Good evening.

Welcome to the Board of Mary and Alderman meeting for this evening, the 28th of October.

We welcome all those that are with us here in chambers this evening.

We've got a pretty good contingent of folks here.

Thank you for being here.

Several announcements if you're tuning in at home.

Um, don't adjust your dials.

We are wearing a lot of us are wearing pink here, and uh it's very appreciated, members of the board and staff.

We see some pink out in the audience as well.

It is breast cancer awareness month, and uh, I think some of us have done real men wear pink before.

And so um usually I I don this uh pink searsucker um for two meetings a year.

We didn't have a meeting uh early in October because we were on fall break.

Um with that uh said, uh just like to bring uh to the attention of the community that on the same uh topic uh the 14th annual ride to Rosemary occurred earlier this month, and uh that is an enterprise that is sponsored by West Clinic.

Um this is the 14th year of this event.

They raised over 280,000 on the 525 mile journey from Germantown to Rosemary and have raised over two and a half million dollars and to support the care in our community as it relates to breast cancer awareness.

Uh we've got um former Alderman Forrest Owens, David Clark on the planning commission, several people that are residents of the community uh participate in that ride as well.

Also, uh just uh there are a couple other announcements.

Uh we're very proud of several of our Houston teams, our athletic teams uh this past week.

We had uh the Houston Lady volleyball team go deep into the state playoffs, and we also had the Houston Lady Mustangs team win their 10th, their tenth, I repeat, their tenth state title.

They're currently ranked number one in the country, and uh they won their championship um in overtime with a shootout.

Umgratulations to the Mustangs.

I know there's some other teams that competed.

Alderman Ulicky, I know you have um great interest in the running program and our GMSD.

You want to go over some of those teams that did really well last week?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um several of the uh schools for GMSD went to state up at Knoxville this weekend.

And my boys have run uh cross-country with Dogwood for the last three years.

They did not go to state with the team, but the girls' varsity team won their third straight state title this weekend.

The JV girls also finished first.

The varsity boys for Dogwood finished third.

Uh the JV Boys won first place.

Uh Houston Middle School girls varsity placed second.

Their Houston Girls JV placed fourth.

The varsity boys won first, and the JV boys from Houston Middle also won first.

So very strong performance from GMSD in the running, and that's a real tribute to the the work that's going on at those elementary schools, getting those kids uh running, and what Coach Stacey is doing with that and her run 365 program, getting these kids out and active.

So it's a great, great program.

And I think Stacey Schwartzman's been at this for right at 10 years as well.

And so is uh really getting our youth active and running, and then they were translate that into athletic competition as well.

Vice Mayor Gibson, I know we recently had the fall festival at uh Lanier Farm Park.

You want to give us a little recap on the success.

I hear it set attendance records.

I'd be glad to, Mayor.

And um I can't uh we've got a couple of sponsors actually in the room.

Want to thank our sponsors, Campbell Clinic and Methodist Hospital Germantown, along with the Quantus Club.

They helped us with uh over 60 volunteers uh that came out uh from the key club and from other organizations.

Um it was a day that was uh filled with fun.

The fall harvest moon festival, and um the corn maze, hay rides, pony rides, bouncy houses, uh, face painting, all uh made for just a perfect day, close to two thousand people.

I don't have those exact numbers.

I'm looking at assistant director Markham.

Um I know that we have those, but it was the park was full from the moment that it began until we closed up uh right around sunset, and it was just beautiful.

I do want to thank just a few folks uh uh teams here in the city, both fire and police, public works, general services, and I cannot say enough about our parks and recreation crew.

Now uh Director Ruffin, uh Assistant Director Markham, Nick Dressman, Sandy Hudson, uh Jimmy Robinson uh who heads up that that farm team over there.

They just did a fantastic job.

We've never really had an uh an event quite like this.

And I said that I would be brief, and I apologize.

It was a beautiful day.

Thank you.

You are still excited, and so is the community.

Thank you.

A few highlights about our uh meeting this evening.