The Gastonia City Council met on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. The meeting opened with invocation and pledge of allegiance, adopted the agenda, and unanimously approved the March 5, 2024 regular City Council meeting minutes. The agenda included proclamations, employee awards, presentations, public comments, committee action items, a 16-item consent agenda, three regular agenda items, and reports.
City Council and myself, I'd like to welcome you to the March 19th 2024 meeting. I will now call the meeting to order. And uh Councilman Kellogg, would you lead us in the invocation? Thank you, Mayor. If you are so inclined in the audience, please join me in a word of prayer. Dear creator of the world in which we are caretakers and travelers in, thank you for all that you give to us for all the blessings we receive and for the goodness that is before us. Thank you as well for the gift of life and help and for bringing us all together this evening. As we get ready to discuss and vote on issues before this city, help us all to seek wisdom, truth, and understanding. Help us to see things from the eyes of our neighbor, not just from our point of view. Please keep those who serve our community in the palm of your hands, our first responders and those who find themselves in harm's way as they serve the public. We also pray for the family of Carl McKinnon. Please bring comfort to his wife Paula, his friends and colleagues who worked with him at the SHEL Museum. And please give all those who mourn a peace that passes all understanding. For residents who are ill, struggling, or facing obstacles that they think they cannot overcome, we ask a special blessing for them too. And for all of us in this room this evening, help us so that our words and deeds may please you. We ask this all in your name. Amen. Councilman Curlin, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Would you all rise with me? 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. Mayor, I wanted to make one uh announcement with regard to Carl McKinnon's uh celebration of life service. Um, as many of you are aware, uh Carl was the assistant director of the SHEON Museum for many years, and uh it's a great loss to the city and the community uh as a whole, as well as the staff of the SHEOL Museum and the whole city staff. Um Carl was a very special individual. Um he was a lover of life, a lover of people. Uh he never met a stranger. He was a dedicated Rotarian serving in the Gacedonia East Rotary Club for many years, and he was also a recipient of uh uh Order of the Longleaf Pine. Um, you know, Carl's death saddens us all, and we feel a big hole in all of our hearts uh with the loss of this amazing man. Um there will be a celebration of life service. Uh it will take place at the Point Church, which is at 67 uh 6700 Wilkinson Boulevard in Belmont. It's it's going to be at 2 30 p.m. this Friday for uh any of those who would choose to attend. So but uh please keep uh the McKinnons, uh Paula and the family in your prayers uh at this time. And uh thank you, Mayor, for allowing me to make that announcement. Uh can we just take a moment and have a moment of silence in his memory, please. Each of you should have your agenda in front of you. Are there any corrections, additions, or delete deletions to the agenda as presented? Motion to approve as uh presented. Second, seconded by Councilman Gallagher. All those in favor. It's unanimous. Next on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from our regular city council meeting on March the 5th, 2024. Seconded by Councilwoman Step. All those in favor, it's unanimous. Next, we're gonna have uh awards ceremonies and promotions. And first up will be a proclamation declaring April 2024 as fair housing month, and the recipient is going to be Miss Danette Dye. She is our director of housing and community engagement, and councilwoman Barber will be doing the presentation. Hello. Good evening, Mayor and Council. It gives me uh a great honor to present this proclamation to uh Danette Dye, the director of housing and community engagement, and I'm excited to see members of um the um committee with her today as well as uh fellow staff members. The proclamation reads whereas equal housing opportunity is a right guaranteed to all Americans under Title VIII of the 1968 civil rights law, and whereas each year since the enactment of the National Fair Housing Law, the federal government has designated April as Fair Housing Month.