It's fantastic.

Um but uh the chair will entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

I have a second.

Second by Mr.

Gray.

Uh any discussion, Mr.

Creel?

No discussion.

All right.

Anyone else?

All in favor?

Those opposed.

Motion carries.

We'll go ahead and open up the agenda.

Um my agenda says we we start eating first.

Is that where we are, or we're gonna get some opening remarks?

Any opening remarks, or we're what do we want to do, Mayor?

This is Hart, do you want to give us some uh opening remarks?

I could be at the council meeting, but I'm gonna try and just say no.

All right.

And all I've said is mighty over.

I guess we are okay.

Well, this is the mayor's youth council.

This is the 25 uh 2025, 2026 session of the mayor's youth council.

We have 27 students if you remember.

So throughout the year, what they did is they learned about city government, they visited various departments, uh learned about history and culture, visited some other places like the museum uh Maritime Seafood Industry Museum, and throughout the sessions, what the kids did is they learned and they came up with some ideas of um projects that maybe the council or the administration might like to implement, or either some ideas that they put together that y'all may like to use, say in the parks, in a rental facility or something like that.

So we have four groups.

Um again, they worked on all session all the whole program to come up with this group presentation.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna have again four different sessions.

We're gonna have one at a time come up.

They're all gonna come up and for other students too.

Whenever you pick up the microphone, hold the bottom.

Don't touch this part so we don't mess it up.

So hold the bottom.

They're gonna come up here, they're gonna present their project, they're gonna go through the whole presentation, then after the presentation, we'll open it up for questions from the council from the mayor or the CAO.

If you have any questions for the students.

Okay.

All right.

All right, let's go ahead and start with group one.

Have you all go ahead and come on up?

So this one is improving safety and security at public parks.

This idea actually came from Bailey Lee.

If you want to step forward and tell people why you came up with the idea, and if y'all will kind of come over here so the council can see.

Then we're going to I'm starting off whenever you come up, say your name, and then go ahead and start your presentation.

We're gonna start it off with Tyler Truth.

Hi, my name's Kyla True, and every family deserves a safe place to relax, play, and feel secured.

Parks are meant to bring communities together, but safety concerns are changing how people use them.

Families are being more conscious, some avoid parks altogether.

When a park doesn't feel safe, it starts serving its purpose.

The goal is to make parks safer, more trusted space for everyone.

Even though these child sorry, even though these changes will not make parts a hundred percent perfect, perfectly safe, these are realistic and effective steps towards improving safety.

No system can completely eliminate crime or prevent any issue.

But implementing control and entry and emergency resources can reduce risks and discourage unsafe behavior.

Overall, these improvements would make Biloxi's parts safer, more reliable, and more welcoming for families and the community.

The problem.

Public parks and Biloxi currently do not have a system to monitor who enters or leave park areas.

This creates a major safety and management management challenges for the city and reduces the overall security of public spaces.

Safety concerns include ongoing vandalism and illegal activity continuing to damage the park.

Limited monitoring makes it difficult to ensure safety.

Families often feel unsafe, allowing children to play freely.

These issues reduce community trust and park usage.

In addition, many parks do not have consistent emergency safety resources available, such as first aid kits, AAD devices, epipins.

This means that in an emergency responses can be delayed, putting visitors at a greater risk.

Hi, my name is Emerson Yelverton.

So you may ask what is the solution?

The proposed solution is the information of controlled entry and monitoring system designed to improve safety while maintaining public accessibility.

This system includes entry QR codes for digital visual visitor login system, durable fencing in defined areas, and security cameras for real-time monitoring and emergency resources.

The inflammation is QR codes.

You may ask, what is a QR QR code do?

It would track who enters in and out of the park, and it's a sign created by Public Works Sign Shop.

A scannable code linked to a Google Doc.

There's also fencing, fencing for appropriate for safety purposes.

Budget is funded by requesting grants, requesting donations, or sponsors.

There's also security cameras.

Minimum of one camera at each park.

F U S US program through this will be funded by the F U S US program through departments and grants.

Hi, I'm Paisley Langston.

Another thing we'd like to implement is emergency resources, such as epipins, AEDs, and first aid kits in all the major parks.

We plan to get these resources through grants and funding and applying for public safety and health grants and partnering with local hospitals.

Emergency signage and instructions will be created by public work sign shops and will budget the funding, request grants, request donations, or sponsors.

These simple changes have many benefits, such as increased safety, accountability, stronger communities, and crime prevention.

Safety will be increased by because by requiring identification for entry, the system helps prevent individuals with harmful intentions from entering the park, creating a much safer environment for families and children.

In the event of an incident, officials can identify who is present at the time, allowing for faster responses and more effective enforcement of park rules.

Um, I'm Brayden Williams.

Hi.

Um all of these implementations will lead to stronger community use, and when residents feel confident that their space is well managed, they are far more likely to visit regularly and participate in community events, which will lead to more use in the parks area.

I'm Gabriel Knight, and the visible presence of a monitored entry system serves as a strong deterrent, discouraging illegal events before they ever happen.

So this is a list of all of the parks in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Biloxi has many parks that people aren't aware of.

A lot of them are really small, but they're everywhere.

These are the five parks that we'd like to target because they are the most frequently visited.

We have Pops Ferry Recreational Area, Point Cadets Flashpad, Eagle Point Park, Miramar Park, and Penzoyo McManus Park.

Um so this is the end of our presentation.

Um overall, we just want to make parks a safer place because personally I growing up, I didn't go to parks a lot because of safety concerns.

It's hard to go somewhere when you don't feel safe, especially this world now is very cruel.

So hopefully these changes will help make parks safer and will help the community become closer.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Council members, if y'all will come over here.

Council members, do you have any questions?

We'll start with Mr.

Gray.

You got any questions?

First of all, thank you all for putting this together.

Um I have a question on y'all.

Y'all visited all these parks.

Is that what y'all did?

To look and see which ones needed things.

We got on the like C website, file the parts.

And we research which five parts were quickly visited with the amount of people that did them.

And those were the five that popped up for top five.

Okay.

But the 25 parks.

So they so those are the top five that need upgrade, you're thinking?

No, I think they all needed it, but I know that funding and things aren't cheap.

So I think if we were to try just these five, maybe see how those go.

And if they are doing well, maybe add it to more parts throughout.

Good job.

Y'all did a good job in y'all's presentation.

Y'all would be proud of y'all self.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Mr.

Marshall, uh, unless you want me to come back to you.

Mr.

Neil.

Uh what made y'all think about uh um so you want to do it?

Then you can do it.

Okay.

Um sorry.

So what made me think about the cameras is okay, it's making kind of weird, but like I like light crime shows and I watch them all the time.

And I noticed that a lot of like public parks and like not just parks.

A lot of places surprisingly don't have cameras to monitor stuff.

So like crimes could happen and you would never know.

So that's where the idea of cameras came up.

And I feel like everywhere should have cameras because like if anything ever happens, you want evidence of it.

I'm glad you brought that up, but uh, I think I might probably do it all.

Hi, thank you.

I have a question on the defibulators.

So uh I I mean that's that's a great uh piece.

It it it saves lives, certainly.

But where would they be?

Who would be able to access them?

And is there any training component uh for any staff, park staff that's built into your uh plan or discussions?

So most public I don't think public parks really have staff.

Um because of the public space, it's free.

So I feel like there would be no one to really monitor that, yes.

But I know when you go to like to a water park, for example, there's always an area where that is a first aid kit, all that stuff.

So I feel like parks could have that somewhere.

Um there wouldn't be no one monitoring it, but I feel like in an emergency though, it would be very beneficial because if someone is having a heart attack, they need that right away.

Or if someone's having an allergic reaction, it takes seconds.

They need an epi pen right away.

So I feel like people wouldn't take advantage of that.

I feel like no one would go and mess with that unless it was for an emergency.

Okay.

Uh great job, y'all on the defibrillation.

If you uh there's services, and y'all may know this that you can contract out, and they would make sure that it's it's monitored so it's working, so it doesn't give any false hope to somebody that's in distress and they're trying to use it and it doesn't.

But great job.

Yeah, very well thought out.

Impressive.

Mr.

Krug.

Oh, yeah, absolutely uh very thorough job.

Um the the question I have is with your top five uh parks.

I was looking, there's your in your in your presentation.

You said uh controlled access to the parks.

Unfortunately, I think there's two in that would not have the controlled access, for example example Pencil Park.

I love the idea of the of the QR code to monitor who's coming in and and that way you have as you said, if there is an instance, you know who was at the park.

I still think that even though even without the controlled access, you could still have the QR code there to for someone that would want to log in just to track the uh to track their status.

So that I think that was very well thought through, and uh thank you for that because I think that's something that's simple that we could come up with to possibly implement.

Great job.

Okay, Mr.

Tuesday.

Yes, uh good job by the group.

Good job by the group and the mentors that worked with you.

And my I was I was one of those.

But uh so I just have one question, and you can give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

Are you glad that you were the first group and it's now behind you?

Yes.

There you go.

All right.

Good job, thank you.

All right, we saved uh one of the bus for last.

Mr.

Shoemaker.

Thank you.

No questions, but I do want to make a comment regarding the first aid kits, the fibulators, epic pins.

I thought that was really brilliant, a great idea.

And I I mean I've never heard that mentioned, but I mean it really is a great idea, something we probably need to look at for all our parks, not just the five, but for all of them.

So thank you all for bringing that to our attention and great job on the presentation as well.

Thank you.

Let me throw my two students on here.

Oh, Mr.

Marshall, I'm sorry.

I just want to say you guys did a very, very good job.

You're very thorough.

Um a lot of good ideas.

I'm not gonna question you, but uh I did take notes and I got something to think about.

Thank you.

Mr.

President, yeah, let me uh echo it was a great great uh great thoughtful presentation, and it really, you know, growing up as I did in technology, and you you're gonna live and breathe technology and AI and QR and that sort of thing.

But there's uh AI is gonna present a lot a lot of things instead of having to pause as you go into a geo-fenced area, they'll know you're in a park.

First thing you need to do is tell you this is where the emergency stuff is.

So that's technology.

These parents in here might have a little bit of problem, but how many people would you think a percentage would have cell phones when they go to the park?

Pretty good of them, right?

So you had that that user interface when you go in a fenced area.

We did some things with technology about who was visiting Howard Avenue on December 19th last year.

It was Christmas on Howard, and it pumped out all kinds where you went before, where you were doing the event and where you went after.

So that's a application of what you're gonna be growing up with, and it's gonna be every day.

But the QR code is great.

And again, that's the first move.

Where is everything?

Hey, you're you're in our park, welcome to our park.

These are the emergency things and what you should do.

So now people might think it's just a big brother, but it's everywhere.

Everything in your your car is pumping information out, your cell phone is pumping in nothing, nothing, you know.

Uh it's not violating anybody's privacy because you've already allowed these things to happen when you uh use these applications on your phone.

So it is very timely and very uh the the ideas of of communication uh with the user, the end users, great.

So I'll applaud you.

Thank you very much.

Your parents should be proud.

David, we're gonna start with you.

Okay, I want to go ahead and call group two up.

And that is um Susan Hunt, you gonna come and talk about this group before they start?

Don't forget whenever y'all just hold the bottom.

Whenever y'all talk, just hold the bottom.

Yes, okay, right here.

I got you.

We got you covered.

Yeah, right.

We gotta we gotta move quickly.

I maybe should skip around.

Yes, uh yes.

Hi, council members.

I am our group leader.

My name is Amber Dubison, and this is our group with technically names group number two, but we like to think of it as Ms.

Hunt's group because it's it's it's Ms.

Hunt's it's Ms.

Hunt's group.

Okay.

All right, and today we've come together, we collaborated on an idea, and we pondered and we thought, what is something fun to get the youth engaged in something that we can also sponsor mayors youth because we have enjoyed this.

We learned about our community, and we learned things about Bilexi we didn't know.

We've lived here our whole lives, and it's really interesting to see what you guys do on a daily basis.

So we have come to the idea of a volleyball tournament.

Although it may see simple, it is actually a pretty good idea.

And I'd like to start it off and hand it over to John.

Where are you at, John?

Okay.

Um, who are we?

We are Amber, John, Terylin, Braden, Gabby, Jada, and Emma.

And we are students committed to youth engagement and community building.

We are passionate about creating positive, active, and encouraging environments for all the youth.

Good evening.

My name is Terylyn Butler, and this is our solution.

Our solution is to bring more youth together.

It's a fun competitive, inclusive volleyball tournament, opening to upcoming sophomores and juniors, because juniors are the ones that do this program.

And it encourages physical activity, sportsmanship, and making new relationships.

Hi, I'm Brandon.

Incoming juniors and sophomores usually lack structure and positive activities.

This fun volleyball tournament gives them a chance to develop leadership and team building skills.

Which will empower them academically and help them develop work ethic.

These skills are required in life to acquire jobs and sustain relationships.

Hi, my name is Gabby White, and we wanted to talk about safety and roles.

Medical staff will be available through school athletic training staff.

Referees will be assigned to each game.

Each team sponsor will be responsible for players' conduct and sportsmanship.

No one will be allowed to play without proper athletic wear.

You will need tennis shoes, shorts, a t-shirt are required.

Release will be required from each player before entering the gym playing surface.

Hi, I'm Jada Graden.

This volleyball event will be held at Biloxi High School in the sports arena prior to the Mayor's Youth Council applications.

You can register for a 1120 dollars program.

That is oh, that is a typo.

It's free.

Well, it's free.

It's organized for a competitive event for student athletes.

Hi, I'm Emma Mitchell, and we would just like to thank the mayor and the mayor's youth council for this opportunity for us to be able to put something together to get more kids our age involved with the city and to be more civic minded.

We are committed to engaging the youth within the community and getting our peers more involved with the mayor's youth council in any way that we are able to that concludes your presentation.

All right, we're gonna start with Mr.

Shoemaker.

And uh in the uh we we're pressed for time a little bit, so I'm gonna do three council members at a time.

Okay.

So I'll just make it quick.

Great presentation, great idea, keep everybody moving, recreation, team building, camaraderie.

I think it's great.

Thank you.

You might go Mr.

Crew.

I concur with the with the idea.

Um, and also incorporating the neighboring schools in in your presentation as competition because I believe that competition is already there amongst the schools already.

So bringing those in only enhances that.

One question is did you not think about possibly a beach volleyball since there's a beach volleyball?

We did.

That was our first thought, actually.

And we actually came to the conclusion because there's traffic and there's a lot of stuff, and we don't want to cause traffic concerns on the middle, you know, of it road.

So we're thinking, why don't we help introduce people to Biloxi High School?

Because not only can we like get people to collaborate and work together, we can also get them familiar with their environment.

And it's cool when you're from different schools and you get to see what it's like at different schools and make new friends.

So not only is it like for more familiar, it's just a cool experience in general.

That's uh a great, great answer, well thought through, and that just shows how much in detail you guys went through with this presentation.

Thank you for that.

All right.

And then we'll conclude with Mr.

Marshall.

He likes to bounce things around.

So uh we're ready for you.

I'm gonna say my last comments to the president.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Our last name is Austin.

This is group presentation three.

Um, which is Stacy's group.

So who's taking the lead?

And we're just a terrible.

I'll just go.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you so much for your time today.

Today we are presenting a tech lab called Biloxi Bite Lab.

This is a safe place designed for students to learn, connect, and grow with their peers.

My name is Emmy Kilpatrick.

This is Adam Rugg, Houston Hewlett, Adrian Lally, Jewel Barna, and Aiden Kelly.

Our vision is to create a space where teens can do homework, explore technology, and build stronger connections with their peers.

Our mission focuses on closing the digital divide and preparing future leaders for the community.

We designed a space to balance both productivity and relaxation for the teens in the byte lab.

We divide it into six distinct areas.

The first one being the five study pods, each a private room with doors.

Second is the gaming zone for relaxation, bring our own headphones, play with other kids whenever they'd like.

We have couches, bean bags, TVs, just more for their relaxation, let them chill out, do whatever.

And then we have the open study tables, which they can again, it's like the study pods, but more public.

Anything like that.

That'll be it.

Sorry.

So I'm kind of just gonna like explain where everything is.

But um on the bottom left, you can see the front desk and vending machine, which, like you said, you know, that's where you enter, and that's where you get food if you need it.

And then area six on the bottom right is and by the way, she's passing out.

We made a model.

It's very, very pretty.

So just pass it around so everyone can see.

So area six on the bottom right is the recreational area where we have ping pong table and air hockey table, and right above that in area three is the lounge and TV area where you know you can just sit around with friends, like you said, and then number four in the kind of the middle is the open study tables where you know you can just openly study it, and then right to the left of that is the board games and other games on this little shelf.

So that way, you know, if you want to play some games, you can get them from there.

And then right above that are those little pods, which they're for like independent, like study if you don't want to like be around a bunch of people, and then area two, like on the top right is the gaming zone.

But yeah.

My name is Joel Barnett.

Um, so our facility would serve teens from ages 12 to 18.

Um, there's no fee or membership or anything for getting in, it's public.

Um, and then on the weekends from 10 to 2, there's like sort of a like sort of a daycare kind of place, but for like older kind of kids.

Um, and it would be run by the clubs by the surrounding schools.

Um there would ideally be like a sort of a shift system from 10 to 12, and then from 12 to 2, kids in different clubs can get their service hours from coming and watching um the kids from ages six to eleven if their parents have anything to do during the day or if they just want to go there to hang out, um, it's open during those times on the weekend.

Um, and then it's also open after school um from three to seven, and um transportation, also obviously we're if you're 12, you can't drive.

So, but uh the facility that we picked um would be close to the schools, all of the the new upper that's being built in the junior high and the high school and the North Bay Elementary, all around there.

So um kids could either we could partner with those schools to get a bus maybe to run there, or kids could walk or bike because it's so close, or a collar pool with their friends or family.

Yeah.

All right.

Oh, so the total project startup cost is probably gonna be about sixteen thousand dollars.

Um, it's gonna include computers, gaming systems, uh TVs, couches, furniture, all that such, but you know, it'll be roughly sixteen thousand dollars.

Sorry, guys, technical difficulties.

So um, this is a sponsorship model to attract local businesses.

So why would you partner with us?

Um, because you can get brand alignment and you know, it'll be associated with the youth, so then you know you can influence more people.

Um sorry.

So it can have a community impact because then you know, as more teens know your business, you can you know align with different people and you can change to go with the youth, you know, and then um you can get visibility because again, it's newer generation, new technology, and you can get your brands like on like t shirts or like on the website and everything, and also tax benefits because if you do charitable stuff, you would get deductions.

We offer multiple sponsorship tiers so that people of all backgrounds can help us.

We our sponsorships range from three thousand to ten thousand, but all of the money is helpful in helping us to bring this to life.

Along with those sponsorship opportunities, we found uh multiple grant opportunities for the byte lab.

Um first include the first few include federal grants from Department of Education, the um youth development programs around here or STEM education grants.

Others from include uh corporate foundations like the Best Buy Foundation, which will often provide around 50,000 to 2020,000 for uh things like this, and then Google.org, which roughly provide around 10,000 to 100,000.

Um Microsoft Philanthropy, Microsoft Philanthropies that often provide the equipment and some funding along with it for ventures like this, and then the Verizon Foundation, which normally chip in 25,000 to 75,000.

Along with that, we have possible state and local sponsors, including the Mississippi Arts Commission, community development block grants, local foundations, Chevron, Coast Electric, Mississippi Power, Best Buy, Walmart, and Casinos.

Strategies to make this happen, uh, include a applying multiple grants at the same time, which will increase their rate of success, partner with nonprofits for eligibility and uh use data we procure from this venture to show the impact on teens to try to get more going, more funding.

This is our one-year fundraising plan.

Sponsorships are going to be our greatest source of income.

We're looking to raise about a hundred thousand dollars.

Donations are going to significantly reduce this cost.

There are many different ways for people to donate, but one of the biggest is the digital campaign, which is a way to get our plan out to the public to get them to donate through social media.

Programs like ours already exist and are successful.

For example, the Best Buy Teen Tech Center has shown increases in teen optimism and STEM interest and trust in like builds around them.

All right.

And with that, uh I want to conclude our presentation and on behalf of my group, uh, I want to thank the council and the mayor.

Um yeah, now we're open to questions.

So all right.

Let's do a couple of things here.

We're gonna kick it off with the megabyte mayor and then Mr.

Creel and then Mr.

Tisdale finish it up.

Yeah, real quickly.

Yeah, and I think you got the business sense on how you put these projects together.

The thing I see is the biggest return on investment is the collaboration that you'll have.

And I did notice a place you had mentioned some at the old fit old e-fitness center.

Do you think it would be better near campus or off-campus?

But you know, I think that the the uh the critical mass of bringing everybody together and is is where the real benefit will be.

And you know, you never know where the conversation will lead to.

But uh you mentioned maybe you looked at some other places like Best Buy and some of these other technology folks.

But that would be uh uh you know an interesting way to to start this this thing.

So it I'm I'm proud of you for putting the you know the cost and the benefits in and uh uh you know the just the good feelings about putting this together, you'd be a first of its kind.

So I'm proud of you.

Thank you.

All right, Mr.

Crew.

Yeah, I I I concur, great, great job.

It was very thorough.

Um what I like the best about it is you you your sponsorships was three to ten thousand, and then you listed your corporate sponsorships in excess of two hundred thousand, and you only had sixteen thousand in startup costs.

Well, uh are you guys available for any of our budget workshops coming up so yes, you know they need help.

You can sit you can sit next to me.

Uh that'd be great.

Um but no, so and I I believe the mayor mentioned one location, and that was gonna be my question is was there a location I know you you asked about um closer to the high school, so I'm assuming that's north of the bridge.

Um so I I just was asking and I was gonna ask if there was a patent on it, but if if not, you need to seek one because that was very, very thorough.

So if there was a location other than what the mayor had mentioned in e-fitness is just one question.

Sorry.

So the building that we had looked at was the old eFitness building that's right next to the AJ Holloway um area.

Um, but we found out that it's actually not we thought that it was owned by the city because there's a sign close to it that I think it says like Department of Marine Resources or something, and there's a sign pointing to it, so we were like, oh, okay, we thought y'all owned it, but then we looked into it a little more.

And um, it's actually owned by I think it's just so like a private um like person that owns it.

Um so we were trying to get in contact with them.

Um and I'm pretty sure we didn't.

I got a number for you.

Yeah.

Yes, so I think I'm really okay.

Yeah, so we did.

But um, I we were gonna tour um because we wanted to make sure that the like layout and everything was good with the diamond everything and the like floor plan.

Um, but we didn't actually get to get in there in time for the presentation, so we just kind of like had got like a rough idea laid out.

No, and your model was very, very intuitive.

That's great.

Thank you.

Mr.

Tuesday.

Thank you.

Yes, that was that was very well thought out.

It was detailed and very comprehensive, and your presentation flowed, had a nice flow to it.

Uh, having said that, it it was a good presentation.

Thank you for the job that you did.

And you survived.

And and like the rest of us in the room, you survived the Susan Hunt experience.

It's it's gonna you're gonna be a stronger person because of that.

Thank you.

Now we have group four and the final group for tonight.

There you go.

Hello, we are Mr.

John's group, group number four.

My name is Here Patel, and this is our presentation on Bilexi Youth Civic Connect.

So throughout our time with the Bilexi Mayor's Youth Council, we surveyed high school students about three questions about municipal government, which varied in difficulty.

In total, we surveyed 120 students, and here were our percentages.

Twenty-five percent got number one correct, sixty-four percent got number two correct, and twenty-eight percent got number three correct.

All right.

So as you've seen with the survey results, this club matters because students lack a clear understanding of a city government, and with the exclusivity of Mayor's Youth Council, we can see and we believe that it's our job to relay what we've learned here in Mayor's Youth Council back to our school and back to our community.

BYCC is a school-based organization that engages and educates students on municipal governments.

This club would directly connect students to city officials and departments, and would also promote leadership and civic participation.

We would do monthly meetings that would discuss how city council meetings work and how local policies work.

Um we would also have um conversations affecting Bilexi's youth and how we could solve those, and maybe even have guest speakers come and talk to the students BYC members will attend at least one Blizzard City Council meeting each semester, tour this blessed city hall, visit key departments, and will also participate in at least one city service project.

These activities will provide essential firsthand learning opportunities.

Each participating school chapter will include specific leadership roles that will delegate responsibilities concerning the upkeep of the club.

And these roles would coordinate meetings as well as as well as any activities that we plan to do.

All students would be welcome to join this club.

There would be a membership fee of $15 just as a baseline.

Many of our clubs at the school have a baseline fee like this.

It's just to cover the cost of transportation and any activities that we might be involved with.

The City of Balexi will also benefit from this organization because it would strengthen youth leadership and create confident informed voters as well as a stronger community.

Belessy Youth Civic Connect supports the mission to engage youth in community issues and foster you greater collaborations across schools.

This initiative can also serve as a pathway and future participation in the mayor's youth council.

After hearing our presentation, we would love your support and making Balexi Youth Civic Connect happen.

We truly believe more of the youth will connect with Balexi's government and strengthen our overall community.

Oh, and now you can ask questions.

I'm sorry.

All right.

We're gonna start over here with uh we'll go ahead and start with Mr.

Gray.

Go ahead, Mr.

Gray.

He looked like he wanted to ask you a question.

So go ahead, Mr.

Gray.

Great presentation.

That's what what y'all want is a lot of people don't recognize that how big of issue this is and how important this is until they're later on in their 20s or stuff like that.

So great.

Um if y'all can do something like this will be a big help for everybody.

I'm glad y'all, y'all probably are paying more attention now that y'all did this to local government and uh bigger government.

So hopefully y'all learned something and great presentation.

Thank y'all.

Mr.

Crewe.

Yeah, so real quick, if I could get your your three names again, because I I didn't get your uh yeah, if you just introduce yourself, please.

Yes, my name is Alicia Jansen.

I'm Damielle Britton.

I'm Haral Patel.

I'm Zalin Hill.

Perfect.

You guys deserve credit as well.

I mean, so I wanted everyone to get your names as well on on record.

Um the best part about it that I loved is the uh is is the increasing the amount of voters and and showing them how important it is to uh to vote and to and to show up and by connecting them with us at our early age, we'll uh get them to go and register vote and and get more involved in the government.

Thank you, and a great job.

Wait, let me let me have my two mayor.

You got something?

Just yeah, one little quick comment, but you know, it seems as though the program is prior to this, yeah, it wound up with a way to connect everyone with hey, how this thing actually works.

So it's a it's a it's uh very timely.

The subject is because you know you can dream all these things up, but if you can't see it happen, and I think your your your concept is what can make it really happen.

And you know uh by talking and communicating, uh that's the way to move forward.

So congratulations, y'all did a good job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'd I'd like to wrap my comments up.

Uh this this was probably all the groups were great.

I mean, absolutely fantastic, but it but I really love the engagement that you provided.

Um when we build trust, if we build it at an early age, and then the engagement grows from there, and then the ideas refreshing ideas uh grow from your perspective.

Uh we're better.

And uh so great job, y'all.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, now uh Mayor, I think you have some certificates.

Uh we do.

Jump to go here.

But Susan, get you get the team, uh adult teams, and they don't need to come up.

We're gonna take a group a photo.

Our council.

Oh my goodness.

All right.

Let me tell you, we got it.

It was not easy to stand in front of all these people that you did not know.

Some of you knew you did an absolutely fantastic job.

You're to be commended.

Parents and grandparents and family, they did this on their own.

I'm not sure you are aware of that.

But they you know, they do that what y'all call that jet, chat, GPT, or whatever all that is.

You know, so they work together on this, these students did.

So they're to be commended.

And do you all realize in addressing the mayor and the city council, they liked your ideas.

See that?

And this is the first time that we have done this.

We have the presentation we've been trying to do it.

So this is the first class that kicked it off.

So next year, this next class will also do it.

So they set the bar very high.

Thank you.

So you see that?

So, what we need to let's give them a round of applause.

Yes.

And I need copies of all your projects because when we come to the city council, we can ask for volunteers and what else.

A money.

All right.

All right, you want a group here?

Yeah, only adults that made this happen.

I want to thank y'all.

So I'm right here.

Is there so um one more thing that I'll say that like Susan said, in addition to the students and the four coordinators, we had an adult adult adult advisory board, some um professionals, some community leaders that actually went through the program with these students and helped guide them and help answer any questions that they needed.

Um we have a lot of them that are in the back right now, but um they helped make this program possible as well.

So we want to make sure you thank them.

And and yes, this is our third year doing it, first year for doing the presentation, and um during the next council meeting is when the certificate is going to be passed out.

I got you.

You're jumping ahead, Ms.

Hutt.

You're out of order, Miss Hunt.

You know, chair the chair will entertain a motion to uh adjourn.

So moved.

Second by Mr.

Tisdale.

Any discussion?

There's none.

All in favor?

Those opposed?

Motion carries.

All right.