The Fayetteville City Council held its regular meeting on February 12, 2024, at 6:30 PM. The meeting included an invocation, recognitions, approval of the consent agenda, public forum, and an administrative report. Key topics included community safety, homeless services, voting rights, and infrastructure needs.
Good evening, everyone. We'd like to call our February 12th City Council meeting order. Welcome those who are joining us in the audience and those who are checking checking in with us remotely. At this time, we'll ask that Pastor Mathis from Mission Fields Ministry if he would come to the podium. Ask that everyone would please stand for the prayer immediately following the invocation. If we could repeat the Pledge of Allegiance in unison. Pastor, how are you, sir? Well, I've arrived. I got caught up in the traffic a little bit out there on North Ramsey, but I'm so grateful. I hate disappointing people. Oh Lord, Father, once again, we acknowledge your sovereign your sovereignty and your loving kindness to all of us here on this earth. We thank you tonight for your presence. And oh Lord, as we come once again, we're also grateful for your loving kindness, your mercy, and your long suffering with humanity, especially in these days. And Lord, also we understand that you are God, and we just don't approach you anyway, any kind of way, especially when we realize our great need for you to be involved in the affairs that we carry out. And so, Lord, we ask now wherever there's anything that you would frown on in our gathering this evening. We ask that you would forgive us, oh Lord, and have mercy upon us and hear our cry. The agenda has already been set. We continue to thank you for our Mayor Coven and his family and how you continue to protect him and guide him, not only him, but the remainder of his staff, everyone that contributes here to try and make Fedville one of the best cities in the state of North Carolina you can live in, God. We thank you for them and how you continue to protect them. And Lord, talk about protection. We dare not forget, Lord, our first responders. And God, we ask that you would continue to keep your warring angels at their back so when their backs are turned, there are no surprises, no harm being done to them. Oh God, we thank you in these very difficult and dangerous times that we live in now. We thank you for your omnipresence and how you're always there for us. We thank you especially for their willingness to put their life their lives in harm's way. Oh God, as having families also that they would they intend to go home to. We thank you. God, you have truly blessed the city of Fairville. Well, I'm biased toward it. It's a wonderful place to live as far as I'm concerned. And God, I ask you now that you would continue even in this year of 2024. Open up the doors, oh Lord, the doors that you see that we stand in need of. Thank you for the boundaries and how you protect this city from some of the worst crimes and spirits that could cause us to be in national news a whole lot of times. We are grateful, God, even though we don't say it all the time. We are grateful. And now, Lord, we ask God that you would continue to grant the board, the council, wisdom, oh Lord, to dispatch the things on their agenda the way that you would have them to be dispatched. And we ask that we would behave and show respect for our leadership. And we declare and decree all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. And to the Republic for which it stands under God and divisible. Liberty and justice for us. Well, Pastor Matthews, it's good to see you again. And uh we're very familiar with you, but it may be some in the audience or or tuning in by by remote uh means that may not know you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your ministry. Well, uh, I'm always very honored to be on the winning side and to be a part uh an activist of change in these days. And the ministry I represent, Mission Field Ministries. We right at 25 years now. Uh we're located at 3429 Block and Decker Road, right adjacent to the UPS building. We've been out there for about 10 years now.