The Board of Mayor and Aldermen met on May 12, 2025, at 6:00 PM in the Council Chambers. The meeting included an invocation, pledge of allegiance, approval of minutes, public comments, special recognitions, three beer board hearings, and the first reading of four budget ordinances. Key discussions centered on the proposed FY2026 budget, a recommended 29-cent property tax increase, and funding for Germantown Municipal School District (GMSD).
Good evening. Welcome to the Board of Mayor and Alderman meeting, the regular scheduled meeting for Monday, May 12th. We welcome all those that are in attendance with us this evening, those that are in chambers with us, those that are viewing online and also through GMTV. I'd like to recognize our friends from the school board that are here, specifically Superintendent Manual. Welcome. Thank you for being here. School Board Member Curry as well. Thank you for being in attendance. I don't see other members of the school board here, but thank you. Some PTO members as well. We do have a few highlights this evening, just to make you aware, every meeting we have an item known as citizens to be heard. If you'd like to speak to your neighbor, the community, the board, you can fill out a sheet at People Street right outside the double doors and get that to one of the officers that will get that to Clerk Betty. We have three people so far, so you still have time. That comes as item six on the agenda this evening, and we'll recognize it at that time. Also, this evening we have a proclamation to read into the record. We will recess and go into uh meeting as Germantown's Beer Board for three public hearings this evening. Um, two of those for temporary beer permit and one for a traditional beer permit as well. Uh this evening, uh items 10 through 13 are all related to the budget, just for those that are in attendance this evening and for um our newest member to the board. Traditionally, those items uh 12 and 13 are the primary focus of the budget and uh gen tend to have the most uh commentary um that is the adopting the budget and setting the tax rate while the other two are critically important. Uh they are generally more performative in nature. This uh evening uh we are honored uh to have uh Germantown's uh chaplain with us this evening, uh City Chaplain Dave Phillips will lead us in invocation, and Alderman Tony Salvaggio will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please rise. Our father, we thank you for all of our blessings in life. We give you praise for everything that we enjoy. And this night we pray for our leaders, we pray for government leaders around the world in our states and in our cities. We pray for our business leaders. We pray for our educational leaders. We pray for leaders in the homes. We continue to pray for our civil servants here in Germantown, our police force, our firefighters, our first responders. We're so thankful for their service and we pray for their protection. We're thankful for our mayor and board of aldermen. We pray for this group of men and women who plan, who prepare, and who participate fully so that we might continue to enjoy all that we do enjoy in in this community of Germantown. And we pray that you'll bless us during this meeting and everything that we do to show our gratitude for all of these blessings by our respectful service. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 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. Please be seated. Thank you, Chaplain Phillips, and thank you, Alderman Salvaggio, for leading us this evening. Um sometimes I'll save some of these remarks for the end of the meeting, but oftentimes I'll forget and we won't have as many people here as well. Just a couple of quick um, I guess, uh items of note over the last two weeks uh since we met as a board of mayor in Alderman. I just wanted to give some special recognition and thanks to many different organizations for some events that occurred in the last couple weeks. Uh the city had its second annual lemonade stand day. I want to thank the board and the police department for manning the stand here at City Hall. Also, we had the Big Squeeze Food Truck Festival that was the culmination of Lemonade Stand Day. We had, I think, 62 participants in stands, and while we raised dollars, the dollars are not the most important uh part of the initiative. It's raising community awareness and the spirit of giving. But thank you to all those that were responsible, the Germantown Education Foundation, City Staff from Marketing Communications, uh Stacy Crockett, Jessica Comas, uh Autumn Jones, and so many more people. Um, also over the weekend, we had many, many festivities and just an outstanding Houston High School graduation. I know a couple of folks on the DS tonight were there with children that graduated, and so we were very proud of all the efforts in the entire weekend and the culmination of careers that are the next step. But it was a sweet, sweet weekend and a great ceremony at Bellevue.