtown if it's multi-family?

He can actually build a house now.

Setback setbacks.

If he's required to meet the setback requirements for RM 30, it would make it an unbuildable lot.

Because, like I said, the front setback in RM 30 is 20 feet, the rear setback is 20 feet, and he's only got 51 feet in depth.

That would only leave 11 feet there between those two setbacks, and with downtown zoning, there are no setback requirements.

Okay.

That's all I have.

Anyone else?

All right.

Call for the question.

All in favor?

Those opposed.

Motion carries.

Unanimous.

And authorizing the sale thereof.

All right.

This was motioned by Mr.

Tisdale, seconded by Mr.

Creel.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Yes, uh question, Peter.

Um, given the language in the in the document for conveyance, what's the process to clear that reversion condition?

Is there a process?

I know these are curable to some extent.

I don't know if there's more than one way to do that.

But can you briefly describe what that process or those processes would be?

Right.

One process is to get clearance from the coon airs.

Uh uh there's other processes of uh the city advertising and trying to do this, but it's something that the developer would have to take on.

Uh I will say, since uh since the developer looked into this, they have uh express some interest of keeping this a public grounds and incorporating into their project.

But um, you know, it'd be up to them at some point in the future.

I I think the simplest thing to do for the council at this point is we let's remove the uh remove the park as surplus property is something they could always come back and investigate in their own time and keep the other parcels and let them see what they can come back in that respect.

So uh that would require an amendment to uh remove that parcel from this uh resolution and declare the other parcels uh surplus, which again, as we talked about today, opportunity to talk with the developer and let them do their further diligence as far as what would be required.

Um I'm prepared.

Remember that language, I'm prepared to to make that amendment.

But I I have another question.

Where Danella Park is, then to the west, you've got a city parcel.

You got a city parcel with the water tower on it.

And below that you have a city parcel.

Right.

And then to the west of the water tower parcel, there's another city parcel, correct?

That's correct.

Uh we but we're not talking about that last parcel here.

We're just talking about the water tower parcel and what's south of that parcel.

No, we and then Danela Park.

I think, and I'll verify that.

What we didn't include was the water tower parcel, just because it had a water tower on it.

However, the developer may want to come back and there's area to the south of the water tower that is not being used.

And if they come back and say, we need a little room here, then they could come up with a plan of how to deal with access to the water tower.

This all still has to be.

Sure.

And I just wanted to clarify that because there were three city parcels to the west side of Coon Street, and I knew we were talking about two of those, but I didn't know which two, so that answered my question.

Right.

Um I know that uh I'm sure Mr.

Creel has some comments, but I'm prepared to make an amendment based on the lane language you had mentioned, Peter.

Mr.

Crew.

Yes, there's a few comments, and to start out, I'd be happy to to second that amendment when you get to it.

Um I think the biggest misconception here was um just in social media alone was that we were trying to put 200 apartments on the ball field alone.

There's adjacent parcels that are included in this proposal, as well as I believe the developer has took to two residents about possibly acquiring other parsers around what the city owned.

So it's not 200 apartments that is just on Danella Park.

It's 200 apartments that's in that area and the other parcels with the city that were going to be included.

Um just so you know that I know there's a lot brought up about the park itself and about the condition of the park, and I want to make sure I reference this as I did last week.

There was a group that came to the administration three years ago asking to adopt the park to rehab the park, similar to what was done in Miguel's park.

They were prepared to put lights, they were prepared to rehab the field and make it playable again, just as Me Gas Park was done by a private um entity, and they were told no.

So there still is a huge outcry of people that want to come in and rehab this park if if we show if we so desire uh and and take it over and make it uh once again a uh a playable park.

I know it for a fact that the Danella uh there's a Danella group of people that played there that has a reunion every year, the Danella reunion that they have.

So there is a there's a huge uh history and uh and following with this park of people that that lived in this area that as you say no longer live here due to uh um an act of God and they've moved on, but they still want to remember where they where they come from, and I think we need to respect that.

Um I think we we we've mastered the art of the version of what needs to happen there.

Um then um uh without beating a dead horse, I'm happy to move on to the amendment if no one else.

We'll see if we have some more discussion that we'll come back gentlemen to both of you.

Mr.

Gray.

I think uh making a motion to take the park out is a great thing.

But I think Mr.

Chisdale is gonna make it still doing that.

I'm saying that I think I support that taking it out until we look at different options for that property.

You know, um when we look at these things, sometimes we we look at it for the better of the city, and sometimes we misunderstand what we're doing, but we uh actually we need to um come together like this.

I mean, if if this didn't come up, you gotta look at it in a positive way.

No, we may have a group of people want to come in here and rehab it where they didn't come before.

Now they want to come.

Or, you know, whatever it was before, that was before now this is the future.

Let's look ahead and go ahead.

So I I think it's a great idea.

And like I said, we need to look at doing some rezoning for that whole area.

So that's all I'll have to.

Thank you, Mr.

Gray.

Anyone else?

I got it.

I'm gonna um speak on behalf of war too.

We're gonna stand with Ward 1.

Thank you.

I got one more thing to add.

All right.

Mr.

Craig.

And so uh I do have one one question on should the amendment pass and the parks taking out the other parcels.

Um when we listed as surplus, so now that um we know there's a developer looking to do what he's looking to do, when we listed a surplus, do we surplus it under the current zoning, even though we know that it's coming um, or do we rezone it and make it worth the the amount it's gonna be worth at at the uh development price as opposed to a single family dwelling that wouldn't be uh eligible for apartments?

How does that work?

We can do it either way, but typically they are going to uh uh buy the property.

We can set how the property is to be appraised, if there's a premium on that, but they would typically go through the zoning process on their own, but they would make that a condition of the sale that it goned to a certain classification.

So hypothetically speaking, would it be worth more as as a uh uh an apartment zoning than what it is currently?

Uh it's an appraiser, yes.

I think so.

I mean, one option is as they're doing their diligence, we could look at it if it's council's pleasure we could part of what Mr.

Gray is talking about, rezoning certain areas.

Uh or they may say, look, this is not big enough.

This is not what we need.

We need to look for something else.

The council could still say we're gonna make this a prime development property, and we're going to rezone it for something that would increase the value.

Okay.

We can still refuse to accept whatever they're praying.

We can have a number in our head of what it's worth anyway, and make that the number.

So thank you.

Uh, do you have a question?

Mr.

Marshall.

Uh, can we have a stipulation?

Um, Mr.

Gray, I mentioned a stipulation.

If he can expound on what he would like to see that as far as the time, we have enough empty alliance already.

So me and him and discuss maybe possible stipulation.

Time frame, they got to do something with the property, Mr.

Gray.

Yeah, I mean, we we talked about this, so just we need to make a stipulation that it's either start start building within 18 months, or the city requires the property back.

We have enough land grabbers that that grab the land.

That that's kind of where situation while we end right now is people grab the land that don't live here.

You know, they they bought it thinking that casinos or whatever was going to buy it and build and never built.

Now you look at a lot, they want 90,000 forward that's worth 10.

So that's what we would like to do.

Put some type of stipulation so they can go ahead and start building.

Perhaps the earnest money uh can be a negotiating tool or something like that.

You don't develop, they lose their earnest or I think another thing is you can say the city has a right to buy it back for half the price or something like that.

There's another way that way you're getting a lot more than earnest money.

But I think uh we will come up with whatever stipulations we have, and uh each of y'all can look at it, and if it should be stronger, we'll make it stronger.

I'm okay with that.

All right.

Just just Mr.

Schumacher.

Just to confirm what we're discussing, is gonna include Danella Park and the parcel where the water tower is.

It'll include both of those.

It's only including the right, right.

So it's that's what I'm saying.

It's not included.

It okay.

All right, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Well, wait.

We we're gonna exclude Danela Park.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Taking that out.

Okay.

I'll just state for the record we have three parcels.

Uh 1410H, 07.

They're all 1410 H07.

Uh Danella Park is 017, 17.

Uh the parcel to the to the east of the water tower is 29, and the parcel below that is 30.

So uh we're excluding parcel 17, which is Donella Park.

We are making this two parcels, 29 and 30.

Uh got a couple of questions.

Um you said they may be interested in a part of the parcel where the water tower is.

Should we amend this to include the water tower, or that's not necessary at this time?

I'm just asking the question.

They don't have to purchase that parcel, but if we include it, it would be available in the uh negotiations.

Well, we we would have to, you know, there's some old streets in between that could be vacated if they want to go that route, but leave it be for right now.

The vehicles we'd have to survey and get it, and we would want an actual uh physical description of what acreage is there.

So thank you.

Uh Mr.

Nale.

Um if we're taking the park out, uh, do we have anybody?

Are we going to give anybody permission to do something with the park, or we're just gonna leave it the way it is now?

That's that's all subject to later discussion.

Uh the restriction says it's children's playground or public grounds.

Public grounds could be uh a green space, a better green space, a walking track, a ball field, a uh something something like next to Margaret Sherry Library, something like Penzo Park.

Uh it sounds like most people want to keep it a baseball park around here.

Um we're we're not dealing with that today.

I'll just don't complicate things.

Anyone else?

Have anything else to add?

Everybody's good.

I just want to add this.

Um I was prepared to add this if uh depending on how things were gonna go.

I'm still working uh with the council clerk uh to prepare a piece of legislation.

This indirectly may or may not affect um Danela Park, but it was brought up by this council and it was brought up years ago of renaming some of the fields out at AJ Holloway Park uh complex after some of these old fields.

Uh Harlis, volunteer, possibly Danella, depending depending on how things go.

Uh so I'm working on that piece.

Uh it's a little complicated because it may involve this school property, it may or may not involve some involvement with the school.

Um so if anybody wants to work on that piece of legislation with me, I'll invite them to uh kind of join in.

It'll be a fun piece of legislation to work on.

All right.

Any other discussion?

There being none, we're gonna call.

I'm sorry.

Yes, uh the amendment, Mr.

I was prepared to offer an amendment, but I'm deferred mentioned.

I'm do I'm deferring motioning that amendment to Councilman Gray since it's in ward one.

Thank you.

Yeah, I would like to make a motion that we remove it.

Wouldn't like make amendment that we remove the ballpark out of this um surplus property.

All right.

Any discussion?

Just real quick.

Peter, if you're Mr.

Gray, wait a minute.

Mr.

Gray.

No, I have not.

Mr.

Creel.

If we could just identify that parcel, what is it?

You said it was a 017.

You said it was a 017 is being removed from the resolution.

I have amended the resolution for Carrie's sake that will state two parcels of property, parcels 29 and 30 are being declared surplus.

Right.

And then perfect.

Thank that's it.

Gentlemen, I'd just like to add as we go to the vote.

Thank you for your leadership on this.

I hope everybody uh watching was able to speak today.

Uh agrees with the outcome.

All in favor.

Those opposed.

Unanimous.

Y'all are appropriate applauding that we uh have we voted for a surplus property.

I've just like I just want to let you know that.

Thank you all.

Very very much.

Thank you.

All right.

Let's move on.

Call for the question on the amendment.

Oh now we got a vote on the uh resolution as amended.

Need a motion?

So moved.

Oh, you don't?

Sorry, a motion.

Yeah.

All right.

Just all in favor of the resolution as amended.

Those opposed.

Motion carries unanimous.

All right.

Let's move on to the next item.

Resolution finding and determining that the resolution of a tent adopted February 10th, 2026, was duly published as required by law, and that no sufficient protest described in said resolution has been filed by the qualified electors.

I have a motion.

Oh second.

Oh.

Mr.

Neil.

All right.

Go ahead and Mr.

Tisdale.

If I understand this correctly, basically, we're we're certifying that uh this the required publication and that uh that we approved was in accordance with the law, basically we're certifying the process.

Is that correct?

That's right.

This would have been on had there been no protest petition.

So we're declaring that the uh uh there was no sufficient protest.

It still is very clear that it is not to exceed or up to 18 million, it does not uh authorize the city to borrow 18 million or any amount at this time that is subject to these later workshops.

But we had to use that number of up to 18 million because that's what the original number was.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate that.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Mr.

Tisdale.

I don't have no comment.

Mr.

Neil, anyone else have a comment?

My only comment is I don't think it will be 18 million.

But anyway.

Um in favor?

Those opposed?

What was it?

Five, two, four three.

What was it?

Five two.

Five to two.

Motion passes.

Need a motion on the consent.

Moved.

Moved by Mr.

Creel.

I have a second.

Second.

Second by Mr.

Tisdale.

Mr.

Creel.

So let's see.

Um on item C the standard addendum.

Uh yeah, the only question uh it looks like we're coming up with just a standard.

Did we not have an addend a standard before, or did we just do uh have an addendum based on case by case?

The standard addendum, what we use that for is often people present us with contracts that are pre-drafted that aren't compliant for a municipality with statutory law.

Standard addendum makes those contracts compliant with our protections and our rights under the statutes, like we can't indemnify anybody.

That's why we're amending it this time because I get contracts all the time to say that we're sorry.

And then we have to take the time to try to negotiate it, amend it, add in the words to the extent of the allowable by law.

So we're just adding that into the standard.

The short answer is we we did have basically this standard addendum already in place.

We are updating the indemnification indemnification language to uh put that more in line with AG opinion.

So it's just uh a supplement to the existing addendum.

Okay.

All right, and then E, real quick.

So E um this will we still by by adopting E, which is the um the standard deductions with facility rentals, correct, that we we put in place.

Will we still see those deductions or will it okay?

So the authorizing directors responsible for the facilities to approve up to the rates that are stated therein.

Um so with with that being said, since we will no longer see them, is there any way when they are done that we can get a cumulative report of what's been done and where we are?

The only reason I say that is because based on the report that we have here, so back dating May the first so far this year, guys, you're ready for these numbers, right?

So the rental fees that we would have collected is 154,040 dollars.

We have reduced and/or waived 114,523 dollars with the total revenue of our facility rentals of 39,517.

Can I clarify that?

Please that is only based on things that we have waived or provided some discount for.

There are many other rentals that people simply paid for but did not go.

Oh, yeah, but but but that but that is not our total revenue.

No, no, no, but but that's the total revenue based on what we've had action on.

Yeah, but we've had action on.

So keep in mind there's things that we haven't had action on, and when we adopt E, we won't have action on any of it.

So that's why I'm asking for us to be updated, I guess, on A, what we don't have action on currently, and B what we won't have action on going forward.

Um so if we can get it'll be a total now.

So produce reports very similar to the one that I have for you for developing a database that'll do that, be able to perfect the same that you're used to, and so that will be able to be done by me.

Okay, let me throw out two.

There's there's a number of occasions, but for these discount, we wouldn't have had the business anyhow.

So I mean it's not really apparent that you know we waiving some stuff, but I know a number of occasions we can't afford this, or we'll have to go somewhere else.

So that's some of the reasons why these applications and these these uh uh five, especially with the 501c3s, their budget and and there are other things related to what really that contribute to a little bit of revenue picture.

Uh we come to a situation to request more than what has been authorized here, like 501c3 authorized at 50 percent for some reason.

They either need it, we have to bring it back.

If outside of what the parameters, I get it, but at the same time we collected 25 percent of what we would have charged.

This is like all the staff.

I get it.

Uh you know what would be nice is that 25 percent.

I wonder what it costs us in labor, and then we really see the number, but okay.

Thank you uh for for that clarification there.

Um that's all I have on the consent.

Thanks.

Mr.

Chisdale.

Yes, on item F.

That'd be that would be Christy.

Christy Labata, come on down.

All right.

Just a quick question.

I see we're uh accepting a bit of Southern Way contracting.

I'm not familiar with them, but that's not unusual.

I don't know how familiar you are with them.

I just noticed looking at the bid tab, they're significantly less expensive.

Yeah, uh than the other bidders.

So is the contract, but as far as you know the contractors reputable, I'm assuming, or you you wouldn't have put this forward.

Have they been around for a while?

Are they here?

But we have worked with the guy who owns the company before.

And um, so we we've done work with them in the past, and we actually did call them in and had discussions with them because they were so much cheaper, made sure you go with your prices, are you gonna you know?

We had those those.

We we had a conversation on capacity to perform because that does at this numbers we've got a lot of things like uh we've already loaded it up ready to go.

As we talked a little bit about passion the uh uh division streets, some of the things that these are exciting numbers that they threw at us.

Thank you, Christy.

That's it.

That's all.

Anyone else have anything on the consent, Mr.

Nail?

On uh D.

How long have um we've had these services and are they been doing this right?

Oh D.

Uh we've had access control in the public works since it got built.

We re updated it.

I think it was last year, so this is the first year we've had to renew the software.

Okay.

And they've been doing a good job?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

And um to C.

Um, who's the contractors we have now?

Okay.

That's that's it.

Yeah, um.

Oh, this is this is anybody that submits a contract to us.

This allows us to sign the contract and then attach this to it, which overrides any of their terms.

Oh, okay.

This is pretty much a like things like they may say uh you have to arbitrate if there's a dispute.

Well, there's a G opinions that say the city can't be required to arbitrate.

And you know, we want to go to court in in Biloxiport, not New York.

So this has a lot of standard terms like that to cover that.

All right, all right, thank you.

I'm gonna that's it.

All right, anyone else have anything on the consent?

Yeah, I want to say uh in reference to the um standardized reductions.

Uh this is a good move.

Um it's kind of embarrassing to ask that we ask those 501c3s to volunteer their services to to donate their goods to come into our city, and then we turn around and make them sit here and beg us.

And right now it makes it it evens it out.

We want them to do what they do.

We need them to do what they do, and this lets them know that we appreciate it.

We understand that what they do has value, and that is the value that this city needs.

Thank you.

Mr.

Creel.

Uh and guys, just so you know the last minute uh uh added.

I appreciate you guys including it.

It is the um the the resolution to um brand application to put out for the grant for the beautification commission, the 5000.

This is just us putting the grant out once it's awarded, then it'll come back to us and we'll have it before us again to accept the money.

So that's why it was added.

We it was it had to be uh it was a timely manner.

So I appreciate you adding it.

That's what it is.

All right, there being uh no more discussion, we'll go ahead and vote on the consent.

I'll come back for the exceptions.

All in favor.

Those opposed, motion carries, we'll ask for exceptions.

Mr.

Gray?

None Marshall, no, Mr.

Nail, none.

Mr.

I have none, Mr.

Creel.

No exceptions.

Mr.

Tisdale, Mr.

Schumaker, all right.

No exceptions.

Thank you, gentlemen.

We'll move on to code enforcement hearings.

Mr.

Jerry Creel.

Item A on the agenda, Carlton Pace 272 Banacki Avenue.

That case has been resolved.

Item B, Carlton Humberka Pace 270 Banaki Avenue.

That case has been resolved.

Item C Rithetta Weston McDuffie, 7075, Larkin Place, that case has been resolved.

Item D, Frank Q and Julie Kim H.

Wynne, 211 Maple Street, that case has been resolved.

Item E Jeremiah and Robert Nally, uh Robert Daly, Zero Pine Street, that case has been resolved.

Item Furban Transitional Living LLC, 273 Queerans Avenue.

That case has been resolved.

Item G, Tim Rudolph LLC, 308 D B's Road.

That case has been resolved, but it will be coming back later.

What happened is is that after we started the case, the property was sold, changed hands.

So we have to start over and come back to you all again.

257 Holly Street.

This property is still in violation.

Sir, anyone here to speak on behalf of Chan Nock Tran, 257 Holly Street?

There being no one, this case is closed.

Item I say Van Tran, 211 Dory Street.

This property is still in violation.

Anyone here to speak on behalf of Sang Van Tran?

211 Dory Street?

This case is closed.

Item J, Excellent Holdings Corporation, 395 Fayard Street.

This property is still in violation.

Sir anyone here to speak on behalf of Excellent Holdings Corporation, 395 Fayard Street.

This case is closed.

Thank you.

So moved.

Moved by Mr.

Creel, seconded by Mr.

Tisdale.

Mr.

Creel.

No comments.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Nothing.

Anyone have anything to add to the routine?

There being no other comments.

All in favor?

Those opposed?

Motion carries.

Need a motion to adjourn.

Moved by Mr.

Tisdale.

Second by Mr.

Creel.

Discussion?

None.

All in favor?

Opposed?

We're adjourned.

Good job, Kenny.

You are early.