Good evening, everyone.

It is Thursday, May 28th, 2026.

It is five thirty PM.

And this meeting of the Huntsville City Council is called to session.

We have Councilmember Watkins, Councilmember Little, Councilmember Kling has joined us, and Councilmember Meredith is making his way up here.

And we do have a quorum.

All council members are in attendance.

We welcome everyone who has joined us this evening or who is watching remotely.

We will begin our meeting tonight as we normally do with an invitation, which will be offered by our Huntsville Public Safety Chaplain.

And the Pledge of Allegiance will be offered by Councilmember Bill Kling.

All who wish to join us, please stand for the invocation and pledge.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today with grateful hearts, acknowledging every good and perfect gift come from you.

We thank you, Lord, for the city of Huntsville, for its people, its families, its businesses, its school, and many opportunities that you have bestowed upon us.

Thank you, Lord, for the spirit of heart work and service that define the city of Huntsville.

As our city continue to grow, Lord, help us remain united and in purpose.

God continue to bless us as we look out, Lord, and be a light for you.

God, today we especially lift up our mayor, Lord, the city council members, department leaders, public servicemen, Lord, first responders, educators, and all those entrusted in positions of leadership.

Grant them with wisdom to make sound decisions, Lord, and discernment to lead with integrity.

And Father, we pray that you continue, Lord, to let the work that we do here, Lord, let it be great for a generation to come so they may see the good work that we do.

We pray this prayer in your mighty son Jesus' name.

Amen.

Council members, you have the agenda in front of you.

Are there any additions to the agenda?

I would suggest one, and that is after both our presentations at what would be 7C.

We are going to have a video.

We have recently, the City of Huntsville has recently been featured on Fox and Friends, and we are going to see a short segment of that video.

Um any other additions or changes to the agenda.

All in favor or is there a motion to approve the agenda?

Motion from Mr.

Cling, second from Mr.

Little.

All in favor, please indicate.

Council members, you also have the minutes of the regular meeting of the city council held on May 14th, 2026.

Are there any additions or changes to the minutes of that meeting?

Seeing none of the minutes will stand approved.

The mayor has no special recognitions.

Second from Mr.

Little, all in favor, please indicate.

This resolution.

We frequently honor our employees for their work on the job, but this is a chance we have to offer honor an employee who also has excelled outside of the job.

Before we ask Captain Pinto to come up to present the resolution, we do have a video to share.

Can we roll that video?

You know, it's a it's a huge honor, but it's just something that it's it's you know, this many years later and just life happening, it's like it's making me stop and really look back and just be like, oh.

So I played uh catcher at Grissom High School from 2000 and graduated in 2003, and I played at UAH, uh let catcher again at UAH from 2004 to 2007.

One thing about my career that will always be a big deal, but freshman year in high school at Gruisom, and um we got into the state championship.

I ended up hitting the game home run uh to win the game.

It ended up being what won the game.

So I mean, who doesn't dream of you know that doing that?

So that'll always be like kind of like that major memory from my softball career.

So I'm you know born and raised in Huntsville, so going to UH softball games, you know, being just all into the sport at the time as a kid, watching UAH, those girls were like, those were a big deal, they were a big deal to me.

So now they're of course alum.

You know, I'm a fellow alumni and we're friends, you know, and so it's awesome, but is it's hard to put a moment on it, but a lot of the good when I caught good pitchers, like it just was uh just an awesome time.

Um and then playing at UAH for the coach who started the program, who started the program, you know, Les Studeman, she all she's ever had is high expectations for her teams, and they've done well.

And the teams before that came before me, those were good great players and great teams.

The toughness expectation, you know, made my current career, I think, doable after graduating college and in firefighting, whole different experience, I think, than someone who didn't, you know, especially the teams I played for, you know, got to the playoffs.

But if you're gonna go all the way, you can't get be exhausted by that point.

So you have to maintain that conditioning.

And so just that physical, that physical.

You when you're tired, you got to keep pushing.

And that's absolutely with firefighting.

I mean, it's wearing a lot of gear.

You're you're on your, you know, you you've got your um your SCBA on, you know, and it's hot, and it might be two o'clock in the morning, you got woken up, you know, in the middle of the night for this fire, you're running all day, you're exhausted.

Life is life.

I mean, you got you got to remember we're not college kids anymore, you know.

People have kids and in life and and everything else going on.

So you have to the mental, you know, aspect of it has to be there.

Team come on up as well.

Present that to you.

What's happening?

Uh Chief McFarland, bring your bring your folks up here.

This is your fire family, right?

Including my husband, who's staying back there tonight.

Oh, he's he's in charge of uh of the photos.

So let me just uh you've heard a little bit about about Captain Pinto.

Let me just reiterate a little bit of it.

Yes, you heard she was ushered recently into the Huntsville Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame from an early age.

She was an accomplished athlete, softball being a very important part of her life, scholarship at UAH, um, and uh served as and she served as the catcher for the Olympic gold medalist Jenny Finch during a visit to Huntsville.

In addition to the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame, Captain Pinto's outstanding collegiate career earned her numerous other honors, including induction into the Gulf South Conference Hall of Fame as Player of the Decade.

Following her accomplished softball career, Captain Pinto pursued a calling to serve others, combining her interest in the medical field, discipline as an athlete, and encouragement from family to join Huntsville Fire and Rescue, where she has faithfully served the citizens of Huntsville as a firefighter for seven years, a driver engineer for three years, and now as captain in the training division, helping to develop skilled and professional firefighters.

In addition to her athletic and professional achievements, Captain Pinto is devoted to her family, sharing a marriage with her husband, Chris Boster, also a member of Huntsville Fire and Rescue, and being a proud mother and loving mother to two daughters, Riker and Riley.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the mayor and city council of the city of Huntsville, Alabama, do hereby extend their sincere congratulations to Captain Stephanie Pinto on her induction into the Huntsville Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame and express their deepest appreciation for her dedicated service to Huntsville Fire and Rescue and continued commitment to strengthening the community.

Congratulations.

So I couldn't be more proud of her for Huntsville Fire and Rescue to City of Huntsville.

And congratulations to you.

Thank you, Chief, and congratulations, Captain Pinto.

We appreciate your service and are so proud of how you represent our city.

So now is a great opportunity for um pictures if you'd like to have family come up.

Thank you all.

All right, moving on.

Announcements and presentations.

We have one announcement, and that is that we will be holding a joint session with the Huntsville School Board in these chambers on June 1st, starting at 3 o'clock, and it is open to the public.

We will be taking a look at the growth in the city, how the school system is planning for growth, and how the city is working with the school system to fund that growth.

We will now hear, we have two presentations.

7A is a presentation from the Huntsville Madison County Public Library.

We have Connie Chung, the executive director, and joined by board member Doug Martinson.

Good evening.

I'm Connie Chow, the Executive Director of the Huntsville Madison County Public Library.

Thank you so much for having us here tonight.

I'll be presenting along with Doug Martinson, who is the library board vice chair.

The purpose of tonight's presentation is for me to talk about the library branches that are in the city of Huntsville, as well as also focus on the needs of our downtown Huntsville location.

The Huntsville Madison County Public Library has 10 branches throughout Madison County.

Four of those branches are in Huntsville City.

They're Calvary Hill, the downtown Huntsville Library, North Huntsville, and South Huntsville.

We also have a Holds Locker unit at the Mart Russell Center in the Hampton Cove area.

And by the end of this year, we'll also have a Holds Locker unit at the West Huntsville Recreation Center off Martin Road.

Our outreach services are also located at our downtown Huntsville location.

There we have ready reader services for preschool and Head Start programs, as well as senior services programs for assisted living and nursing homes, as well as a bookmobile that serves areas that do not have library services.

I wanted to share some statistics with you to talk about how these four branches performance compared to the rest of the system.

So within these four branches, we have over 72,000 individuals that have registered for library cards.

This is over 50% of the system-wide statistics, so in those four branches.

We also annually have about 981,000 visitors that come through the door of those branches.

As you can see, these branches are pretty busy.

And what I would like to focus on for them is that we do need further support and funding and from our community in order to sustain the support that we need to for our growing Huntsville community.

It is oftentimes that staff are having to focus more on working at a desk and assisting with questions instead of being able to offer programs.

So our hope is to continue to add on additional staff to help our patrons and to offer programming to the community that comes through our doors.

City of Huntsville has been very generous with your appropriation that you give us.

It supports our staffing, our facilities, as well as our services and programs in all of these branches.

So we are very appreciative of what you have done for us these past few years.

Listed here are the services that we offer at that library.

Our youth services department as on the first floor is incredibly busy.

We saw some changes and we opened our north and south libraries where we had more visitors going to those branches, but in the past couple of years, we've seen a 40% increase in the number of families that have started coming through and using our programs and checking out materials from this library.

So I do think that the growing population is coming back to this branch.

We also have our circulation services where people come and ask general questions about library services as well as checkout materials.

Our information and business center offers unique services like proctoring.

We have a technology training center that offers workforce development skills and has a very successful tech help program where we help individuals one-on-one with our technology questions, and a lot of our attendees are older adults that don't truly feel confident with technology, and we think we are filling a gap for them by making them more confident in those skills.

Our special collections department is not only unique to our downtown location and our system, but also just to the entire area.

We do not have a local history museum in this area, and the special collections department does fill that for us.

Within that department, we have an archives that has rare books, and we also have a number of research materials that focus on the Huntsville area, Madison County, as well as the state of Alabama, and there are a number of items there that are truly irreplaceable.

The last service that is very well used at our downtown location, our meeting room reservations.

We have 10 rooms that are available for reservation to the public, and on an average, we have 100 reservations a week.

So our downtown facility does have its challenges.

So we're looking at a building that's about 40 years old.

And the challenges that we're seeing most often are our HVAC system.

Last year, about 54% of our building maintenance budget focused on having to make repairs on this system.

And it's very difficult to keep a normal temperature throughout the building.

We also have a lot of carpentry issues in the top picture that's there, you see there's a lot of tile around that desk.

We're gonna have to replace all of that tile because it's cracking and moving as people walk around, and that's going to be a huge expense this year.

Other issues that we face are that our freight elevator is original to the building, and our monitoring systems like our sprinkler system as well as our fire alarm system are original to the building as well.

And when they have failures or deficiencies, it is very difficult to find parts.

So there's long outages and expensive, is an expensive area that we have to pay more for to get those parts.

The last thing that is very difficult with the building is our steam boiler.

So the upkeep for that is we are paying an external contractor uh around sixty-five thousand a year to maintain the boiler daily, and we also have to pay another contractor to keep the chemical balance on the bowler, too.

So it is a lot of work to maintain this facility.

And we think that with the usage of this facility, it's very important to have a well-running building as we grow, and for what we house in there as well.

Because we have made updates to the building that are not huge.

We updated our technology training center, put new flooring in there, painted the walls, but unfortunately, our third floor has a lot of leaks in the ceiling, and that has damaged new flooring that we've installed.

And then we've also are very concerned about our special collections department where we have irreplaceable materials that have been entrusted to us from churches, organizations, and local families, and we want to do our best job to preserve those materials.

But with the temperature fluctuations and the humidity changes, it is very challenging and very frustrating to upkeep that.

So I believe libraries are the heart of the community.

They really give people an opportunity to gather, connect, and explore universe of ideas.

Our Huntsville Library system has existed in the state of Alabama before as a state.

We're over 200 years old.

So I think our longevity speaks to how we have responded to the needs of our community and really tried to improve the quality of life.

So I'm gonna hand this over to my co-presenter, Doug Martinson.

All right, thank you, Connie.

It is an honor to be here in front of you all and also to thank you for all that you do for the public library.

You know, several years ago, the mayor of Nashville spoke at a leadership uh forum, and he had said that he he was a very successful businessman, but he said that he actually formed and researched his business in the national Public Library in the Nashville Public Library and how important it is.

Uh so we do value that, and we know that uh you you value the library and knows what it does to the community and services for our citizens.

Um, and so you know, the um see so the the one thing is is that a lot of people don't realize what a leader our library is in the state.

We have more items checked out than any library in the state.

We have more programs offered, we have more program attendance, we have a number of visitors every day, whether it be learning quests, other groups, we're open uh for uh various uh events and it's open to the public.

If you look at the North Huntsville branch and the South Huntsville branch, it was designed to meet the needs of the citizens in their areas, and we need libraries to support our growing and changing population.

You know, as we have more people come here, they're used to coming for to from cities that have a great, very strong and large public library system, and certainly we have that here, and uh any increased funding that we need will go to expanding the programs and expanding our services so that we can better provide for our citizens and our library users.

Uh but we are very fortunate to be in Huntsville and that have a council and a mayor who uh realize all of our uh advantages in what we do, so we do thank you.

Uh is that the end of the presentation?

No, thank thank you, Ms.

Chow.

Thank you, Mr.

Martinson.

Council members, do you have questions regarding the library?

Mr.

Clean.

Well, I'm very favorably disposed toward your library because I met the gal who became my wife at one of my town meetings many years ago, so appreciate that.

Uh as we talk about the future, I think it's very important that there be free public parking at whatever facility or whatever you know the situation turns out for the library, so that way it can be available for all people, and people would not see uh paid parking as being a deterrent.

Uh when I'm at the library, uh I'm taken by how diverse the people uh who come to the library are.

They represent the city as a whole as a whole, all you know, genders, ages, uh economic levels and everything, and I think it's it's very important that the library it is truly a city-wide facility, and y'all do a great community outreach for it.

So I just want to say thank you, basically.

It's about it.

Thank you.

Other comments from anyone?

Uh oh yes, Mr.

Merton.

Um I hate to admit it I'm not real familiar with what boilers do.

If you could tell me what boilers do and why um, I'm assuming moving forward you want to keep this boiler, or if not, what is the alternative for what a boiler does?

I would prefer not to keep the boiler, but it does help us warm the building.

Okay.

So it's a combination.

So your HPAC is strictly uh on the uh the cooling side, not the heating side.

Yes.

Do you have an idea how much putting warming in your HVAC would cost uh it just seems like you either sets I think you said either 65 or 85,000 a year for this boiler on one contract?

It seems as though we could get rid of that and be far more efficient with an HVAC that does both.

Um, I don't have an estimate for a complete redo of that system, um, but it I do know that the way that it is set up, it would be fairly disruptive to have to go in and change out a lot of the equipment in the ceiling and doing all of that just from the work that's just been done to kind of band-aid everything together right now.

Um, but yeah, we are paying sixty-five thousand for just the contract for the weekly upkeep or daily upkeep of it.

Um, you had mentioned archives.

Well, you didn't mention archives, you mentioned special collections.

Yes, sort of, um, I assume that this stuff is treated as an archive.

Yes, it is.

And how much space is currently taken up by your special collections?

Our special collections manager is here tonight, so I will get.

Do you know how much it is?

That's okay.

Um, space and numbers on the yeah, it's very large.

It is half of our second floor.

Half the second floor.

Okay, is there I guess I need to speak with you guys uh separately because um I've got a lot of questions that I think are a little isoteric for this conversation.

Um, but let's definitely uh connect.

Okay, yes, definitely.

Um, and one final thing.

Um I missed your timeline for the lockers at West Huntsville Rec.

Yes, so actually the lockers we had hoped would be ready by this summer, but they changed manufacturing facilities through TechLogic, which is the company we're using, and they changed the model that we were getting.

So we had to make some hard decisions on the locker to where we ended up deciding on getting a bigger locker because the new facility was manufacturing a smaller unit that I did not think was sufficient for the usage that you would see at West Huntsville Rec Center, and so we went ahead and gave them the go ahead to get a larger locker.

The city is paying for some of it, but we also looked into gift funds from the library side to help pay the balance of that cost, and so we're gonna have a locker with 51 units in it now instead of 24.

Thank you.

We we look forward to that outwards.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm glad to hear of the great success of the North and South libraries.

I know they have really um met the needs of the communities there, and and the communities love them.

But I'm also glad to hear that uh you've had a 40% increase in your is that patrons or was that children's programming or it is definitely for the programming side of it.

So we the the comparison is we had around 12,000, and by the next year we had about 17,000 attendees.

And you attribute that to growth in the community as a whole or in the downtown people coming and living in the downtown area?

I I attribute to that, and I also attribute it to the staff who have done a wonderful job of looking at what the patrons were coming in for and really building in more things like baby story times and after school programming that's related to STEM.

A lot of homeschool parents also bring their kids in.

Well, you have you have a great staff.

So then the question is, and I have met with some very passionate advocates who would like to see change uh a new library or extensive renovations at the existing library.

Can you just give us an update on where you are with those plants?

So we are looking at the areas of the library where we hadn't filled out some surveys of staff to talk about things that we felt like we needed, and that in return created a library that was very large square footage, and we do know that that is expensive.

And so we're what we are looking at now is what can we give up?

What what is the things that we could possibly move around or make smaller?

Like I talked about meeting rooms, those are very important, but could we do with less study rooms?

Could we do with less mid-sized rooms?

So trying to shrink down that square footage and think about where are things that can move up in the building because I think a lot of the survey results is first floor was very popular, and that does make that square footage spread out.

So we as the staff are looking at ways to shrink the footprints a little, but also thinking about you know how attached are we to our site?

You know, that that is also something that we're looking at to where is there a site downtown that in expense-wise, would it be easier to build while we continue to run the library and not have to rent out space for storage, and then um the building course is owned by the city of Huntsville, so it would be whether or not you know selling the building would recoup some of the costs.

Right.

Um, so lots of discussion and just getting a good sense of where we go.

And I think a lot of people forget that the downtown library is not just the library, it is your administrative offices, the archives, your outreach.

It is, yeah.

So it's it's a large administrative piece in addition to the library that we would be looking at.

Um reconfiguring.

Yes, it is.

Thank you both for the work that you do.

Thank you for joining us tonight and and sharing your good work with us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you for having us.

Next, we will hear a presentation from the Singing River Trail.

As a new executive director, he showed me how to do this.

Now I have to remember.

There we go.

Well, good evening, everyone.

My name is Misty Potter.

I'm the executive director for the Singing River Trail.

I had the privilege of coming here in January of last year and taking on this role.

It's been exciting and fun and overwhelming and drinking through a fire hose for the last 18 months.

So this has been really great, and I'm excited to be here.

I was informed that I don't think anyone has reported to you all in a couple of years, actually.

So this is overdue.

So it's time that you all hear what we're doing and the exciting things that are moving forward.

I'm here this evening with my board chair, Jared Mitchum, and our newest member of the team, Scott Graham, and he is our trail development project manager as fresh as I think seven, eight days ago now.

So he too is figuring out all of our trails and where we're headed.

Most of the individuals on this our board have been with us for the past two years.

You may see some familiar faces of folks that you know from here in the area.

We were founded originally out of the Committee 100, which was launch, launch 2030, launch 2030, had a land use committee, and the land use committee came up with the Singing River Trail back in 2017.

So since that time we've had the ability to really focus on what we what we want to be and where we want to grow.

My biggest thanks though is to the city of Huntsville.

You all were early adopters of this entire plan.

And originally this plan was to connect the Calhoun campuses eventually essentially.

So it was Madison, Morgan, Limestone County.

And if you notice here, as I was digging through some of our 2019 plans, our wonderful mayor actually had a great quote in here, talking about what the connectivity of this trail would do for not only the Huntsville and Greater Huntsville area, but all of our region, and essentially it is establishing that fun and equitable, safe, and beautiful space and maintaining our green space.

And at that time it fit into the Huntsville's big picture master plan.

Um so I do believe, and I'm very proud to say that I think what the mayor captured here is still very true today, almost not from 2019, but from when we started, almost 10 years later.

Since Huntsville jumped on board in 2019, other communities said this is a great idea.

How can we be part of it too?

So we went from a 71-mile plan essentially to a little over 220 miles now.

We span from Bridgeport all the way out to the shoals in Tuscumbia.

It's across eight counties, and our spur route up into Athens.

We have public use land.

So we're we are really a very broad picture kind of organization now looking to connect all of North Alabama, not just the center of the hub, which is what I consider Huntsville.

You can see on this map, and I'm happy to share this with anyone at any point, but you can see at this map on kind of where we are, and I'll dive into some of this a little bit more in just a minute.

But this is also for anyone that has your phone, go to Singing River Trail.com, and this map, not with the stars on it, but is an interactive map.

And you can see exactly what segments are finished, what are in progress, and what are future planning.

So that has been a really great asset that people have been able to utilize.

And when questions come up on what we're we're doing.

So, how's Huntsville's impact driving our regional momentum?

You all have been great supporters.

You have funded the Singing River Trail several years in a row.

You have very much made the work we're doing possible.

And in return, we feel that the Singing River Trail really is positioning Huntsville as the hub of this entire very large network and system of trails.

And the way that we're building and focusing on all of how we're doing this, is we're building from the outside or inside out instead of the outside in.

So it's taking all of the communities on the map that I just showed you, finding the connectivities within each of them, and making sure that there's something to actually connect to and building out to the edges, and then we'll focus on the edges.

But we also know that this extends Huntsville's greenways and their networks into a very large regional system.

A system that ultimately could connect Stone Mountain in Georgia all the way to Natchez Trace in Mississippi.

So if you think of that alone would be one of the largest contiguous trails in the country, and it will be right here in North Alabama, going through our beautiful city.

And that's one of the things we're working towards.

It's more than quality of life.

We know that building trails is doing more in Huntsville, it's doing more in Madison County, it's doing more in all of our eight counties than just quality of life.

It's expanding access to walking and biking and outdoor recreation.

It is creating a healthier, more connected community, but it's also supporting our workforce.

If you think about all of the companies that are moving in, and where are these people moving from?

They're moving from areas where outdoor recreation is accessible and is something that is part of the fabric of who they are as a family and as individuals.

So the retention piece is probably one of the most important pieces of workforce development.

We might get them here because of the jobs, but are we going to be able to keep them here because of what we offer?

And outdoor recreation and trail systems is one of those very wonderful opportunities to offer anyone that comes into our community.

Some of the other things that we know, based on trails across our country, is what's the economic impact and what is that regional impact.

We know that trails create customers well before businesses exist because we're building a trail and giving individuals, entrepreneurs, and companies an amenity, a built-in amenity that they can build around.

Recreation is tourism, and it's one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy.

Right here alone in North Alabama, that tourism economy is anywhere from three and a half to four billion dollars annually in tourism.

In addition, outdoor recreation in Alabama alone in 2024 brought in over 6.6 billion dollars.

This is an industry that is already yielding significant returns and only has one place to grow, and that's up.

We also know that when you invest in trails, the return isn't theoretical.

If you're familiar with the Silver Comet Trail in Atlanta, or in Georgia, rather, the return on that is about five to one for every dollar invested.

If you're familiar with the swamp rabbit, swamp rabbit has actually been significant when it comes to business development in helping these businesses develop anywhere from 30% to 80%.

The Razorback Regional Greenway, that is in Arkansas, brought in over 137 million dollars.

And how they do this is because the businesses that build along the trail, the tourism that attracts or the people that are attracted to the tourism and amenities that are offered in these communities.

So we know that the entrepreneurs and the individuals that are looking to do something in your community in our community, that building a coffee shop at a trailhead is no longer a risk, it's a strategy.

That a kayak launch or a kayak rental is no longer something that is seasonal, it's scalable.

Our farms become agritourism and our downtowns become destinations, and that's all through connectivity and networking through trails.

Last year, like I said, I started in January.

So I consider that my freshman year.

So in our freshman year, we had a very busy year.

We activated about 27 miles in Limestone County on the Richard Martin Trail with our first unveiling.

We also have signed now Wheeler Refuge, and when I say sign, that means we've put our signage and logos on it.

Um so you all will start seeing those a little more, and that that's our plan moving forward.

We did finish our seventh of our eight county master plans because you can't build trails I've learned without our master plans.

And so Jackson County was our seventh of the eighth.

Marshall County is coming online later this year.

We also had our first groundbreaking in Leeton.

So here in Huntsville, we have also now we are in the planning process of about 62 miles of existing on the ground roadways, side paths, protected side paths, um, trail systems that are already in place that we can connect internally and start building out towards the edges, as I mentioned, that inside out approach to the edges.

We also have in Cortland right now in progress, another mile, and then Leeton is another is a little mile that will have a ribbon cutting for the first time, and that is actually the first trail that the Singing River Trail was part of many, I guess a couple of years ago, started planning it, helped them with their TAP grant, did the groundbreaking, and now we'll go through the ribbon cutting.

So for us, this is a very exciting milestone that we will be uh jumping into.

Some of our other planning that we have is um Bridgeport is actually the gateway to the Singing River Trail in Alabama.

They are the very first stop, our very first beginning of the trail, and then where we will end will be Tuscumbia.

So I mentioned the sign placement plan.

This is very much preliminary.

This is very much draft.

Please don't take this for gold.

Um, but this is what we're working to get the money, raise the money for is to do a sign placement plan throughout the Huntsville Greater Huntsville area.

This is actually from our master plan, but we've laid out many of the places where we feel that the um the sign placements can go for identification.

Uh we will be holding some input sessions to also drive this.

But the idea is to not just add a bunch of signposts, but to find signage that's already there.

There's you channel signage that's already there, so we can add our medallion to it, showing that it's part of a bigger network in the Singer River Trail and get us to the edges.

So I mentioned kind of where we're headed.

This is our BHAG.

This is our big hairy audacious goal.

Our goal is to reach 60% of completion of the Singing River Trail over the next five years.

That means that we want to have at least 132 miles signed and on the ground activated, and then that gets us to the edges of each of the communities we're working with along the 220 mile footprint.

Then we will go raise the money to connect all of these communities as the goal has been since 2017.

This is the short list of the projects that we have on the on our plate over the next five years.

But these are the big ones.

We have estimated timelines that we feel they'll come in, but as you all know in the world of development, we control nothing.

So we have this is where we we want everything to land as we're planning, but we have a lot of partners that we work with from local, federal, state, developers, um, everyone that we have to have as part of these opportunities really will matter and keeping everyone aligned, which is why Scott has such an important job.

So we have a big goal ahead of us.

You all have been instrumental in getting us to this part, and we are very grateful for your support, and we look forward to our continued partnership as we begin and continue to connect and collaborate to basically make North Alabama even better and wonderful than it already is.

So thank you all.

Thank you, Ms.

Potter.

Council members.

Do you have questions?

Yes.

Mr.

Meredith.

I was actually part of the committee of 100 when this was conceived.

And um, as the District five council person.

Inside out isn't working for us.

We have the most disjointed, unconnected greenways of anywhere else in the city.

Inside out.

You're connecting already existing trails with already existing trails that lead to places.

We've got three miles of Greenway that don't connect to anything.

And it was a singing river trail and the promise of the Singing River Trail to connect this two places.

And it's like the library folks, we need to talk.

And this isn't the correct venue.

We'll be reaching out, but I'm disappointed in what I've seen.

Well, I apologize.

As I said, I came in a year ago, and this is this is our attempt to ensure that we are connecting as much as we possibly can in each of our communities.

I would love to speak with you on the greenways that we do need to ensure are part of the plan.

I know that we've had many design charreds that have gone through these plans.

Ideally, we want to do it again because those plans were from 2019, and I would love for you to be part of that when we do those with ALTA planning.

I'm sure you all are familiar with them.

Very familiar.

We brought them on.

Perfect.

They're the ones that are helping us.

We actually just came from their office, and this was part of the conversation was that we need to have another design charret here in the Huntsville area to ensure that we're doing exactly what you're saying.

Because a lot's changed.

We have had a lot of development that doesn't necessarily go along with maybe what was the ideal area back in 2019.

So I would love to speak with you on how we can ensure we're connecting what needs to be connected.

Sounds good.

I look forward to it.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Comments from me.

So I remember in 2020 when it was not good, and the bright spot was when LG's walk in Hayes in Hayes Farm became the first segment of the Singing River Trail.

And that's now being connected to all the others.

And I think that's a great model to follow to look at West Huntsville, which I think I've heard Mr.

Meredith say that it's kind of like the wild west out there, everybody has their own little settlements.

That would be such a wonderful way to connect the community.

So I'm encouraged to hear that that's something we're going to be looking at.

Absolutely.

Wonderful.

Yes, ma'am.

Very good.

Thank you, Ms.

Potter.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate you joining us.

Thank you, Mike.

Um, we now are going to have a video presentation.

Some of you may have heard that I think I guess it was two weeks ago, someone contacted the chamber and said, Hey, Fox and Friends is going to come.

We're going to do one of the main street segments as part of the 250th celebration, and we want to come to Huntsville, and we want to show us what you make in Huntsville and your contributes, your contributions to uh to the United States and what makes you special.

And so what came out was a really terrific video, and we are going to be watching that uh a short segment of that right now.

So, Damien, can we see that please?

Well, as we approach America's 250, the anniversary, it is not just cities like Philadelphia and Boston that have shaped our country.

It also is places like Huntsville, Alabama, city that has helped NASA send Americans to space for more than six decades.

So, Steve Ducey uh this morning's launch in today's main street USA spotlight from Rocket City.

Hey, Steve.

Hey, LJ and Ainsley and Brian, good morning to you.

Yes, indeed.

You know, um uh people know it as Rocket City, right?

This is really the town that put America into space.

But before that, uh this was actually a cotton town, and this is Cotton Road Restaurant, which uh once upon a time was a cotton mercantile, but today is a fine dining restaurant with a bunch of happy people.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to Huntsville.

Okay, folks, uh, they're clapping for the mayor, Tommy Babbage.

Good to see you, glad to have you here.

Welcome to Huntsville.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so as we look at America's 250, where would America be without Huntsville?

Oh, listen, we wouldn't have rockets that we sent man to the moon.

We wouldn't have gone to the moon and brought man back, which was more important than sending man to the moon.

Uh we wouldn't have the arsenal that we have.

We wouldn't have some of the cars that we have, just manufacturing wise, and everything that we get to do here reflects on the whole country.

And it's good for the country.

It is good.

And uh this morning we're gonna do a walk around your town.

I love the town.

It's beautiful.

I hope you have a great time.

And there's so much business here today because uh back about what 15 20 years ago, as mayor.

Man, aren't there term limits in this town?

You uh you decided you were gonna take a look because the the Apollo program long gone.

What are you gonna do next in Rocket City?

And you figured it out.

We did a uh what we called the big picture.

We looked at the whole uh aspects of everything that this city does.

You know, who we were gonna recruit, who we were going to bring in, who we needed to have come into this community to provide jobs.

As we put all that together, we came out with a great community.

You did indeed.

All right, mayor.

Thank you very much.

Come on over here.

You know, uh, this town has probably of the highest concentration of actual rocket scientists you will find anywhere in the world.

And this is Bruce, and this is his wife, Joe.

And you guys worked for NASA for a long time.

We did.

And so when you retired, what did you go into?

Well, um, before we retired, really, uh before Joe retired, we started uh straight to ale, which is the largest brewery in North Alabama, and we love it here.

And so we did that to bring great beer at Huntsville because everything goes better with great beer.

Okay.

So I guess it kind of makes sense because you were a rocket scientist and then you went into liquid propellant.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Okay.

And but you guys are not the only two.

There are a bunch of rocket scientists who turn brewers, right?

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

All right, very good.

And they they took their dream of going to space and also brought it to liquid dreams.

Okay.

Indeed.

And you know what?

Uh last night they threw a lovely dinner for all of us at Fox and Friends.

Uh, Neil sat at my table.

He is a geneticist geneticist.

And so I'm fascinated by what you're gonna eat for breakfast.

It's the waffle.

Well, you know, every once in a while you need to break the rules and have something that makes life happy.

It does make life happy.

And you know what?

We're happy that we're here in Huntsville.

Ladies and gentlemen, give yourselves a round of applause.

This is our next stop on Main Street USA.

We'll be live from Huntsville, a walk around.

Straight ahead on Fox and Friends.

Come in.

Lots of familiar faces there talking about uh the great work that we're doing.

I suggest you take a look at Fox and Friends, watch the whole video, the tour of downtown, where they talk to NASA scientists, people from Oz Toyota and Polaris, uh, and restaurateurs.

Uh, it's it really highlights what makes this community great.

So now that we've had a lot of celebrated a lot of good news things, we are going to go on with the business of the city.

Uh, we have no matters with outside legal representation.

We do have several public hearings to be held.

Nine A is a public hearing in order to hear consider and act upon all objections or protests, if any, for removal of a public nuisance at 809 Cross Street Northwest, Huntsville Alabama, in consideration of a resolution ordering abatement of a nuisance located at the same property, Mr.

Irwin.

Oh yes, Mayor Battle, Councilmember Scott Urban Community Development Department.

This public hearing is for property located at 809 Cross Street Northwest.

The property was in violation to the state public nuisance act regarding junk.

Community development issued a note to the property owner and interested parties.

The property remains in violation.

Community development is seeking your authorization to abate this junk public nuisance.

Council members, property owners have made improvements upon your approval of this resolution.

We will continue to work with the property owner to allow them the opportunity to complete the cleanup.

However, failure by the owner to remove all the junk and debris in a reasonable time will result in the city moving forward with our standard abatement process.

The public hearing on this matter is now open.

Is there anyone here who wishes to comment on this matter?

If you do, please come to the microphone.

Is there anyone wishing to comment?

Seeing none, the public hearing is closed.

Is there a motion to approve the resolution?

Motion from Mr.

Little, second by the chair.

Council members' questions, Mr.

Kling.

I guess I just want to get some clarification on what the actual motion is.

Is it to order immediate demolition or is it basically to give uh Mr.

Irwin the sledgehammer where he can lower the boom any time he feels like it's not progressing?

Mr.

Irwin, can you answer that?

So yes, upon your authorization of this resolution, we'll proceed with normal protocol of working with property owners to have voluntary compliance.

I've worked with the owners who were in attendance tonight and I've discussed with them uh substantial amount of progress has been made, even from what you've seen on the screen from for today.

Uh so we'll work with them to complete that process, and then if it doesn't get completed, we'll have your authorization to complete it.

And just to clarify, um, I think Mr.

Kling is asking, we're not asking for demolition here.

This is simply removal of junk.

Removal of junk, that is correct.

Okay, but I mean Mr.

Irwin has our trust support, and he has the authorization to do whatever he needs to.

If he feels like uh progress is not being made, you don't have to come back.

You have the authority in your hip pocket.

Upon your approval of this resolution, that is correct.

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please indicate.

Any posed, motion carries.

9B is a public hearing authorizing the demolition of an unsafe building constituting public nuisance located 3108 Blue Springs Road Northwest, Huntsville, Alabama, and consideration of a resolution pertaining to the same.

Yes, council members, this resolution will authorize the demolition of an unsafe building, constitute the public nuisance located at 3108 Blue Spring Road.

The owner and interested parties were notified of the public hearing by certified and first class mail and may be here tonight to present any objections to this action.

We have photographs for your review on the screen.

The property was initially inspected by an independent contractor who determined the structure was not feasible for repair, it grade out at 100% loss.

The official notice was sent by certified and first class mail requesting demolition and removal of the structure by May the 13th of 2026.

No action was taken by the property owners or interested parties, and we are now requesting your authorization to abate this public nuisance.

The public hearing on this matter is now open.

Is there anyone who wishes to comment on this matter?

Please come forward.

Is there anyone who wishes to comment?

Seeing none, the public hearing is closed.

Is there a motion to approve the resolution?

Second.

Motion for Mr.

Little, second from Mr.

from Ms.

Watkins.

Are there any questions?

No comments.

All in favor, please indicate.

Aye.

9C is a public hearing authorizing community development to assess the cost of cutting overgrown grass and/or weeds against certain properties and consideration of resolution pertaining to the same.

Mr.

Irwin.

Yes, council members.

The resolution up for your consideration addresses 52 properties.

Of the 52 properties on the assessment, the total amount of the assessment is 15,649.29 cents.

An average per property assessment of 298 dollars and 23 cents.

Of the 53 properties, 33 property owners do reside within the seat, reside within the city limits of Huntsville.

Six property owners reside outside the city limits of Huntsville, and additional 13 properties are out of state owners.

All procedural requirements relate to the declaration, removal and rebuilding for the grass, cutting and cleanup have been fulfilled in accordance with your city ordinances.

Property owners were notified that an assessment may be authorized and placed on their property at tonight's city council meeting in which they will have the opportunity to appear to present any objections for the assessed cost.

The public hearing on this matter is now open.

Is there anyone who wishes to comment?

Seeing none, the public hearing is closed.

Is there a motion to approve the resolution?

Motion from Mr.

Little, second from the chair.

Council members, do you have any comments, questions?

All I'm doing.

Oh, Miss Watkins.

Yes.

Um for the purpose of the listening audience.

On average, how many um days is a property owner given for the grass to come into compliance before the city, you know, cuts it and charges them for it?

So it would be a 14-day notice from the time that the property owner is uh the property's identified as being in violation.

Uh then they're mailed that notice.

Uh it comes back after the 14 days.

We have a work order procedure.

We would proceed with the next available uh staff to complete that task.

Sometimes it's on the 15th day, sometimes on the 20th day, depending on the backlog of rain and other things like that.

So, one other question, um, if you know, in some instances when the grass is like up to your waist, is that considered um an emergency where it could be um a danger or it could be a problem in the community if you still go through the 14-day process?

It would still because that would be this the statute required with your city ordinance.

Uh, you think in violation of that, would put us in a legal compromising position.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Irving.

Thank you, Miss Watkins.

Any other comments?

All in favor, please indicate.

I posed the motion carries.

Thank you, Council members.

9D is a public hearing to consider an appeal of the liquor license review committee's decision to approve the application for a lounge retail liquor class one with entertainment to Bar Holdings LLC doing business as Tina's Lounge, located at 1200 531, Memorial Parkway Southeast, Huntsville, Alabama, 35803.

Um before we go any further with this, Mr.

Riley, could you please, because I don't recall that we've ever had anything like this.

Could you please tell us um what we're doing here and what action is required?

We will hold the hearing, but we also need to understand what action the council could take.

Yes, this is basically uh a uh uh vehicle that is available if someone who's uh dissatisfied with the decision of the liquor license review committee down below, which is uh part of the department of finance and such.

Now, normally these cases come to you when an application for a liquor license has been denied, and the person who requests that license comes to appeal that denial.

This is a bit unusual in that we have actually granted the liquor license, and I believe some citizens in the area have issued an appeal as they're able to.

So at the time that uh the hearing is concluded, I'll be happy to offer a little maybe a little guidance as to the proper phraseology uh of uh a motion if you would like, depending on what you want to do.

Thank you, Mr.

Riley.

Ms.

Smith, would you like to introduce this?

Yes.

Um Penny Smith, Director of Finance.

Before you this evening, as you announced, um, is the appeal of a liquor license review committee's decision to approve the application that is before you.

You should have each of you should have received a packet this week comprised of of various information from the liquor license review, the application, etc.

in front of you, and then I also on the dais this evening um that was after that after this packet was created in the meetings.

The minutes of the meeting concerning this is before you on the dias in a red clip.

Um, and so that should be included in the packets.

I want to be sure that that is submitted as we move through this this evening.

The other thing I want to bring to your attention is there are some representatives here in audience from the liquor license review committee.

Um, our finance uh committee representative is Angel uh Mendera, and he is he is here in the audience, he's one of our revenue enforcement officers and uh and was available that evening.

And then Thomas Nunes is here as director of planning, and he is also available this evening to answer questions from that um that particular committee hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Smith.

The public hearing on this item is now open.

Is there anyone wishing to comment on this matter?

Anyone wishing to comment, please come to the microphone.

If you'll state your name and address for the record, sir.

Yes, ma'am Stanley Leg, 1455, Chilequay Road, Connorsville.

I'm actually the owner of bar holdings LLC, doing business as Tina's Lounge.

Okay.

As you heard, I was approved.

There was a gentleman who wanted to have an appeal, he threw out some comments about it being a nuisance.

Um I did my due diligence.

Miss Tina died.

I happen to know the people that worked for her.

They asked if I would be willing to come take a look at it, reviewed it for several months, made sure there were no issues.

There are no police issues.

There was one incident all the way back in 19.

Since then there has been none.

Talk to the neighbors, they've never had any incidents.

We have cameras.

So I'm just here to make sure I can still run my business.

Very good.

Thank you, sir.

Is there anyone else wishing to comment on this matter?

The public hearing is now closed.

Mr.

Riley, please instruct us regarding what action we might take.

Okay, first of all, of course, if the council takes no action, then the decision of the Liquor License Review Committee will stand.

And so I would suggest that a motion, of course, it it's not necessarily a motion to approve the decision below because it doesn't need approval, it stands.

So the motion, if someone chooses to make it would be a motion to overturn approval of the license by the liquor license review committee.

Another option that can be utilized if the council so desires is that similar motion, but a motion to approve the issuance of a license, but with certain conditions that the council might want to place.

But those would be two good options that would be for formation of a motion if the council chooses.

And just to clarify, no motion by the council simply means that the liquor license is approved.

Correct.

And no motion means there's no debate.

Correct.

There'd be no discussion.

Well, council members, is there a uh motion from the council?

In kind, though, then hearing none.

Um there's no motion, then the liquor license is approved and granted as as stated below.

As stated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for walking us through that, Mr.

Riley.

Okay, now we have one final public hearing.

And that is 9E.

9E is a public hearing on the rezoning of 97.24 acres of land lying on the east of Green Briar Parkway and south of Huntsville Browns Ferry Road, from Highway Business C4 District to Residence 2 District, and consideration of an ordinance pertaining to the same.

Mr.

Nunez.

Good evening, Council members.

Uh Thomas Nunez, manager of planning zoning services.

This item is uh a rezoning request.

Petitioners are seeking to rezone the property from highway business C4 to residence two district.

It is overall 97.24 acres.

It is located east of Green Bar Parkway and south of Nottesville, uh Browns Ferry Road.

Is there anyone here wishing to comment on this matter?

Please come to the microphone.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I should open the hearing.

The public hearing is now open.

Is there anyone wishing to comment?

Joy Johnson, I live on West Arbor Drive in Huntsville.

Thank you, Ms.

Johnson.

Um so first of all, I want would like to understand obviously this has already been annexed.

Uh when we annex uh property, is um the zoning set then or is it set later?

Um and if it's set at that time, does it does that affect our decision to annex it?

That then now subsequently is being changed after it's been annexed.

I also really would like to know the difference in density for these two uh zoning um classifications.

Um I know C4 here usually means uh the shops, whatever, right?

But I I my understanding is that C4 also um allows uh dense uh apartment type multifamily dwellings.

Um what is the comparison between that and the residence two district?

Um I we have a problem in the city with sprawl and not preserving our environment and um I'm would like to see something done about that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Johnson.

Is there anyone else who wishes to comment on this matter?

Seeing none, the public hearing is closed.

Is there a motion to approve the ordinance?

Motion from Mr.

Litton, second by Mr.

Meredith.

Council members, do you have any comments or questions here?

I do.

So Mr.

Meredith.

Thank you.

Mr.

Nunes.

The area around what is highlighted is that going to remain C4?

Subsequently, one I want to answer the question of Ms.

Johnson, but also get into your questions as well.

So first, uh the property is annexed, and typically that uh those and the property is therefore zoned through the city council.

So first action is um annexing of the property and approved by the city council moving through planning commission through a review of the uses and the intent of density and what is uh proposed.

As we get through that process, the it is zone C4 and has been zone C4 since its uh inception.

This property has uh been master planned, and the first phase is this phase in itself.

Uh this proposal will start with a single-family residential development, approximately 250 plus homes.

Uh, the development team of McKinley Homes is uh proposing to develop this area for a single-family residential uh development as we look at the rest of the property that will springboard some other intensive uses of mixed use.

So you'll see some retail activities along Greenborough Parkway, uh, then some additional mixed use of housing and also retail.

So the rest of it at this particular time will remain a C4.

However, you may see some other proposals of rezonings to come down the line as the development continues to move forward.

Does that answer your question, Ms.

Meredith?

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please indicate.

Any posed?

Motion carries.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Let the record show Mr.

Meredith has voted in the negative.

Um, then the motion passes.

Thank you, Council members.

Thank you, Mr.

Nunes.

We have no public hearings to be set.

We will now move on to agenda-related public comments.

We have quite a few.

Uh so let me just read the little preamble here.

The portion, this portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address council on matters relating to the specific content of items on the meeting agenda, these individuals have signed up previous to this meeting.

When called, approach the microphone, state your name, home address, and city of residence.

I will also call the person who's going to be following.

So please uh get ready to comment.

Each speaker may address the council for three minutes.

Speakers shall refrain from entering into a dialogue with council members or city staff and from making comments regarding good name and character of any individual.

As I said, we have several signed up to make this go as quickly as possible.

Please don't repeat.

If somebody has said already said something, um, and um, and we will move through as quickly as we can.

The first person uh to comment will be Marissa Allison.

Ms.

Allison will be followed by Alex Kimion.

Is Marissa Allison here?

Excuse me, President.

If you don't mind, we do ask when they come to speak of they'll speak directly into the speaker because a lot of citizens say they can't hear what the citizen comments are because they're not loud enough.

Excellent point.

Thank you.

Please make sure that you speak directly into the microphone so everyone can hear you.

All right.

Um Rissa Allison, uh, my address is on file, and I live in district two.

Um, I got my first library card at the downtown library when it opened in 1987 and it started.

Definitely a big love for the library.

Earlier today, I sent a file for my son and I to North Huntsville Library's makerspace to get an air layering pod printed.

It's a pod that you can put around a tree branch that'll help you to propagate new roots for a tree.

So he's going to be using that at his grandpa's house to make a new apple tree.

Um you will remember that several years back, libraries across the state, including our own, began being attacked first by fascist extremists from groups like Moms for Liberty, and now that they have infiltrated the state library board, they are being attacked by the state.

Since my fellow community members and I started pushing back against these attacks, I have come to learn a lot about the library and all that it does.

It strikes me true, it strikes true to me that what a community prioritizes says a lot about what it's trying to grow.

Our library system is in an absurd position as it relates to funding compared to other systems across the state.

We have the largest service population in the state, and the city council is given flat funding of 5.6 million for three years now.

The CEO of Mobile comparatively offers their library system, which has about the same number of library branches, $8.2 million in 2025.

Birmingham increased their library budget over $2.6 million in the last two years from $14 to $16 million.

This is all happening as the police department in Huntsville continues to just be flooded with funding.

HPD got nearly $77 million in 2025, over $80 million in 2026.

That's a $3.7 million increase.

Just last month, this council approved an additional contract with Crimson Recruiting Services for police recruitment for over $122,000.

So it makes me wonder like are things getting more violent in Huntsville?

Why are you all giving more money to the cops?

But Huntsville's violent crime rates decreased nearly 40% since 2019.

Overall crime has dropped 26% in that same time.

And our library still needs more funding.

On top of that, flat funding the library gets from the city, the state and federal funding is also at risk, as you all know.

The library gets about $500,000 from the state, and that funding now has strings attached that continues to force the library to ban age-appropriate books from the children's and young adult sections of the library because of political and ideological biases.

Last year, those changes cost the library system $60,000 to implement.

And this was not funded by uh the state, it was funded by us.

Now the state has passed more code changes that went into effect, and they will not be paid for by the state again, but will have to be paid for out of the funding that you all have given the library.

What this means is that they're going to remove.

Yes, Miss Allison, your three minutes are up.

We appreciate coming tonight.

We now will hear from Alex Kimion.

Ms.

Kimion will be followed by Lisa Bradford.

My name is Alex Kimion.

I uh my address is on file.

I reside in District 3.

Um may know I I have worked for Huntsville Madison County Public Library for seven years.

I am not here to speak on behalf of the library, obviously, but to speak on my hat on behalf of someone who has worked there, who does um work the front line at the libraries.

Um I think part of the rhetoric that, you know, a lot of the rhetoric that's been going on the past few years, as my friend mentioned, is books and and kids' exposure to books, and I'm not we could debate how we're all qualified, you know.

The people who are ordering these books and reviewing these books are very qualified to understand what um resources should be made available to the wide diversity of people here.

Um, but something I run into a lot is a lot of folks telling me they don't know everything that the library offers, and I apologize.

I actually missed um Dr.

Chow's presentation, so I may be repeating stuff, and I apologize.

But I really want to drive home things like you don't need a library card to come to the library and get notary services for a dollar.

You don't need a library card to come pick up your tax forms, print off your health care records, uh, fax things, which by the way, you know who's still faxes?

Government entities.

So as long as government entities still need us to use technology from 1985.

Um, you know, it would help to increase our funding, especially since I was here at the meeting when the city approved hiking, hiking, um, increasing utilities rates, sewage rates, water rates, all of this stuff went up, and library staff has not received a cost of living raise in at least two years.

Um, we live here too.

We work here too.

Um we use the library, we use all of the city services.

We want to be able to afford to stay.

I can't tell you how many people I've had to say goodbye to that I've really enjoyed working with because they couldn't afford to live here while working for the library.

The North Huntsville branch has an incredible workforce development position that is only is capped at $30 an hour because we can't afford to pay this person 40 hours and benefits to help people get jobs here in Huntsville.

Um, so you know, all the political rhetoric is a smoke screen, I can promise you that.

I think we all know that.

Um ultimately what matters is keeping folks here, keeping folks employed, keeping folks learning, keeping folks engaged in this city.

If we really want folks to stay, you have to invest in the library.

And with the rate, the cost of everything else going up.

Don't even get me started on gas and how much filling up my Toyota Corolla cost me yesterday.

I will weep.

You know, I I certainly don't want to leave Huntsville, but I I can't afford not getting even a cost of living rates much longer, and that's not the library's fault with two of the three entities continuing to annex property, bring folks in, uh, build more subdivisions, build more apartments, aren't helping us keep up with this population boom, on top of all the other things that we're trying to do, not just put books on shelves, but get people access to the internet.

I can't even tell you how many people I helped with the census test.

Uh, you know, I mean, we are the people come to where the people uh folks come to when they don't know where else to go.

Thank you, Ms.

Kenyon.

Uh, next we will hear from Lisa Bradford.

Lisa Bradford will be followed by Stanley Leggett.

My name's Lisa Bradford.

My file address is on file.

I'm District 4 with Sherwood Park.

Uh, I want to start by reading an email from a neighbor who was not able to come tonight.

Um, she said she wanted to reach out regarding an important concern involving the noise and safety issues along Research Park.

She lives on Forest Park Court and the backyard backs up directly to Research Park.

A few years ago, her son and cousins were playing on the trampoline when suddenly a tire came through the fence, crashed into the playground area, and it was extremely frightening experience for the children for me as a parent.

I never imagined something like that could happen, but unfortunately it did.

Because of this incident, I wanted to express my concern and support for the construction of a wall along Research Park, both for safety reasons and to help reduce the noise for the surrounding neighborhood.

My primary concern is the safety of the families and children who live nearby.

Unfortunately, I'll be out of town and unable to attend the upcoming city council meeting, but hoping that you might be willing to speak on my behalf.

Thank you again for your continued help.

She's attached photos, so I'm not sure if Mr.

Kling has given you the photo of the tire that busted through and broke the playground equipment.

Um Steeplechase condominium or townhouses have the same issue.

So I want to include them into this.

The sound is unbearable.

Cars racing every night.

People say, Well, you shouldn't live in a neighborhood that's next to a highway.

Well, the neighborhood was there in the 60s.

The highway was a two-lane highway.

It's increased to four to six, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger.

The motorcycles racing at night, it's unbearable.

Um people can't sit outside on their patios close to research park.

I probably live about 20 houses down.

I can hear in my house with the windows closed.

Umise is an issue, but safety is a bigger issue.

Something needs to be done.

I know LDOT says they've never had safe walls anywhere in the state of Alabama.

But it's time.

It's time that Alabama and Huntsville steps up and gets something done.

You know, be the first.

Huntsville's a great city.

Let's figure something out.

I don't think trees and bushes are gonna do it.

I think it really needs to be a wall, something that's gonna keep tires from flying into people's backyards.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Bradford.

Um, and just for the public's information, we do have an agenda item on uh the agenda later uh sponsored by Mr.

Kling regarding this.

Uh, is Mr.

Leggett still here?

Stanley Leggett, I believe he's already spoken.

Um we'll now hear from Jane Maples, who will be followed by Kathleen Booker.

Uh, just come to this one.

I'm Jane Maples.

Uh, live at 103 Lions Court in Madison, Alabama, but I'm not here as a Madison Ike.

I'm here as the president of Learning Quist.

And uh LearningQuest is a nonprofit, volunteer-led organization of all for adults of all ages dedicated to building a learning community through educational and enrichment opportunities.

We currently have a membership of over 600 and expect that to grow and rise to about 800 before the years out.

We last year, that's what we wound up with was 800.

Each term we offer 50 to 60 programs spread over a six-month term and have eight special interest groups, which with six of them meeting at the library every week.

So that's what I'm speaking in support of: the library.

We are in partnership with the Huntsville Madison County Public Library.

Learning Quest brings adults together to learn, explore, and connect.

Our courses, programs, and trips are designed to spark curiosity, enrich lives, and build a vibrant community.

Our partnership with the library is an integral to our existence, and that the vast majority of our programs and meetings are held at the downtown library.

Additionally, the library staff provides invaluable assistance to Learning Quest, including level several leading several programs throughout each term.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to hear us speak in support of the library.

Thank you, Ms.

Maples.

We will now hear from Kathleen Booker, who will be followed by Wilbert Brown.

My name is Kathleen Boucher, and my address is 2328 Cardinal Avenue.

My apologies.

No problem.

And the library is a huge support for me to meet my daily needs and maintain my house and a gazillion things.

It provides me with access to knowledge, skills, and awareness that help me support my family, build overall community, and let me grow into my best self.

When I go to the North Huntsville Library and downtown, my two favorite haunts, I see a welcoming and skilled staff that support the book clubs, the makers' studios, the children's programs, the technical support that I would not be in the 21st century without.

Profits from the Friends of the Library support all kinds of programs for the library.

However, our financial contribution is small compared to what the library needs.

It's a drop in the bucket.

The money allotted to the library has been stagnant for years.

I hope that that can change.

A vibrant library needs to be a line item in the city budget, I believe.

We need to leave to move forward on replacing or substantially renovating the downtown library.

And I urge you to support and respect the integrity of the library staff as they respond to spurious challenges to the quality of the library's collection.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Boucher.

Now, here from Wilbert Brown.

Wilbert Brown will be followed by Darren Berrick.

Good evening.

My name is Wilbert Brownlow and my address is on File.

And City Residents.

I'm really off Bob Wade Lane in Calerton Estates.

Thank you.

I'm here on behalf of Friends of the Library.

I'm a board member, and I would just like to invite each of you to come visit us.

Put boots on the ground.

Bring your spouse, your children significantly, and visit the library and see how and how important the library is.

I'm a college graduate, and I graduated when we didn't have much internet.

All we had was the library.

The library was our safe haven.

I mean, safe haven.

There was one maybe two places that we could go church and a library.

And you know which one we chose.

We chose the library.

Thank you all.

Thank you, sir.

We'll hear from Mr.

Verhagen and then uh Karen Alvarez.

Hello, my name is Darren Verhaga.

Um, my name is on the paper.

I'm sure you've heard a lot about the city residents.

Huntsville, thank you.

I'm sure you've heard a lot about funding already.

Um I am here about TIFF 9, resolution 20 F.

Uh, it is the 220 million dollar TIF, 200 of which is just going to the Von Braun Center.

Um for a few actions.

Uh one of which for the library, I'm sure that could be well used.

Um, sorry about this.

For the city to recover this public outlay through increased property value, uh which is one of the major areas of which we get a revenue, we would need 1.6 billion dollars of increased investment on year one, of which increases each year until that is met for it to increase through sales tax, we would need 148 million dollars alone just from the Von Braun Center, making it a unsound amount and uh significantly increased.

I know the council is very appreciative of light rail, of which for the same amount of money we could install a light rail system from downtown Huntsville to UAH.

Um we could also outfit the entire city with rapid bus transit, uh, which would both drastically increase the return on investment from those items.

And uh that is all I have.

Thank you, Mr.

Verhaga.

We'll hear now from Karen Alvarez, who will be followed by Jesse Mitchell.

Good evening.

Uh first I would like to thank the city council members and the mayor for your service to our city.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Name name and address.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Karen Alvarez, 1316 Sierra Boulevard, Huntsville.

Thank you.

Um I'll start over.

Um I want to thank you all for your service to the community.

I'm sure you don't get a lot of things, but um I definitely do understand um the importance of what you do for our city, and I want to give you accolades for that.

Um you've all done an amazing job and um making Huntsville a better place to live and visit.

Um as a board member of the Friends of the Library organization that does support the downtown library branch.

I'm here tonight because I voice my concerns for the future of our branch.

Um it's no secret that our building that houses a library as well as the bookstore is in dire need of renovation or possibly a brand new build.

I understand that budget allocations are in high demand at the moment, especially as we grow and wish to attract outside revenue while dealing with current outdated buildings, parks, and city buildings.

Um my request is that we keep the library our needs in that vision for the future of downtown Huntsville.

Um it has um been amazing to me that the new developments, the increase in the population, and the struggles with the outdated and aging building, that the library's dedicated staff has continued to work tirelessly to implement new programs to enhance the lives of our residents.

They offer so much to the people of this city, many who cannot afford to do extra things on their own.

Movie nights, book clubs, computer classes, children's events are just some of the examples.

Meeting spaces are available as well as rooms to learn dance, play games, or work at no charge.

And of course, the Friends of the Library bookstore is housed there.

Um there's no place in town that you can get a better deal on books.

I can pretty much guarantee you that.

Uh we have a great flow of customers, many that we know by name.

Um I have learned to much about the great people of Huntsville just by volunteering in that bookstore.

Um also, as I've traveled over the years to many cities, um, known for their destination spots.

Um the one thing that all of these great cities have is a fantastic downtown library.

Um you can't find a major city in this country that doesn't have a great library system.

So um since our study is well on its way to bigger and better, let's not disappoint the people who rely on this library for resources and enhance their livelihood.

Our city depends on you all to do the right thing, and I know that you will.

Thank you, Mrs.

Alvarez.

We'll now hear from Jesse Mitchell, who will be followed by Meredith, and I know I'm gonna mess this one up.

Del U.

Miss Merriga.

Jesse Mitchell.

Hello, I'm Jesse Mitchell.

I live at 3313, Marks Drive Southwest here in Huntsville.

Um I'm here also speaking in support of the library.

I, you know, I don't know if you can tell, but um apparently librarians are organized.

Um I am uh an educator here in Huntsville.

I work over at Lee High School.

I work in special education.

Um also before coming and moving to Huntsville.

I worked at the Crisis Center in Birmingham, and then my background is actually in mental health counseling.

The reason why I bring these up is because I want to mention that.

Um, first of all, one of the things that helps encourage me about the city and about our library in particular is knowing that we have these resources for people.

As someone whose students just graduated, my first round of students just graduated, is helpful and encouraging to know that my students who have special needs have a place that they could go to receive educational services outside of high school.

Um, in addition to that, um I will say also that my students also are the kinds of students who deal with like regulation needs who will respond to things based on the appearance and the experience that they have in those spaces.

And so as we are talking about and thinking about the appearance of spaces, the age of spaces.

Also, I might pause here and note that I'm also almost 40 years old, and if I had stayed appearing the same for the last 40 years, something would be a bit of a problem, right?

Um we might want to think about uh, you know, the ways in which uh the appearance of things affects the way that we uh encounter them and experience them.

I would say from what I can tell from all the librarians that I've spoken with is that this is not a complaint about the library itself, but rather an encouragement saying, hey, let us match the greatness of which the services are being provided to the appearance of it itself, you know, the library itself.

Also, I might mention here: would we have been proud if the Fox and Friends video team had gone to our downtown library?

And I think we I think we know the answer to that, and I think the answer to that proves how much that we really need to care and think about this uh problem and issue in particular.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mitchell.

We'll hear from Meredith Del U and who will be followed by Jackie Bellamy.

And please be prepared to come to the microphone when your name is called.

So the next person will be Jackie Bellamy.

Hi, my name's Meredith Deleo, and I wanted to thank the council for letting me speak.

Uh, my address is on file.

Um, I'm in district two.

Thank you.

Um I am here just to briefly talk about how important um the downtown library is to my family, but also to the South Library.

We live in Jones Valley.

Um, I am not a lifelong Huntsville in, but my family has been here for many generations.

Um, and me and my husband are now very happy to call Huntsville home.

We moved here almost three years ago after my husband Peter uh finished his gastroenterology fellowship in Chattanooga, which has an awesome downtown library branch if you've never been to it.

Um, and he took his first GI job here in Huntsville.

My family has been involved uh actually in the Huntsville Public Library for multiple generations.

Um I'm happy to continue the tradition on as a member of the library foundation board.

Uh my great-grandfather was the namesake of the recently closed uh Oscar Mason Community Center that also was a library branch.

Um he and his daughter, which was my grandmother, Lois Mason Miller were both heavily involved in the library.

They both served on the big library board and the library foundation board.

Um, in addition to just being involved in Huntsville in general.

They were on the um Huntsville Housing Authority boards, both of them, and were chairmen.

Um my great-grandfather was uh chairman of the Huntsville uh Housing Authority Board for um like 17 years, so um they both installed a passion of community service in my family, which is why um and the library, um, so which is why I am now uh such a passionate advocate for the library.

Um, as someone who lives in Jones Valley, I felt the impact from the library from day one.

Uh I moved here with a one-week old son.

Um I didn't really know many people other than like my grandfather, who was 90, who was great, but um I wanted to meet some more people.

Um, we the first place I went actually was to the library, to the baby lab sit.

Um I took my son there.

It provided him a safe space to crawl and to meet people, um, and it was just it allowed him to begin to explore the world.

Um I still fondly remember my first experience with the South Library story time.

Um, I went there thinking there would be a couple of moms, and I went there about five minutes beforehand, and I made a huge mistake because it is packed.

You cannot get in.

Um I had my stroller, I was a new mom, I've tried to get in.

I couldn't even get in the door.

It was that packed, and it is that packed every single day.

So if you're ever at 9 30 and you want to hit South Library story time, please do.

Uh you will see the most vibrant, amazing community of everyone from different walks of life.

Um, that every time we go to the library, we see something new they offer.

The South Library now has a seed library, which my husband and I are amateur gardeners, so it makes us super, super thrilled.

Um, that all to be said, uh, they're always offering something new.

Uh, the library is truly a great equalizer for a community.

It allows uh equitable access and thank you so much.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, you're gonna appreciate your comments.

We will now hear from Jackie Bellamy, who will be followed by Amanda Nag.

Hi, I am Jackie Bellamy.

I live in Huntsville in District 2, and my address is on file.

Thank you for having us and the service that you do for the city.

I have been a citizen of Huntsville for nearly a decade.

I am a mom.

I'm a local children's book author, and I graduated from the Civic Engagement Academy in 2025.

I am a board member of the Huntsville Madison Public Library Foundation as well.

My family and I moved here almost a decade ago because of the affordable housing options and robust family-friendly public services.

Within the first couple of months living here, we got a library card for each of our family.

We frequented the downtown location because of how easy it was and how easy it was to access, including the free parking.

The librarians certainly deserve all the financial support our city can give them.

We experienced that within the first year of living here.

We were thrilled then when just five years later, the North Branch opened less than five minutes away from our house and on the way to my child's public school.

We were at the North Branch's playground and checking out books inside at least once a week.

We have we had a bag full of crafts and pens we made directly, uh made directed by the crafty librarian at the makers space when they celebrated the North Branch celebrated their fifth anniversary just last month.

I have been so impressed with how the North Branch was designed.

It has a beautiful children's area with hefty pillars that mimic trees, and I see my own children learning and growing underneath, turning pages of literally hundreds of books and decorating the newest themed coloring sheet.

The expert children's librarian has prepared at perfectly kid-sized tables on one of on one of the three branches shelves.

I see a librarian has shelved my own book that I co-wrote, inspired by the iconic cosmic Christ Mosaic.

It sits next to another book, Once Upon Us Sorry by Zaneas Wadwani, and then right next to a Star Wars cookbook, a perfect representation of a public library that has stories about your local community and worlds light years away.

The North Branch is where I found community in my voice.

The I have to say, very comfortable community room with its modern day core and floor to ceiling windows with shades when needed.

It's one of my favorite rooms in all of Huntsville.

The events that have been able to be hosted there has brought so many people together.

Did you know that our public library system came from the mind of one of our founding fathers?

And Ventor extraordinaire, Benjamin Franklin?

In our modern days, our public libraries contain computers, copiers, and study rooms, which help us to see our potential and have resources to learn, lean into that potential.

Our libraries have stories that light up our imagination and illuminate worlds and people's way of life beyond our own.

Our public library here in Huntsville is essential and should be cared for and supported financially.

We are one of the smartest cities in America, and as we celebrate our 250th anniversary as a country, let's make our founders proud.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

We'll now hear from Amanda Nagel, who would be followed by Scott Nagel.

Hi, I'm Amanda Nagel.

My address is on file.

I live in District 2 in Huntsville.

First, I want to thank uh the city council for hearing about this important issue.

And second, I want to express my deep support for the library and for its mission.

The library ended services are essential to what cities do to me, and it's one of my biggest priorities as a citizen and a constituent.

Third, I want to I support the city in providing increased funding to the library for renovation, staffing, improving the digital collection, and at a bare minimum, keeping up with inflation and city growth.

Keeping the funding flat, as the city has for the last three years is not enough.

As I think Alex said, unlike city employees, library employees have not received a cost of living adjustment in the last few years.

I want to touch a little more on the digital collections issue since it's a passion of mine.

I recently placed a hold on an audio book that I'm looking forward to listening to.

It was published two years ago, so not a new release.

Um but I was the 54th person in line with a hold on the book.

Uh there's only one copy.

So if everyone keeps the book for two weeks, I will read this book in two years.

So maybe then I will report back and tell you how it is.

Um another copy of this book and many other books in the digital collection would be a big benefit, but the library simply does not have the funding to increase the digital collection to match the needs of the current cardholders and patrons.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now hear from Scott Nagel who will be followed by Allison Montgomery.

Good evening to the council and to Mayor Battle.

My name is Scott Nagel.

I live on Big Cove Road, and just want to tell the mayor that we miss him on Big Cove Road.

Um so I'm gonna cut my comments fairly short because I think you're getting the message from the constituents in your various districts about the importance of the library.

Um I've had the pleasure of meeting with almost everybody on this dais uh to talk about the library to advocate for it.

So I appreciate your time to do that, and I appreciate you bringing forward as an agenda item uh for Connie and for Doug to be able to highlight the library to you as uh uh with the value that it adds.

But you've heard that from all of the people here.

Um, you know, the library's been a consistent uh factor in my life ever since a kid as a blue collar kid of a blue-collar family, first kid in my media family to graduate from college libraries where I was there for study or for all of that.

Um, you know, I look at what uh the amazing things that have happened as part of the master plan for downtown, and I'm I'm blown away by it.

You know, there's 1,500 new apartment buildings or 1500 new apartment homes within walking distance of the downtown library.

Uh which I'm have the pleasure of being the vice president of the downtown friends of the library group now, which is fantastic group.

Uh and so we've done an amazing job with that private investment and that economic development piece, but I think you've obviously been aware for a couple of years now that the library is in desperate need of the same kind of commitment.

Uh, I'm disappointed that the tax instrument act tax increment funding project list did not include the library.

I understand uh that it was because that that improvement plan just wasn't mature enough to put into that TIFF.

Uh and I know that that uh the HP HMCPL board along with Connie are developing an improvement plan for the library, whether it's a renovation or a relocation or whatever, it's gonna be a significant amount of money.

It's not gonna be 200 million dollars like the Von Braun Center, but it won't be small either.

And I just uh am going to encourage the our city leaders to be creative and committed to find the funding for that project, as well as what has been gone on in that TIFF nine in that TIFF nine lift that you're gonna approve later tonight.

So thanks again for the things that you do for the city of Huntsville.

We're we're we should be proud uh to have you as our leaders uh and for you know helping us shine the star of Alabama uh, you know, on all of us tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now hear from Alison Montgomery, who will be followed by our final speaker, um Austin Jones.

Hey, uh my name is Allison Montgomery.

My address is on file.

I'm one of the nominees for State House District 25, which covers a good chunk of Huntsville, but I live out in Madison and I'm occasional patron of the Madison Library.

Um so I want to say thank y'all for funding the library branches.

Um the funding from the city is going to become ever more important as time goes on, because unfortunately, as y'all know, the statewide library board has become transfixed, shall we say?

They've developed certain obsessions, uh, which I hope our local library board doesn't succumb to.

As we saw in the presentation, uh our libraries provide a number of services that are vital to our community, especially as costs rise and people need places where they can go to not have to spend money to hang out.

Everything is so expensive and has been expensive, and there's no end in sight.

We've got to give people who don't have much money places to go and things to do.

Uh you can see where I'm going with this.

And I do understand that the buildings themselves are in need of expensive repairs.

Uh however, as you know, you do also have to take care of the people who make all this possible.

Uh I'm here because I care about workers.

Uh, I'm a worker myself, and to my understanding, library staff hasn't gotten a cost of living increase in two years.

And these have been an expensive two years, have they not?

As we learned in the presentation earlier, the library obviously needs more staff and good staff.

Our library system is gifted with good people, and the way you keep good workers around, like Alex who spoke earlier, is to pay them well enough to where they can afford to stick around, as Alex was also saying.

So please shake some crumbs from elsewhere in the budget if you have to, and give a fair share to these spaces, and especially the folks who make them great.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

And we'll conclude with Austin Jones.

Hi there, I'm Austin Jones.

Uh, address is on the chart.

Uh, I don't know, when's crossroads, candidate for uh Madison County School Board District 3.

And I'm a member of the North Alabama Democratic Socialists of America in a 21-year army vet with four deployments across Iraq and Afghanistan.

And everything I know about socialism I learned from the Bible, the Constitution, and the Army.

I'd like to remind everyone that Monday was Memorial Day and highlight the ultimate sacrifice of the service members across all branches and the families left behind.

These folks served in support of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which none of that is possible without knowledge, without truth.

And you don't get those without the guardians of truth of knowledge, librarians, these folks have endured nearly daily assaults by the enemies of truth and justice, and still they stand.

They deserve a round of applause.

But more than that, they deserve a raise.

The cost of living has exploded since the last time they had an increase.

Fuel costs have increased over 40%, and everything downstream of that, namely food, have also increased.

There is no end in sight for the increases.

Contrary to that, economists only see it getting worse.

Over 25% of farmers can't afford fertilizer, which will drive costs up even more.

I bet if libraries are one of the few third spaces left in our communities.

Crime would be driven down even further.

And all our shift workers would have a safe place to go in the wee hours.

I recollect that there was a five million dollar increase in the police budget last year.

Why don't y'all give five million to the librarians?

Because it feels pretty short-sighted to support the guardians of truth to not support the guardians of truth, knowledge, and justice.

Librarians provide the foundation of civil society for thousands of years.

Now give them the respect they deserve, give them a raise.

Freedom starts with education, solidarity forever, free Palestine, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

That concludes our agenda-related comments.

I'm sorry, ma'am.

I signed up to speak tonight, but I didn't hear my name called.

I'm Jan Hosey.

I signed up to speak outside.

Don't look through and see if I've missed it.

I don't believe it's there.

It may it may have been on the chief of the second cluster, so I have an opportunity to speak.

Ma'am, is your subject the library?

Yes.

Okay.

If you'd like to come and can conclude that's fine.

Thank you, thank you so very much.

I'll be brief.

Name and address for the record, please.

I am Jan Hosey.

I live at 2508 Pansy Street in Huntsville.

Thank you.

And really, I'll be as brief as I can.

I would like to reframe how we think about the downtown public library.

And I want to give you an outsider's perspective because, like a great many people, I am not a Huntsville native.

I moved here looking for a diverse community with culture and with opportunities to continue a lifelong of learn, lifelong learning.

I saw the green spaces, I saw Big Spring Park, it was beautiful.

I learned about Panoply and the Symphony and the Art Museum, and I was captivated.

But the thing that pushed it over the edge for me to come here instead of Atlanta or Nashville or other places.

The North Branch, beautiful.

When I walk in the downtown space now, it crackles under my feet.

It's a gateway space to this city.

It is the first thing that people seeking a library see in Huntsville.

They find North Huntsville branch later, they find South Huntsville branch later, but they come first to downtown.

Please consider it a gateway space and help us make it a show place.

Thank you for letting me speak.

I appreciate it, ma'am.

That can that concludes our speakers.

Madam President.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

I think uh I got a text message.

I think uh Mr.

Bull had signed the wrong form.

He wanted to speak about the library if I have that right.

Well, that's a that's an agenda item.

That is that's an agenda item, but you would you like to make your comments?

Thank you, counsel for letting me uh speak to my community about my community.

Um, this is three three and your name.

My name is Gray Bullock.

I reside at 332 Forest Park Court.

Thank you, sir.

Sherwood Park.

Uh I'm here uh to give voice to my community for the sound mitigation wall.

Um, echoing what my neighbor Lisa Bradford uh mentioned about the safety concerns of the wall, uh, but also it's uh sound uh proofing and barrier for our community.

We live in an older community, which was built in the 60s.

So these homes are not like the newer homes today.

You can hear 255 inside your dwelling.

So if you've ever been to DeSoto Falls or down at Barber Raceway Park, if you've been to those areas, that's what it sounds like.

And so I suggest, council members, that you come out to our community and come there at any hour, especially peak hours, and you will hear, which sounds like a race way park or a torrent, raging river.

Um, so I I suggest that uh the city performs an environmental noise survey and or an architectural acoustic testing to determine the need for the mitigation members for our community.

Um, you know, we have young people that are affected by this.

I only live an eighth of a mile away from 255, and it is very loud.

And that close-by homes that's where that tire ended up in the yard.

Foliage and trees won't be a mitigation at all for this uh roadway.

And uh very important uh that we we do something because we have elderly people too that live in our community spending their last days in the community.

So if you, the council, can come out and do these surveys, that would be well appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I believe that is the last person to comment tonight.

Thank you for those who made the time to come here and advocate for your communities.

Uh, we now will hear from council from the mayor and council members, Mayor Battle.

No comment.

Bless your heart.

Uh council members, I will hear first from David Little.

Mr.

Little.

I will give my time back to the meeting.

Mr.

Meredith.

Thank you.

Um wanted to bring actually to your attention, Madam President.

Um, I've been reached out to by um the Human Relations Commission twice now on a particular issue that they say you're aware of, you and Mr.

Little, concerning a citizen who is perhaps being harassed by someone impersonating a secret service agent, and they have not heard back from either of you in terms of what's going on.

So if you could utilize your position and get back with Mr.

Moore there at the Human Relations Commission, I know they would be very happy to hear from you.

Um also wanted to thank the good folks over there at Hemsey who provided a very in-depth tour for me earlier this week.

Um it was fascinating to see the equipment that they have and that they utilize to save our lives when we are in need of emergency medical services.

Um, we also had a great discussion of uh availability of ambulances uh in the future and where the weak points are given the expansion of the Huntsville Hospital Medical System and how it affects uh particularly the folks out west.

So I want to thank them for all of what they communicated, and it's very uh enlightening and reassuring to know that um the West isn't forgotten when it comes to ambulance service.

Um also want to thank the good folks out at the Limestone County Economic Development Association for their kind invitation to their annual meeting.

Um it was a perfect opportunity for me to hear about some of the non-Huntsville related economic development going on within their county, but also a great opportunity to network and further expand on working relationships that I enjoy with Limestone County uh commission uh and the other elected officials, including some that I have not met from the city of Athens.

So it was very educational and a great opportunity for me to meet with electeds that I share a constituency with and also some of the service providers.

For instance, the Limestone County Water Authority and other folks that um operate out there, Athens Power.

If you're a city of Huntsville and you live in Limestone County, you get your power from Athens utilities.

So it was really good to uh further umitiate myself to the folks out there.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Ms.

Watkins.

Good evening, everyone.

I want to say congratulations to the 2026 graduates.

I had the pleasure of attending graduation.

And let me just tell you, it's just exciting to see the kids walk across and their parents clap.

And so congratulations, Hunts City Schools in Madison County as well.

This Tuesday at 5 30 at the Shirney Center, we will have a meeting with Huntsville Utilities.

They will come back with their impact study on the Tesla battery that's proposed to be installed off of Stringfield Road in District 1.

I'm inviting everyone out, come.

Mr.

Kelly has agreed to come with his staff, and uh I'm happy to have him as well as he will answer any questions that you have.

So any concerns you have about the battery installation, please come out.

Also on June 20th, District One in partnership with Parks and Rick, and I want to thank Parks and Rec for agreeing to be a part of this.

We're gonna present a basketball camp that's gonna have Huntsville's very own Trevor Lacey.

Trevor is well known in the city, has won several championships, played for Butler High, beat Johnson several times.

But he is a phenomenal individual, he's playing overseas, and he's gonna take a break from overseas to come back and have his basketball camp.

We are capping it off at 320 signees.

So the registration link is online, it's on the city website as well as if you go to District 1 Facebook page, uh ages 10 to 17.

It's free.

So and it'll be the first event at the John Hub Park.

Is that right, Mr.

Hamilton?

It'll be the first event.

So we're looking forward to having the kids out.

Also, I want to say a special thank you to Scott Irwin.

Scott answers my calls all the time, and I call him all the time.

But he's always pleasant.

He always answers my questions.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate even more, Scott, that you're getting ready to have a round table of discussions about homelessness coming up.

Thank you for addressing homelessness.

I really appreciate that.

I want to thank Brian Walker, Chris McNeese, Sarah, Sam, and Lily, and I want to thank Paul Gaddis as well.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Miss Watkins.

Mr.

Kling.

Madam President, I think just to save a little bit of time, let me take what uh Councilmember Watkin said about the department heads and just say ditto.

Uh, all those department heads have been real great working with me.

Nuts and bolts uh type of issues in the neighborhoods, and uh I think like other council members uh uh everybody's district is uh really benefiting by the great work that's taken place on the existing neighborhoods to spruce things up.

Uh did a little backtracking just to see uh since our last council meeting.

I have wandered around in different neighborhoods in the district calling in different things and covering neighborhoods, including College Hill, Bailey Patton Estates, uh West Launch, Ryanna Village, uh Low Mill, Merrimack, and uh College Hill, and uh a lot of great things have already been taken care of.

Uh there was an area that uh there was a back alley that was literally a jungle, and the adjacent property owner had problems over off of uh 10th Avenue.

Uh called it in to uh Brian Walker, and by that afternoon, that alleyway had been cleared up completely, and it was able to be used again.

So that type of thing, it's not glamorous, it's not exciting, but uh when you take care of what you do, uh that makes all of our neighborhoods look a little bit better, and now we're getting in that good time of the year where a lot of road resurfacing is really getting underway, and that is really having a positive impact on neighborhoods throughout the district as well as throughout the city.

Uh one of the fun things I got to do this past week was a name the cat uh sculpture judging and uh I had several entries that were submitted to me from the new sculpture that the Arts Council placed at Jim Merrick Park and came up with a winning entry.

Minnie Pearl was the winner.

Also, uh similar to what Councilmember Watkin said, uh I want to I had a chance to go to Huntsville High School's graduation last Friday, a very festive occasion.

Unfortunately, we did have a few seconds of uh some people who uh did not know how to conduct themselves properly at a high school graduation, a minor altercation broke out.

Uh the security was there very quickly to get things under control, and the graduation went on.

So uh that's something that uh I think we can be proud of to be able to uh let our kids have a chance to celebrate their graduation in the way that they want to.

Also uh participated with other council members at the microwave Dave uh celebration ceremony that was held at the Civic Center, and again, the presentations were made of the microwave Dave Dog Park as well as the uh naming of the uh Partial Street in honor of him.

A lot of lot of fun things.

A lot of happy people are out there, and what a great celebration for an outstanding citizen.

And that's all I have, Madam President.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Kling.

My comments tonight are going to be from information I've received from Huntsville Utilities regarding outages in South Huntsville, and I feel like this might be a good way to get it out to everybody.

On May 25th, residents in parts of South Huntsville experienced a power outage beginning at 3 a.m.

This outage was caused by a large tree that fell in the weatherly area, bringing down power lines, utility poles, and attached equipment.

Additionally, another outage in the Bailey Cove and Mountain Gap areas later in the morning was caused by power line becoming disconnected from an insulator.

There were several posts that suggested or claimed that Huntsville Utilities was diverting electricity away from residents in the affected area to Meta's data center during the outage.

This post is absolutely false.

Meta's data center in Huntsville, Alabama does not receive electricity from Huntsville Utilities.

It is served directly from the Tennessee Valley Authority TVA.

At no time was Huntsville Utilities diverting power away from customers anywhere in the service area.

That same day that I received that email, I also received a report from Huntsville Utilities on outages in the uh the Hillwood Heritage Estates area off of Mountain Gap.

And it was an analysis of what had caused those those utilities.

And I don't think this is unusual.

I think this is probably true in every neighborhood, but I found it interesting.

Six outages affect affected the area.

Four were caused by squirrels.

Two were caused by a possible transformer overload.

Three outages occurred at the same address.

The first was a squirrel, while the next two were transformer overload.

Um five blinks affected the area, four were involved in the Meadowbrook recloser operating, two were associated with squirrel outages, and two were unrelated to any outages.

One was related to a TVA issue.

So we we need to be uh we need to be careful about making assumptions about the outages.

Uh apparently squirrels and trees are our greatest hazard with those.

So just want everyone to be aware of that.

Um council members, it is 7 30, and we we have some business uh left to do.

I would suggest we take uh 10 minute break.

So we will come back at set.

It's now 7 34.

We will come back at 7 44.

Payment.

Is there a motion?

I move for authorization and approval of expenditures in the amount of $34 million.42 cents.

Second by the chair.

All in favor, please indicate.

We have a finance report.

Smith does have a Ms.

Smith, would you give us your mid-year budget report?

Yes, good evening, Penny Smith, Director of Finance.

Thank you for allowing me this evening to present the proposed changes to the current fiscal budget for the FY20 for FY26.

On the dias, you should have copies of the slides.

Changes and the managerial budget, which accompany accompanies that this evening.

So most council meetings, the current budget is tweaked a little bit, and to account for the movement between funds or new contractual obligations.

This is usually in the consolidated action under 20% under section 20.

This action tonight is presented in the same way under section under 20 item 20C.

So I will present the items that are contained, including the listing on the managerial budget, but the adoption of the changes are handled informally, like any other changes during the budget in the fiscal year.

So economic indicators, I'm first going to start with kind of a financial update and go through that, and then I'll get to actual the budget changes.

So we have headline inflation have moved up rapidly to about 3.8 annually in April, which is burned obviously by the energy cost increase.

After a disappointing fall, however, consumer spending has moved upward, which is reflected in the information that follows here as I talk about sales and use tax and other taxes.

So the Fed's open market committee kept the federal funds rate steady for the last couple of meetings, and uh just those concerns over the over inflation and uncertainty around all that is happening, has it's expected to continue that current pause in those rates, and so those rates affect us as we move forward both for borrowing and for investment earnings.

So sales and use tax, you these are very familiar charts as I move through this financial update, and um and this is sales and use tax collected by month.

It is the full 4.5% that we collect across the city, which supports four different funds, but the general fund, uh Huntsville City Schools, and both capital plans.

This I specifically say in the title to this that this is the percentage compared the percentages laid out here are percentage comparisons to FY26 versus FY25.

So FY25 is in the blue line, and if you'll note it goes a little bit south, though, so it was a little bit of a recent low watermark for us as we moved through that year.

And so, in addition to what is happening here, which year-to-date collections overall are at 3.29% ahead of the prior physical year, we are in a really good position, and 1.4% ahead of budget at 58% of the year elapsed.

But the next slide I am going to show here.

Whoops.

Let me go backwards, sorry.

The next slide, the same underlying data, but I took those comparisons and compared it to FY24.

So that I mean, yes, HY24.

So that is in yellow, so it's a little bit more of a higher watermark as opposed to what we did for 25, gives us a better comparison.

And the year to date numbers collected there are at 2.2.1% ahead of prior year collections, and and again, one point still 1.4% ahead of budget.

So we're dealing with the budgets tonight, but I wanted you to see those comparisons to understand kind of where where we land with some of the numbers that we come up with.

So this is just the data for the slides for the sales and use tax graphs.

Obviously, I don't expect you to consume all this data that's on the screen.

But if you'll note in the boxes over there to the right, that gives you month by month over and underage for for both of those years compared to FY25 and FY24.

And then, but tonight we're going to look at the budget.

And the 1.4% actually represents about four million dollars.

That sounds really large.

However, number one, it's spread across across the four funds, but it is we are only going to propose a small modest increase this evening, and I'm going to explain that a little further in.

There's some other things moving around these numbers that I want to be sure that we have encapsulated before we just start looking at that kind of larger number.

So we usually look at lodging taxes as well for our financial update, and that is true this evening.

So lodging taxes here, it is despite the recent growth in our sales and use tax, and it's reflected here in the lodging tax, we are actually behind by 2.3% of the prior year and 0.5% behind the budget at seven at seven months into the fiscal year.

We are not proposing any changes at this time to lodgings taxes.

We believe that this trend will continue, and therefore we will come out and be good against the budget for all of our different earmark sources of spending that we have against our lodging taxes.

So flipping sides, general fund expenditures through the month of April.

Overall departments are doing well at 55% of budget with an overall general fund at 56% of the budget.

So below budgets, we continue to monitor the personnel budgets.

You'll notice there that it is actually at 57%, which gets really close to that 58%.

So we're taking from some departments and kind of giving to some other departments.

So now we're going to turn to the proposed budget adjustments.

So you'll see this this graphic actually twice.

It'll be repeated later in the presentation.

Tonight proposal only covers the revisions in the general fund, other funds directly and other funds directly affected by the changes that are proposed here.

So whenever we make a movement in sales and use tax, it must scatter across all the funds.

If we make a movement in property taxes, it will also scatter across the funds.

So all other funds have been reviewed and are presently within budgets currently in effect.

So overall, the proposed changes, and I'm going to review these individually for the revenues net to zero, which will which is explained on the following slides.

And then the increases in expenditures are all covered by complementary decreases in other departments, with the exception of janitorial services.

These costs have continued to rise year over year, and that's that maintains for this year as well in both scope and price as the city strives to maintain our public facilities to the level of cleanliness that is expected.

So sales and use tax splits.

Again, this is a really busy slide, but I'm going to call your attention to the second from the far right column where those proposed revisions are used in it for the city across those four funds.

As I said earlier, the city is ahead in the current budget by 1.4%, and it represents about $4 million.

This is significant.

However, we are only proposing a small modest increase this evening.

As you saw in an earlier slide on the sales tax history, these taxes can fluctuate wildly.

We saw that in the fall, and we were kind of it was kind of a bleak movement as we went through there, but then we rose out the spring.

We are only proposing this modest increase tonight.

But these use taxes at 63% for all those funds across the way per collections.

So I'm hopeful that the trend continues and I'll be back here before year end showing you another another increase.

Talked about sales and use tax.

Now we're going to get to pilots.

I'm not going to delve into the intricacies of payments in lieu of taxes or pilot revenue, other than to say Huntsville Utilities, which is owned by the City of Huntsville as a governmental entity, is exempt from taxes and do not pay taxes back to the city.

Therefore, Huntsville Utilities appropriately pays pilots.

Water and gas pilots, which are not in this chart, are calculated based on agreements.

The electric and fiber system, which is shown to you here, are calculated based on a construct that is laid out in the TVA contract.

This evening we are looking at the electric and fiber system budget.

The budgets are presented to the city each year based on forecasting by Huntsville Utilities.

They have come back to us and represented to us that a tenant of the formula has changed, and therefore a reduction in the budget of a little over four million dollars is appropriate as shown in the far right column to the very bottom.

It is a large budget loss mid year.

And so that is, but given some of the other increases that we have around it, which I'll show you in a minute, we are able to consume that loss within our current budget.

However, city administration is currently reviewing this adjustment and the calculations with Huntsville Utilities, and should we need to propose corrections under this further review, we will we will come back to you in the future.

Property taxes.

Property taxes is a good news story due to the closures of TIFF two, four and six in this prior year.

Collected property taxes are above budgets by over $2.5 million for this for the 6.5 mills, which is also reflected in each of the other funds affected by property taxes, which includes Huntsville, Huntsville City School Systems, and for their capital projects, and then the city has also another 6.5 mills for their capital projects.

Property taxes were projected to increase by six percent, but with this adjustment has shifted to over 13% over the previous year.

The chart above shows a steady increase in property tax collections for the city.

And just remember it affects all of those funds.

So coming back to this chart, which I will end on, and um and look at that slide.

So with this with respect to the sales and use taxes there, the pilots reduction, the property tax increase, and then in parking, I just want to want to talk to that for just a minute.

We have seen an increase in our parking revenue.

The main tenant of this is for metered parking.

We have seen an increase and a rise in that with the um with the input of all of our automated meters.

Um evidently going from coin to an actual card has been an it has been a good increase for that parking revenue and the ability for people to easily pay for their parking.

So we that all nets to zero for our revenues and on our expenditure side with the janitorial services that will be funded from fund balance.

But as I mentioned earlier, the expenditure side usually comes in under budget, so I fully expect that that overage is will be covered in future.

Any questions?

Thank you, Ms.

Smith.

Council members, that was a lot to take in.

What questions do you have?

Mr.

Kling.

The um international situation with uh gasoline prices has certainly gotten a lot of attention.

How's that impacting uh our budgeting?

Because I think last last year at the beginning of the budget process, we weren't expecting anything like this to happen.

That is correct.

Um so the city the city has been reviewing that closely with departments, especially our departments that are heavy in their fleet use.

Um the city's a little bit insulated from from those um from those at from those ups and downs due to our wholesale contracts um that we have with certain certain customers, but we're not totally insulated.

So we continue to watch those numbers right now, they are able to be covered within the department.

Um the department uh different expenditure and line items that we already currently have within the budget, and so but we're watching it closely.

Okay.

Mr.

Meredith, I don't know exactly what the level of electric vehicles in our fleet are, but knowing we have some.

Is is now um a good time you think to start actually increasing the number of electric vehicles so that we can augment uh the gas increasing gas prices with the relative stability of uh electric charging of our vehicles, so there may be others here that want to speak to that a little bit more knowledgeable.

However, I know that we have considered strongly having electric vehicles, and there are we do have some in our fleet, but there is a an offset to both sides, um, both from the access to charging stations and then also from um from just the cost of the vehicle itself, it is usually more expensive than a gas vehicle.

We also have hybrid vehicles within our fleet as well.

So the other side to this is being sure that um fleet services has trained individuals um on all our on our electric vehicles that we would um that we would purchase in half.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay.

Questions?

There we go.

Oh, Mr.

Hamilton.

Yeah, we we've looked at some examples and kind of looking from opportunities where some of those might make sense.

But uh you know, probably the area where the biggest concentration and there's some federal grants that kind of help with the processes actually in our transit fleet, and so uh Ms.

Bryant and her staff actually doing some work to go and kind of look at some hybrid and and things.

So in fact, when the new transit center we we built, it was specifically was designed around the idea of is there a point in the future where we either go hybrid or all electric and how do we bring that additional infrastructure in?

So there would be a capital costlessly with it.

But I think transit is likely where you see probably the biggest impact in the next few years if if the technology continues to go the way the way that it's going.

So that's that's looking at hard.

In most cases, the type of fleet that we have, there's not really good electric vehicle you know examples to use those kinds of things you know the construction equipment and some of the larger trucks and things like that.

And some there still remain range issues with battery life things like that.

So there's you know it's certainly something we'll look at um as Ms.

Smith said obviously if you make that decision there's a significant upfront capital cost associated with it.

And so obviously then you hope there's some savings and inefficiencies on the back end of that but uh you just got to consider that that trade off of upfront cost versus you know future savings but unfortunately right now there's a lot of our fleet there's not really good examples out there of ways that we could do that but it's something we'll continue to monitor and obviously you know in the all kinds of things out there as technology balls like to watch and when it's uh when it's matured enough to to make it make sense for what we do that we jump into it.

So thank you Mr Hamilton.

I got some oh Mr Little Well the uh Ms.

Smith thank you uh for that presentation will the pilot uh information we're gonna be discussing that again down the road or or can we unpack a little bit here because yeah it sounded like somebody did some math problems incorrectly and now we're paying the Piper but I'm sure it's probably not that simple.

So the construct is contained within the TVA contract and um and it is um complicated and um and so there are some tenants um surrounding that that we are discussing um with Huntsville utilities at the time and um and there are some some we have some people looking into that that contract is very old and we want to make sure that um that we're following um what happens and that the the proposed budget that turns that turns down is the appropriate amount um that we would have to come back with that hospital utilities would pay to us um given what is in the contract and so we're still reviewing that I am not uh I'm not um I'm not prepared this evening to come back and talk to that in depth um and and indeed things are gone going but I needed to go ahead and get this um the mid-year budget and this proposal in the budget so that we could prepare for it should that um should that be the final um the final amount that we come to for the budget.

Okay.

Yeah I was my only concern is that some they come back to and say we've been overpaying y'all for the last 10 years.

You know that's kind of what it sounded like to me I might be misunderstanding but it sounds like we're you still got some more dig in your team our legals all probably neck deep in it and we'll talk about it some more down the road correctly okay quite cool.

Thank you.

Ms.

Watkins did you have a comment?

Yes if you don't mind can you tell me do you have any departments that's over budget or under budget right now at mid-year?

We have um we have some departments that are over budget but they are over budget for the reason that I stated in here um because due to personnel and due to retiree payouts um so at the at the when retirees pay out they can they can take with them half of their sick leave um they get paid out and then all of their annual leave obviously that they have earned um and unused and so um so sometimes those payouts depending on the length of service um and the um and the grade that that those employees are at when they leave service is it can be rather large and sometimes those are and obviously those can't always be planned and are unexpected.

So um so yes but we will with the with the adjustments that are coming from from some budgets into others um we will we will even that out it is all basically due to um retiree.

So with the anticipation of age and years of service do you sometimes factor that into the budget, anticipating that they might possibly retire?

Yes.

So for really um high officials, a department head or or a deputy type things, we a lot of times can understand that they are fixing to retire within the next year.

And we're trying to do have a little bit more active it activity act, have a little bit more active analysis of of what that might be.

So we've been looking back at what are some of our payouts over the past five years and seeing if we can place in the budget somewhere, you know, a an amount that's kind of in reserve for anything that's happening.

Obviously, um it is inappropriate and and illegal for me to go to somebody in demand for them to know, but um, but outside of that, sometimes we have a heads up.

Yeah, definitely don't expect you to go ask anybody, are you retired?

Um did you have any unplanned expenditures that happen mid-year?

That you just did not expect.

Um, I give you an example, fire truck broke down and you couldn't get it.

It was very expensive to get repaired, and it wasn't factored into the budget.

Do you have anything like that that happened?

Not any large expenditures other than this um general than this janitorial contract that I'm bringing before you this evening.

Um other than that, I cannot think of any large expenditures that were that were unexpected or that we could not fit into the budget in one way or another.

Um, obviously things like like we had a we had a water leak last weekend at um at animal services, and so what kind of damage does that do?

But a lot of that is consumed within a facilities budget that is also very large that also has um has been budgeted for different unexpected events.

Is the building still under uh warranty?

This building.

Oh, various warranties, yes.

And I'm specifically asking because of the elevators, you know, had a couple of incidents with them and just want to know is it factored in or is it covered?

How is how is that being handled?

So typically, so this building is not under warranty, though there may be one or two some certain systems because really just for all of our construction project, we will include a one-year warranty, but then there are times where if a system has specific kinds of issues, we will then get an extended warranty on it.

So that that kind of varies by a building system and what may happen uh in this case our uh elevators, we have them under a service contract, but uh my understanding is we're beyond the the warranty and now it's just under that service contract.

Okay, thank you for that.

And I have one last question, Ms.

Smith.

Um, based on trends, do you anticipate any challenges for next year's budget?

Specifically when you're looking at the pilot tax being short, do you anticipate any challenges in the upcoming budget year?

Um so outside of just general forecasting and um and understanding where we are as we move throughout the budget year, we will see where revenue kind of stands.

The pilot will figure into that.

This obviously was unexpected mid-year, but um, but as we go through the year, once that gets settled, we will start planning that into our forecast moving forward, whatever that is.

I did say I had one last question, but since you said that, do you anticipate this pilot issue being resolved prior to the new budget coming?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

I share the concern that's been expressed about the the shortfall on the pilot's money, and I'm glad to know that you are working through that and hopefully we'll have that resolved before we move into the budget.

I'm also glad that we had the increase in property tax and sales tax to offset it, but we still had to go into reserves for that half million dollars for janitorial services, and so what was that about?

I might have missed that.

So the janitorial services, sorry, making sure that no one pops up behind me.

Um the janitorial services was just an unexpected increase in the contract, as with everybody, um, labor cost and um and then just service cost has made those contracts more competitive.

Um, and as we move through the bid contract, we just saw those those costs um escalate and um and the the amounts were higher in general overall.

Okay, thank you.

Uh council members, anybody else have any other questions?

Um thank you very much for your report.

We appreciate your good work, and you have a great team behind you that I know has been helpful, and so we thank them as well.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Um we will move on then to 14B.

14B is an ordinance approving appropriations, goods, or services for District Three Council improvement funds.

Chair makes the motion.

Second, second by Mr.

Little.

So this is an appropriation that I am making.

This was after a meeting with traffic engineering to talk about what we could do in terms of signage, traffic calming, whatever.

I as most of you have received.

I have received lots and lots of complaints and expressions of concern about speeding.

And so after talking with traffic engineering, I decided we would just try a little experiment, and I will do it on your behalf.

You all can see how it works.

And we are going to use council improvement funds to purchase two radar speed back feedback signs that will be moved throughout the area on the streets that we have the most complaints about.

And um so I I will let you all know how that works out, and I would be grateful for your support.

I have a question.

Um is it the type that if you are in excess of the speed limit, it flashes blue?

Yes, and and the good thing also about these, and this is these are different from the ones that say HPD has the trailers, these collect data, so you can get data on how fast people, what the volume is and how fast people are going on that particular road.

Time of day is what the other good thing is because I asked about putting you can't we just have permanent installations, and they said after a while people just get used to seeing them, and so actually moving them around tends to be more effective.

So we will see how this works.

So any other questions?

All in favor, please indicate.

Motion carries.

Thank you all for your support on that.

Uh we have no board appointments to be voted on, and we have no board appointment nominations.

Are there any nominations from the floor?

We have hearing none, we'll move on.

We have no hunts for utility items.

We have no legal department item transactions.

That brings us to 19 unfinished business items for action.

19A is an ordinance concerning a rights of way use agreement between Spectrum Southeast LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company, and the City of Huntsville, Alabama.

Is there a motion to approve?

So, motion from Mr.

Little, second from Mr.

Meredith.

Do we have any questions from council members regarding this?

All in favor, please indicate.

This brings us to new business items for consideration or action.

These items will be approved in one motion unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion.

The reading of each item will be waived unless a council member requests otherwise.

Council members, what items would you wish to hold for separate consideration?

G as in good.

G?

Mr.

Meredith?

I'd like to hold uh C and N, as in November.

November.

Yeah, November 2.

Thank you, sir.

Ms.

Meredith, or Ms.

Meredith, Ms.

Watkins.

Yes, I'd like to hold A.

F.

Sorry.

A, F, H.

I M T U.

I N as in November.

M M L S and Mary, T S and T, U.

S.

and Unicorn.

Okay, let's see if we've got all these.

A, C, F, G, H, I, M, N, T, U.

Is that correct?

Okay, make a note of all these.

Okay.

Then let's see the chair moves for consolidation and pro approval of item 20B.

20 D and E.

20J through L, 20 O through S, 20 V through Double A.

Second.

Second from Mr.

Meredith.

All in favor, please indicate.

I oppose motions uh carries and we will move on with the items held for separate consideration.

20A is a resolution authorizing travel expenses.

Is there a motion?

To approve.

Second.

Motion from Mr.

Little, second from Mr.

Kling.

Is there a question regarding this?

Ms.

Watkins.

Yes, Ms.

Smith.

I would like to possibly schedule time with you before we can sit down and I can get a more detailed accounting of the travel.

I notice every council meeting, the travel is kind of a huge amount.

So I really want to know what's going on with travel, and you know, just getting an amount and not knowing what's going on.

It is like I don't understand, and I need a better understanding.

Okay.

Yes.

That would be fine.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please indicate.

I opposed.

Motion carries.

20 C is an ordinance amending budget ordinance number 25-744 by changing appropriate funding for various departments and funds.

There are motion to approve.

Motion from Mr.

Second from Mr.

Meredith.

Anyone have questions or discussion?

This is the item that Ms.

Smith presented earlier.

My question is, do I need to sign off on a managerial?

That would be really nice.

Can you tell me why?

Why is this contract being brought up today?

Why is the uh the increase?

Why is it increase?

The budget?

No, I'm I'm looking at the one about the general services department for the janitorial services.

Oh, the generatorial services, if I mean it it's does it this doesn't approve the contract or anything.

This is just for an increase in the budget so that so that we can be sure that we have covered um uh the proposed increase in the janitorial services, what we're gonna have to pay.

So we might not have to use all of this is just to increase to cover.

That is correct.

Um, but however, we we feel that the janitorial increases is warranted for this department.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

All in favor, please indicate motion carries.

Thank you.

20 F.

20 F is a resolution for TIF9 certification in accordance with Alabama Code 11-99-4.

Chair moves for approval, second, second by Mr.

Meredith, Mr.

Davis.

Thank you, madam president.

Uh good evening, Councilmember Shane Davis, Director of Urban Economic Development.

So there has been, I think, some public confusion about this item tonight.

So you are not approving and creating TIFF 9 district tonight.

So per Alabama law, there's a series of processes you must go through, so does Madison County.

Uh you did that the last council meeting, uh, really two council meetings ago.

You asked the administration, the mayor to bring you a project plan.

Last meeting we did that.

Uh since that time we have sent to both council city schools, mask county commission, uh, mass county commission is the other voting authority to create a TIFF for Alabama law.

But you, as the um creator of the TIFF and would execute the projects within that project plan before you or Madison County votes on it, you must certify that the plan hasn't changed since it was presented publicly.

So that would be the the boundary of the TIFF district that was shown, hasn't changed since the last presentation, and the list of projects.

So tonight you're simply certifying that is it it is in its final form.

The next city council meeting, we will publicly go back through that, show that to you and the public before you vote on it.

Questions or comments?

Thank you, Ms.

Davis.

I wanted you to explain that so the postman would think it was something new.

That's right.

Or it's something different.

Thank you.

So final approval will be granted on um on June 11th at the council meeting.

We also will um talk extensively about this about TIFFs at the joint meeting with uh with the school board on Monday.

If anybody wants to learn more about that, uh, there was a question raised.

I sent you the email and a question was asked tonight about the funding model.

Can you just review review that please?

Yes.

So next Thursday I'll go through that, but in preparing any TIFF district, this will actually be the city's tenth.

We go through what we call a projection modeling.

It's not scientifically exact.

We can't predict the future and what private investment will bring.

But what we do is we have a list of projects, then we work with the Mass County tax assessor to get the base tax proceeds that are that the district is a should it be created is producing.

That tax base continues to go to the tax recipients.

It doesn't go into the TIFF district.

The increment or the increase that would occur over time with new investments, would go into the district to pay bonds, or if we do a project with cash within the tax system, we'd use those tax proceeds to just pay cash.

Kind of a pay as you go model.

So what we do is we project a couple of different things.

So we know the tax base.

We know over time just with inflation and different values increasing over time.

Say a piece of property five years from now, tax assessor says it's worth three percent more than it was when the TIFF was created.

That new increment increase of that existing tax base would go into the district, and then you've got new investments.

So think of front row, for instance, in those.

So we know some of those that are active, and we know what that permitted value is.

So we know what that value will go on to the tax rolls.

So we can calculate that tax income that would come into the district, and then we know of areas that uh are proposed.

Should these improvements make what it would stimulate based on our tax history of projects and what they've been produced.

So we do that, we do some forecasting.

And we'll we can go into that detail.

Ms.

Smith and I have worked on that for months just to try to figure out, you know, what we typically do in all TIFFs, is the capital plan will have to what I call seed the TIFF.

So you'll go borrow money and we'll we'll start these projects.

Well, in the 2014 capital plan, typically two or three years, we'll program to fund that that early debt service to allow that private investment to come online and start paying taxes in Alabama.

He pay one year in the rear.

So if you complete something in 2025, you don't pay tax till October 26th.

And there, so we have to program all that.

So we've modeled that.

We feel very confident in that model in the projects we've presented you.

That's what you asked the mayor to do about a month ago, is present you a plan.

So we had to go do a lot of that analysis to come up with something we could present to you that we were confident that the district would be able to afford.

And it is your belief that the incremental growth that's going to result in this district will be sufficient to pay back the debt on the VBC and the other projects.

We do.

Actually, our model shows it would pay off early.

Pay off early, and early would be in the next.

You know, it's not a crystal ball, but we're very conservative.

So, you know, we don't want to say 10 years and it goes 15.

Uh right now our conservative model is somewhere 15 or 16 years under the statute, it can go as long as 30, so half time.

And and you have been very successful with past your modeling on past TIFFs.

We're very conservative on it, yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

We don't want to give bad news.

Question from Mr.

Merrick.

Going back a little bit.

Um you said the next time we would be um dealing with the TIFF would be um on the 11th.

Yes, sir.

I presume that means that the county will have already voted on the issue.

Yes, so it in all TIFFs, whether they're in Limestone County, we've done two.

Uh, this will be our eighth in Madison County since 2000, so almost 26 years uh in doing TIFF districts here, they've all been successful.

We always let the county vote first uh because you can't vote and then commit yourself or our taxpayers to a debt service of the projects without both bodies voting affirmative.

So we we let the county vote first, whether it's in Madison County or Limestone County, and then the very next meeting, this body would take it up.

That would be the last that we have to vote on this.

Yes, sir.

You're correct.

Once you did that, we would make file to the tax assessor that both bodies have approved the TIFF district, it has been created, and then we would set forth executing the plan.

And the clock starts, I believe, the following Monday.

It would, yes, sir.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

And we believe that at the June 3rd commission meeting is one day to our TIFF calendar would request that Mass County Commission take it up then.

Certainly, if they decided to postpone, we would shift everybody to the very next meeting.

And we have until the end of June to do that, based on our our timeline.

That's right.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Mr.

Cling, did you have a question?

Well, just to be redundant, but just to double check.

Every other tip that we've had in the past, they've all been paid off and paid off a little bit early.

Is that correct?

We have.

We've never had uh a TIFF district go the full term.

They've went as short as six years, it's been the quickest.

Uh that was TIFF, well, two, really.

Um I think the very first TIFF we did, we were learning.

It was a very small TIFF.

It was U.S.

Highway 72 West, just west of Research Park Boulevard.

We widened uh from Research Park Boulevard to Providence, Maine.

It brought in the target center and all that retail and all that development you see there.

Um I believe that TIFF was only about three million dollars, and it only lasted three, maybe three and a half, four years.

I'm going for memory.

Uh, but the latest TIFF was TIFF six, it helped build Green Bar Parkway, do some improvements to exit three, extend some utilities.

Today we've we've put um seen private investment exceed six billion dollars and sixteen thousand jobs at that exit.

Uh that TIF paid off in six years.

Any other questions?

All in favor, please indicate I any posed.

Motion carries.

Thank you, Mr.

Davis.

Thank you, Councilman.

20 G is a resolution urging action on roadway noise impacting Sherwood Park.

Mr.

Kling, I bet you'd like to make the motion on that.

Uh move to approve.

The second for Mr.

Meredith.

We've heard a lot about this tonight, Mr.

Davis.

Madam President, I know we've been around on this and we've heard our discussion.

Very basically what this does is it uh it calls upon the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which has a uh very close working relationship with the Alabama Department of Transportation, and basically we are asking the MPO to contact the Alabama Department of Transportation on behalf of the concerns we've heard from Sherwood Park and Steeple Chase residents, ask them to look at the situation, noise, uh flying debris, whatever.

But uh I think uh Mr.

Davis, you got an earful of what you heard from the public, and you know you can communicate that to the MPO.

And again, we have a very positive relationship with the Alabama Department of Transportation, and we certainly appreciate them uh you know taking a look at this whole situation and see what we can work out.

Yeah, uh Shane Davis Director Urban Economic as uh Councilman Clean is as well stated.

Uh so the last noise study.

Uh so that's State Route 255.

So it is state right away, it's not a local road.

So we don't have jurisdiction to be able to make any improvements there.

Um if we we could we would uh but the last noise study was in 2017, the preparation of restoral roads when the state widened research park boulevard uh from essentially I-565 to just north of University Drive.

So it's been a decade almost.

Uh so this resolution that Councilman Cling is sponsoring uh both um as techno coordinating uh manager of the MPO will will request a letter to Montgomery to complete a noise study.

Part of that letter will include um should it warrant and they approve, we're willing to use some of our local MPO funds to match to try to entice and to accelerate some type of resolution along that corridor.

Thank you.

You're welcome, sir.

Any other comments or questions on this?

All in favor, please indicate.

Thank you, Councilman.

Mr.

Kling, as always, you're a great advocate for your folks.

Twenty H is a resolution authorizing the mayor to submit the 2026 annual action plan to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development for Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnerships Program.

Is there a motion?

Move to approve.

Motion for the second.

Mr.

Cling, second from Ms.

Watkins.

Mr.

Irwin.

Yeah, Scott Irwin Community Development Department.

So council members, uh every year we do an action plan to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It's a one-year plan that identifies how we'll use our allocated funding for the our grant year.

So we're expecting in federal resources $2,104,176 to be allocated to us through a formula grant through the CDBG program and the home program.

So we will uh we do it through a process that started in November that's concluded now with a recommendation.

We would type projects we'll fund.

And so we're upon your record of approval tonight, we submit this to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development is our plan for the next year.

And you'll also see additional contracts as we implement each one of those projects throughout the year.

Thank you.

Are there questions from Mr.

Irwin?

No, I just want you to get up to explain it so the listening audience would understand what we're doing.

You do a lot of hard work with this program, it's benefited a lot of families, and we appreciate your hard work.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

All in favor, please indicate any proposed.

Motion carries.

Is a resolution authorizing the mayor to entering a statement of work for renewal of the agreement between the city of Huntsville and Warren Diversified LLC.

Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Motion from Ms.

Watkins.

Second from Mr.

Little.

Any discussion on this?

Um if you could just tell us what this uh item is, please.

Uh Councilmember's John Hamilton City Administrator.

This this item is uh, you know, the city administers uh the EMA on behalf of the whole county.

Uh in this case, they're bringing forward a contract that is a renewal and it does the software maintenance for all their A V systems.

So if you've obviously y'all are all familiar with their operations centered a significant amount of audiovisual equipment necessary for what they do in response to emergencies and things contract uh helps the software maintenance things on all those A V systems.

So it's just basic this is just basically the software system exactly okay.

Thank you, Ms.

Tam.

Any other comments?

All in favor, please indicate aye.

Any opposed motion carries?

20 M.

Is a resolution authorizing mayor to enter into a standard agreement between the city of Huntsville and Wis Janey Elstner Associates, Inc.

for the Garage M.

So move.

Motion from Ms.

Watkins, second from the chair.

Um, is there a discussion about this?

Could you please explain what this item is?

Yes, ma'am.

Uh Chris O'Neill, the general um manager of General Services Projects Division.

Uh yes, this is an engineering design contract with Wis Janey and Elster uh to uh design the repairs uh necessary at uh garage and parking structure.

It includes um uh design repairs for concrete spalls, precast uh panel connections, corrosion to steel uh framing members choice and traffic coatings.

Uh contract amounts of 135,000 dollars.

Where's this garage hit?

It's the the one that's the BBC garage.

The BBC.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Yeah.

Are you gonna be fixing the elevators as part of this?

That is the biggest problem in that rise.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

Oh, yes, ma'am.

You thank you.

Thank you.

All in favor, please indicate motion carries.

20 N is a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute change order number two to the contract between the city of Huntsville and Arco Murray for construction services for the Huntsville Ice Plaque complex expansion.

Is there a motion to approve?

Motion from Mr.

Little, second from the chair.

Uh is there any discussion?

Yeah, I Mr.

Meredith.

I don't like the pizza kitchen thing, but there's no sense in offering up an amendment that's not gonna pass, so I'm just wanted to hold it so I could.

Well, you'll find out in a second.

Okay.

Could we uh have a description of the pizza kitchen and what that's all about?

Council members, if I could let me kind of explain what's uh what's going on there.

Um, so first off, this change orders within uh within the budgeted contingency funds that we have on the project.

Uh but obviously that that kind of change in scope looks unusual, but I think it's a good example, and particularly as you know, we're talking about budgets, and we're gonna have a lot more discussion about budget coming up and how a number of our entities that are operated outside of city departments uh need our assistance in terms of operating budget.

What you'll notice when you go through that process is the iceplex is not on that list.

Uh the iceplex has never needed a subsidy uh to help balance its operating budget.

We obviously invest in the capital.

They also do some fundraising and assists with that.

Uh, but their operating budget, they operate 100% off their earned revenues.

One of the things uh that this project does obviously it significantly expands their their capacity.

Part of that is an arena that we also expect to contribute significantly to tourism.

But we have in place here a very good board, uh, and obviously I think the mayor's got one or two appointments, but the majority of the folks there are uh are appointed by by the city council, and we challenge them continuously, like we do all the boards of finding ways to continue to earn their revenues and and uh fund their operations off of earned revenues to the extent possible.

One of the things that they've done and why you see this as a change order instead of in the original scope is uh since this uh project uh got completed in terms of design and got under construction, they've done a lot of work with looking at their food service operations.

We've challenged them to do that, both internal to the IcePlex, but we also challenged them to look at how they could use their food service capacity to improve food service to other areas of John Hunt Park.

So they're specifically looking at how they can start satelliting uh food service into the Spencer Sports Complex and some other parts uh of John Hunt Park that contributes to that tourism and things.

Uh they've actually uh have brought on a new food service manager in one of the areas where they have found significant demand and they've they've experimented with the equipment they have on hand to how they can deliver pizza is one of the food service items that's uh done very, very well.

But they really need new equipment and a kitchen design properly for it to do the volume that that will occur inside that arena.

So that's why you see one of the previously designed and in the original scope concession stand areas that we have recommended they change to to increase that capacity.

So this significantly improves their capacity for food service inside the venue, but also uh allows them to partner with us and you know continue to earn those revenues.

That's what this is about.

Obviously, it's it's a little bit unusual.

This type of changeover comes to, so I think the I think the questions and the scrutiny is absolutely appropriate.

But this is an example where one of one of you know our city venues that we've uh chosen to operate with a board uh who hires the employees and operates that that venue on our behalf is actually doing a very, very good job with earned revenues, and this is just another way to continue to expand on that.

So really I would argue that you're investing in success there.

Uh sometimes we have to invest in things that aren't going well to try and improve them, and this is a case where you're actually investing in success uh, and we anticipate their financial success to continue and only to get better as we finish out this project.

So that's that's where that is.

Happy to take on any other questions.

Thank you for that explanation.

Questions from Mr.

Hamilton or other discussion.

All in favor, please indicate any opposed?

Mr.

Let the record show.

Mr.

Meredith has voted in the negative, and the resolution is approved.

20.

Is a resolution authorizing the mayor to entry into agreement between the city of Consul and Lambert contract for the City of Huntsville Streets, concrete and ADA upgrades, fiscal year 2026 phase two.

Is there a motion for Mr.

Lil Second from the chair?

Um Mr.

Hamilton.

Yes, Council members, the the item before you is specifically for what I'll refer to as the the concrete surrounding the streets that we're gonna repave.

We'll we'll take on the repaving specifically at the next item.

But T and U obviously go together, and y'all have seen that before.

I would tell you, just as a quick aside, uh, been working with uh with legal and looking.

I think in the future we'll be able to bring these to you together under a single item, but uh but for tonight they're still separate separate items on your agenda.

So as we uh each time we do a phase of our repaving program, in this case it's 62 streets.

Uh we uh the way in which we are working to achieve ADA compliance on all of our streets is we've linked it, linked that program to our repaving.

So every time we repave a street, we are obligated to go in and fix all the surrounding concrete, which equals the pedestrian infrastructure, those kinds of things.

We also look at drainage systems.

Sometimes there are inlets and stuff that need to be rebuilt or whatever it may be.

So you're looking at all the things associated with the street, you know, not just the asphalt for the cars, but also the curbs and the drainage systems as well as uh as well as the sidewalk, ADA ramps, those kinds of things.

So this contract is specifically uh to fix all the surrounding concrete on streets that we're gonna repave with your approval.

Uh so that's what this first contract is.

Great questions from Mr.

Hamilton.

Ms.

Hamilton, um, can you give some examples of where we didn't have ADA compliant um curbs or you know how bikes can ride and you you got to jump a curb or if it's there in a wheelchair?

Absolutely.

Um so there are there are a lot of the neighborhoods that are older, the the intersection in the neighborhood where I live, uh, the there is no ADA ramp whatsoever.

Uh and so obviously when we when it's time to repave that street, we're gonna come in and put in all the ADA ramps.

Uh whether whether anybody's asked for them or not, that will happen automatically.

Let me come back to also in a minute where where we may find a specific issue where a citizen needs us to do something because we will do stuff outside of that program, but for this specifically, whether anybody's asked for it or not, we're going to bring them all to compliance.

So we have a lot of older neighborhoods where there is no ADA ramp at all, and so you're installing all new.

The other thing that has occurred is in some cases since neighborhoods were built out, some of the standards have changed.

And so while they were compliant at the time they were built, they're no longer compliant, and so we fix those situations as well.

Uh so some of the the width of sidewalks, uh, the the allowable side slopes, all those kinds of things.

Some of those standards have changed over the years, and so everything we do is in accordance with the new standards.

So in some cases we've got to do a significant rebuild of something that was previously compliant but just fell out of compliance with the change in the law.

We do also this is specifically our repaving program really gets executed in two ways.

Primarily when you see these, and this was uh is phase two for this fiscal year.

We typically will do three, sometimes four phases, and that's where we've gone out, evaluated of specific all the streets, identified a specific set, in this case 62 streets that need to be repaved and do all of those uh do all those repairs.

We also have a periodic contract that public works has so that when something comes up where there's a specific problem in a street, we don't have to wait till the next phase, they can send them out and just do that one street, or if we have a citizen, maybe somebody moves in uh who's who's wheelchair bound and it's not ADA compliant around their neighborhood, and so we'll identify that work with them and go and fix that kind of out of cycle in order to accommodate that.

Uh and there's other things like that where uh where we may come in where there's a specific concern uh for a citizen.

So that can happen as well, but the primary way in which we're getting our entire city up to ADA compliance is through repaving.

So every single year, however many hundreds of streets get repaved, they will all be brought up to to current standards.

Um I want to say first um thank you, and especially Chris McNeese and um his department, because I noticed this throughout the city, and I get a lot of phone calls.

People are complaining because they're like, you know, you got the roads tore up, we can't get through.

And one of the things I try to explain to them is we're trying to bring it up to compliance.

We're trying to get, you know, it handicapped accessible at the same time.

But my last question I have for you, if you would just explain, I understand, but some of the residents don't.

They think that you are supposed to strike the residential roads.

And one of the things I asked Chris, because I didn't recall any roads in my community having stripes, and Chris said it does something that you don't do.

Can you explain it please for people who are listening?

And I'll tell you that's something that really you know, so while public works and under Chris McNeese's leadership, they execute the repaving, they also do that in in conjunction with other departments.

And so all of those striping and signage and those kinds of standards are really overseen by the traffic engineering department.

So one of the things that will happen, uh, because sometimes we may, as part of a repaving, actually reconfigure a road, change the number of lanes or or whatever it may be.

Traffic engineering is who will really kind of lead the design of that and bring a new striping plan.

And that's it, but where they have stripes versus streets with no stripes is uh largely based on the how it's classified.

So a residential street below a certain speed limit is not gonna have center stripes and things.

When you start getting up to higher speed limits or higher traffic counts, and they classify the the road differently, then that's what it will call for those.

And those are all mostly established by federal standards that traffic engineering uh understands and and enforces those things.

Thank you so much.

Are there any other questions specific to the concrete and ADA upgrades?

Yes.

I'm all for the concrete ADA upgrade.

No problem with that.

Is there a way somehow we can coordinate better and shorten the delay time that goes from when all the concrete work is done?

You're having to wait for a long period of time until the asphalt comes.

And they've been waiting a long time over in the Mayfair neighborhood.

Concrete work is done, and they're still waiting for the asphalt.

Is there some sort of a list of way that can be coordinated a little bit faster?

Yeah, and we'll work on that.

It is obviously you got two different companies and they've got to follow each other, and so uh, you know, sometimes there's mobilization challenges or whatever, sometimes weather could impact it as well.

But I'll talk to staff about that and see what we can do to kind of force a faster company.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

All in favor, please indicate.

I oppose the motion carries, and then we will end with 20U res uh resolution authorizing Mayor Dandrew Agreement between the City of Huntsville and Rogers Group for the City of Huntsville streets resurfacing.

Uh chair makes the motion.

So second for Mr.

Little.

Um so this is the resurfacing contract phase two.

And this is this is the asphalt for those same streets that were associated with the con the concrete contract you just approved.

So how many phases are there?

Well, it kind of varies, you know, typically we'll do three per year, sometimes four, uh, kind of depending on uh how those things play out.

So uh any comment comments anybody?

All right, all in favor, please indicate any posed motion carries.

That concludes 20.

We will have item 21.

These items were for introduction.

Thank you to everybody who helped us get through that.

Um these items in 21 are introduction only, they will be considered at the June 11th meeting.

21A is an introduction of an ordinance amending chapter 15, Article 3, Division 5, Section 15 of the Code of Ordinances for the City of Huntsville regarding license fees.

21B is introduction of an ordinance annexing 24.67 acres of land lying on the north side of University Drive east of Providence, Maine.

21C is the introduction of an ordinance annexing 1.98 acres of land lying on the north side of Capshaw Road, west of Well Triana Highway.

20 D, 21D is introduction of an ordinance to declare certain property surplus and no longer needed for municipal use.

Again, those items will be uh considered by the council at the June 11th meeting.

This now brings us to the second roster public comments.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on matters relating to city business, whether or not such items are on the meeting agenda.

Uh speakers uh have signed up previously, and when called, please approach the microphone, state your name, home address, and city of residence.

I will also call the person who will be coming after, so please get ready to come up.

Each speaker may address the council for three minutes.

Speakers shall refrain from entering into dialogue with council members or city staff and from making comments regarding the good name and character of any individual.

So that's not it.

The first speaker is Timothy Jones.

Timothy Jones will be followed by Nick Frivold.

Good evening, everybody.

Um, my name is Timothy Jones.

Um 209 in the tree square in Huntsville.

Thank you.

Um I'm the owner of the North Alabama Ward dogs.

If you didn't know we had a sub-approbe basketball team, uh we're going into our seventh season.

Um over the last six years, we we have um we had over 10 players that went overseas and got other professional opportunities.

Um, we always say we boarded basketball, so um so our biggest thing right now we have facility issues trying to we will try to make a move to Huntsville.

We've been playing out of Madison, and um we've been having you know trying to work with the Huntsville City Schools and the cottages, and right now we need need a home.

So um, and then also we have a uh uh the and one mixed state street ball tour um team is trying to come to Huntsville, they want to partner up with the North Alabama Wardogs and bring their um bring their entertainment basketball styles to Huntsville, and we need a location for the event.

So I'm looking for support, see what how Huntsville can help support that event and also for our season our seasons, the North Alabama Wardall season begins in October.

So um, so John I said we're going into our seventh season.

I'm looking for the support, and um thank you for my time.

Thank you, sir.

The next person uh to speak will be Nick Freud.

Mr.

Freewald will be followed by Walter Walker.

Uh I am Nick Freebold, I live in district four of Huntsville.

Uh there's a common misconception that immigrants are either illegal or illegal.

As someone who has personally navigated the immigration system, I can promise you it is not that simple.

Before I married my wife, she was living in Malaysia.

We went through the K-1 visa process to bring her and her daughter to America when she arrived.

We got married within 90 days as required by the K-1 visa.

She came here illegally, and we found uh we followed the rules.

Uh but the moment we signed the marriage document, the her K-1 visa expired.

The K-1 visa is only valid until the day we get married.

After marriage, we have to immediately apply for permanent residence, also known as Green Card.

But green cards are not processed quickly.

For us, it took 10 months.

During those 10 months, my wife and stepdaughter did not have legal status.

They were not here illegally, but they had no legal protections either.

They were under a legal gray area of having authorized stay while their green cards processed.

What this meant was that they were allowed to stay here until the moment they're told to leave.

What this meant was that absolutely any interaction with ICE or police agencies working with ICE could result in my wife and stepdaughter being forcibly separated from me.

They would be deported and sent to a country where our marriage is illegal.

I want to emphasize that we followed every step as designed by U.S.

immigration uh system.

Uh but my family could have still been grabbed off the streets by ICE agents at uh any time for any reason, even without committing any crimes.

It's not just hardened criminals at risk of being taken by ice, it's every single immigrant family.

Do you know what it's like to live every single day in fear that today could be the day that your wife and child is taken from you?

Uh we had to live in fear every single day for 10 months straight because of the terror being brought by ice raiding our cities.

Is anyone here willing to stand up against ice and protect our families?

Or are you on the side of ICE who is terrorizing the people that you represent?

Thank you.

We'll hear now from Walter Walker.

Walter Walker will be followed by Joy Johnson.

Walter Walker here.

We will move on then to Joy Johnson and following Joy Johnson, we will hear from Howard Ross.

Joy Johnson, I live on West Arbor Drive in Huntsville.

Um I wanna start uh by talking about I went to Planning Commission this week.

And um I think uh I'm kind of glad the mayor's gone because I would like you guys to take the planning commission over just the same way that you tried to do sustainability.

Um it's time for that to be a much more democratic process, much more representative of people instead of moneyed interests.

Um and at the same time uh uh the sustainability commission or committee or whatever it's called.

I think that they would really appreciate being involved in the planning commission business.

That's what they're there for.

To talk about what do we need to do moving forward as a city, and they're not informed, they're not invited, they're not nothing, and I think they should also be on the committees within the Planning commission.

The zoning guys and all of those guys.

Um, I about electric vehicles.

And the kind of oil that you need to make diesel from, we have to import.

So everything is about to change.

Hold on to your you know what.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joy.

And now we will hear from Howard Ross.

Howard Ross will be followed by McKinley Dunford.

I am here again for the uh uh trespassing at 6016.

You name name and address.

I'm here again on the uh continuing trespassing against uh Mark and Patty Culbertson at 6016 Ellington Drive.

Uh they took possession in good faith of the property after a sheriff's sale, and the uh previous owner filed to redeem the property and immediately went and filed or had the uh police come to the property uh accusing them of being squatters, and the police came and determined that they weren't squatting, that they were lawfully in possession, and subsequently the uh uh the previous owner filed a uh eviction against them, and before there was and there's never been an order or writ of possession for that possession for the previous owner, and they came and began uh while the Culbertsons were visiting folks and not in not on the property, came and started removing their property and asking them and uh causing damages, and we called the police, I called the police who came over uh to complain against the trespassing, and the police, instead of stopping it, encouraged them to keep trespassing and remove their property.

Uh I have brought this before the city council before to find out how to handle this, and have gotten no answers or nothing that uh was pertinent.

Uh there was a uh uh something about that the former owners weren't allowed to trespass.

Well, that's not true.

I have this case, Tate versus State that a lawyer gave to me in the uh five Southern Report of 254 that states that burglary like trespassing is an offense against the possession, and hence the test for the purpose of determining to whom the ownership of the premises should be had laid.

Excuse me, is in an indictment is not the title, but the occupancy or possession at the time the offense was commenced.

Uh since the Culbertsons were in possession at the time that this was commenced, uh the fact that they may don't have the title, and so on says the title does not excuse them from trespassing.

Uh the last time I was here, uh the the city administrator said that the complaint that the culprites had filed did not include trespassing.

It went to file the trespassing at the front desk of Wheeler Avenue, and they were not allowed to or not permitted to file a complaint for trespassing, and I believe they have a right to file that, and apparently it's a police cover-up, and we need to find out at least who is the uh we have an elected official from the from that district uh to find out how we can get find out of whether there's a trip uh cover-up by the police, just like there's been in decatur against uh the the gentleman who was shot while they were repossessing his car.

Don't know who the commissioner or who the councilman is who's been elected to handle this, but we do need to find out what we can do about this.

It's a civil rights violation.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

We will now hear from McKinley Dunford, who will be followed by Angela Somerset.

McKinley Dunford.

We will move on to Angela Somerset, who will be followed by Elliot White.

Is Dr.

Somerset here?

There.

Good evening.

I am Dr.

Angela Somerset, and I reside at Nan Chalkstone Street in Huntsville.

Thank you.

So I have three very brief concerns.

The first is the one about the PFAS through Huntsville Utilities, which uh of course basically stands for forever chemicals.

So I see where Huntsville Utilities has filed a lawsuit in regards to that.

And of course, the EPA is uh standardizing when all that occurred.

So that would start in 2024, but compliance issues would start in 2029.

But because of the health-related risks, and because Huntsville Utilities has in their uh mission statement that they want to do the right thing, transparency, accountability would uh be imperative.

The second one I wanted to address was with Ms.

Penny when she stated that the utility money was approved to be used for fiber.

I'm not aware that in the TVA contract that that was the case.

Now, even though Huntsville Utilities uses some fiber for substations, I don't think automated meters would require fiber of that size.

So I would love to be able to look at that report because I still say and continue to say that Huntsville Utilities is going to be an issue in regards to money as well as liability for this city.

Thirdly, I had a citizen that approached me over uh the memorial holiday, where she was a realtor as well, and sold a home to someone in Huntsville Utilities got this homeowner's meter mixed up with the model home and was charging them.

And so the citizen went in, tried to get it corrected, could not get it corrected, and it took a call from me to one of their VPs in order to get it straightened out, which we did, and the citizen ended up with a refund.

So what I would like to see happen more so is to see a greater action from our council, making our boards more accountable, making them come in with reports.

We are taking too much at face value because first of all, most utility companies would have taken out a bond, but that means you would have had to petition the FCC.

So since you didn't want to do that as Huntsville Utilities, then guess what?

You use our electric money, and it's going to become a sinkhole for this city.

That's all I gotta say.

Thank you.

We'll now hear from Elliot White, who will be followed by David Snyder.

Is Elliot White here?

We will move on then to David Snyder, who will be followed by our last speaker, you want to Yolanda Cottle.

Howdy.

Hello.

My name is David Snyder.

My information is written correctly on the sheet.

I live in Huntsville.

Thank you.

Um I am aghast at the disgrace and shame that has transpired at tonight's city council session.

Having been threatened with a removal during a second roster comment for attempting to use the last 30 seconds, 30 seconds of my time with a moment of silence honoring a hundred and twenty dead children, only to watch City Council spend several minutes showing Fox News celebrate Huntsville being a cotton town, as much or more than our well-known space exploration program and history of that.

It was disgusting and a flagrant display of a lack of regard for particular members of our communities.

Make no mistake, there is a strong tie-in between the state defunding our public libraries and Fox News coming here to celebrate Huntsville being a former cotton town.

This is why we need a black history museum.

We have an excellent opportunity to create, as several members of Omega Sci-Fi have mentioned previously, a black history museum that includes our black community's contributions to split space exploration and the challenges those people faced and the challenges black engineers still do.

Thank you.

And finally, Yolanda Cottle.

Is Yolanda Cottle here?

She is not here.

Then that concludes our second roster communications.

Is there a motion?

The meeting is adjourned at 8 59.

Help make to happen.

This is probably not the answer to your question, but I'm going to give you an answer, Lance.

Okay.

And the answer that I want to see in my in my, I've committed my life to helping people find their purpose in life.

And for that, it may be uh pharmaceuticals, it may be robotics, it may be uh mechanical, uh, but that's what mine and my college's uh mission are is to help people find their purpose in life.

Thank you.

That's beautiful.

I I think that the field, the field that we're in is looking at predictive and preventative medicine uh rather than treating only treating disease symptoms.

So the idea of an at home saliva based test that every morning gives you a sense of how your body is working and can identify the earliest stage of when something goes wrong.