Call into order the public safety and parks committee meeting for the Jackson City Council.

The time is approximately 1128.

I don't like started meetings late, but I know we had a pretty full morning, colleagues, and I really appreciate your patience and your diligence.

Colleagues, um, we have five discussion items, and this is gonna be a pretty casual thing, so you don't have to raise your hand, wait to be recognized, just kind of jump in, chime in as you feel.

Um if someone could please close that door, I really appreciate it.

All right, thank you.

Uh we're gonna uh and you know, colleagues, you know, this is not just my agenda.

I've asked for input and asked you all to submit things that you would like to cover today.

I see Mrs.

Parkinson out there, hey Stephanie, and the little Parkinsons.

All right, school is out.

All right, so we're gonna go ahead and start with discussion one, uh park safety.

Park safety.

Whose item was this?

I'm not sure whose item it is, but I'll I'll share uh quickly.

And I I know most of what we'll talk about with park safety, I imagine will be um physical safety, uh, lighting, cameras, all that good stuff.

But um, one note that I will make we have a lot of dead trees in a lot of our parks, and the reason I'm bringing it up here is because in some of these parks, like I'm thinking specifically of Jamie Fowler Boiler Park, the dead trees are not merely a matter of aesthetics, and it clearly looks terrible, but they are so dead, and there are so many of them that on multiple fronts, I'm actually very concerned on a safety perspective.

Trees can fall on people and can hurt or kill them.

That's one.

Two is it can block access.

There's a um senior citizen community and some apartment complexes that if a tree falls there, it will block road access to them.

And the third reason that I think it's a safety issue is because um the the uh power line along Lakeland, and if a tree takes out that power line, we've got in touch with energy, and that power line uh supports power to 10,000 people, including the fire station that's right there.

So uh we are in desperate, desperate, desperate need of addressing these dead trees, not only from a uh cosmetic perspective, and you want your your tree, you want your parks to look real beautiful, but also from a safety perspective.

Um Steve Hutton and Peter to Wison have done uh Herculean work to kind of get us ready for that.

Um, but I hope we can cross that finish line.

I'm thankful for everything they've done for that in other parks.

But uh this is this is of paramount importance, and and I hope that that work can be prioritized, and we can knock those trees down immediately, if not sooner.

Now, where are these trees?

So Jamie Fowler Boiler Park is off Lakeland, uh right by a fire station.

And initially, the initial estimate to remove the dead trees in that one park alone with a quarter million dollars.

That's how many dead trees were in that one single park.

Now, uh Steve and Peter have done amazing work to try to find creative solutions.

For example, I believe they found someone that can chip the trees on site because the most of the cost was logging the trees out of there.

And um, and they were able to find a vendor that can knock them down, and there's a corner of the park, so it's not gonna be ugly, it's not gonna be whatever, but we can put them right through that chipper, and it took the cost from about a quarter million dollars to I mean about 75,000 or maybe even less.

And so um they've done tremendous, tremendous work.

But that's an example where the single park had so many dead trees that that's where it was at.

And this is the park off Lakeland.

And in fact, this particular park used to host Wells Fest, if you're familiar with Wells Fest, but Wells Fest was not had that held this year because they they were legitimately concerned that a tree would fall on people during the middle of the the festival.

That's how bad the trees were there.

Also, I know before you were elected, uh, there was an effort to uh get some of the trees down in Battlefield Park.

Yes, seven or five.

That that's seven.

That's seven.

Yeah, that's another one.

That's another one that's in um that's in strong.

I I personally participated in cleanup efforts there to help remove natural debris and bag it up.

So that's that's an important one as well.

I mean, there's there's numerous ones.

Uh so that work has not been completed.

Uh the they've done routine maintenance there.

I mean, they've they've done good about you know mowing the grass and and things like that, but but there are still um they're still falling.

Yeah.

Because I thought I thought we we voted.

We did we did.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One point, but you know, just like trees, they're still decaying and falling down.

Yeah.

All right, Mr.

Foote.

I I think the ones that uh endanger the power lines enter sheet, injured G should do that.

And they they brought the We brought in G out, and of course they tried to say it's 31 feet instead of 30 feet or whatever, whatever the thing is.

They're they're trying to Yeah, I mean, the administration may want to put pressure on them, but we we've tried thus far, and they're abdicating their responsibility.

I mean, they've been helpful with telling us how I guess it's like zone one affects this 10,000 people or whatever.

So they gave us good data that we can use.

Um Steve also tried to get private funds.

I mean, he he's reaching out to the Jamie Fowler Boiler family, he was reaching out to car dealerships, he was reaching out to others to try to do it.

Yeah, I mean, maybe maybe you want to um push entergy more, but I I think a solution needs to be done today.

I mean, we really need to go out there.

They they're pretty good about uh cutting the trees to make sure their power lines are safe.

And and um, so if they if they must may deem those that are not a risk to their power lines, but um to me the uh we've got more parks we can take care of there's about 54, and there's lots of trees all over the place.

Um the Jamie Fowler may be the poster child for that problem, but we've got them everywhere.

And to me, I think we have to embrace the idea of public-private partnerships with our parks.

It works for Parham Bridges, it works great for them.

But we need to reach out and and not be um uh bashful about reaching out to uh nonprofits, to um corporations, to hospitals, to or you know, schools and and and develop public private partnerships so they can come in and and help with some of these tasks like this because we don't we just don't have enough resources and manpower to cut all the trees down, much less take care of the parks and have programs and other things like that.

We we we just that's just the reality of a shrinking city is we end up with you know um a whole lot of parks that that um we we are responsible for.

Mr.

President.

May I offer a few comments?

Um that has been thrown out already, all of it valid.

With respect to Jamie Fowler Boyle Park, um, I'm also in discussions with the Mississippi's museum who has indicated that they can provide some funding.

Jamie Father Boyle Park became a priority uh not because of location, but it has more dead trees in that park than any other single park.

Uh I want the public to know uh I think I made Westide uh priority for removing dead trees back in August.

Uh and we had the same situation there where a tree was possibly gonna fall on a power line.

Um Council President Grizzell asked me to look at that and we took some trees out over there.

Uh councilwoman Thomas, we were doing tree work at one of the parks in your ward this past week.

So uh I don't want the public to take away from this that Jamie Fowler Boyle is getting special treatment.

It does have the most trees, and there is a possible funding source to help us with the tree removal and shipping.

Uh councilwoman Thomas, we have also looked at another park.

I can't remember whether it's Level Woods or Sykes that we feel is a high priority for need in addition to battlefield.

So we are prioritizing the parks to see which ones need a contract or outside help and which ones we can do internally.

That takes me to Councilman uh Foote's comment.

We don't have enough resources.

Uh first of all, I'd like to give a shout out to the parks maintenance crews.

I spent Wednesday afternoon meeting with the park maintenance crews.

I'm not sure y'all are aware, I'm sure the public isn't.

They maintain a lot more than parks.

And so when I've had some previous um comments about how some of our parks looked, I was unaware that we do everything in park maintenance from mowing the police firing range to taking care of the police training center to mowing the Callaway soccer fields.

That's not Callaway soccer field.

But go ahead.

I understand.

But we all know it is the location by Callaway.

Yeah, there's an association, and I've seen the city's struggling.

I I was kind of concerned about it, but I think we need to talk about that.

Well, that's why I'm putting it out here, Council President Grizel.

There's an agreement that goes back to 1999 that has the city taking care of that.

The crews told me this week, and I really appreciate a meeting with them.

Hey, we spend two days every other week just at Callaway.

Yep.

And so we are working internally to prioritize our parks and our public ground maintenance.

There are two working groups that are working.

One involves uh just individuals in public works, the other involves public works and other departments to make sure we maintain these grounds.

Ultimately, Councilman Foot is correct.

We need some community partners, uh, especially on our smaller parks.

We have a number of um uh small mid-sized parks that we need to be creative about how we address uh small parks as small as uh the Broadmoor Park that is literally a stretch of grass between two streets, but it has some playground equipment.

That seems ideal for a community uh to take over.

Uh another one is Willie Henry Park in the Norwood community.

It's in the back of that community.

It is very few members of the general public know it exists, let alone use it.

And while I've had crews out there uh give give uh parks a record getting credit, removing dead trees in that park that had been some have been down for several years.

Uh that's a park that hopefully a community could take over.

So we we are going to be bringing those ideas forward.

We're gonna ask y'all as council members to help us identify organizations who would like to step up and ultimately it may make more sense to um ask the city council to appropriate some money to community groups to maintain these.

We couldn't pay for everything, but certainly we uh I would ask y'all, it's gonna be your decision to consider depending on size of the park, maybe we award 2500 um for gas, sharpen the mower braids, weed eating, that sort of thing.

But we have to be creative about all this, and we have to prioritize.

You'll be getting a memo from me, and then I'm gonna stop in the near uh future of January asking you to prioritize the parks in your area and identify potential partners for us to start working through.

So I appreciate the opportunity to comment.

We've got a lot we need to do, but we got uh we have some really good parks here, and we need to prioritize them and focus on them because the quality of life for our citizens in many ways depends on having a public space.

So let me ask you this.

Uh, when it comes to cutting trees, our public works department can't do like we can't just I got a bunch of cousins and country uncles who will just get out there with some chainsaws and cut these trees down and then just grind up the stump.

Is that not something that public works can take care of?

We lack all the proper equipment, but more importantly, President Grizzell, we simply don't have enough manpower.

Um we have a lot, we have 113 square miles.

So the public understands this.

We have more square miles in Jackson than San Francisco and Baltimore combined.

Wow.

But our population is 138,000 now, which is a fraction of either city separately.

We have considerably more property than we can do.

Uh, our public works crews or parks and rec crews, the answer is yes, but we don't have enough of them.

So that's why we're having these um working groups internally, so we can figure out what should our city employees prioritize, what should contractors prioritize, what should large contractors prioritize uh versus small contractors.

So a theoretical yes, a practical no.

I wonder, I'll say real quick and then I'm gonna step out for just a quick moment.

Um, but I wonder if the private public private partnership could look like uh we identify one group for each park that is responsible for the grass.

And the the group, say a church has whatever park, Laurel Street Park, Midtown Park, whatever.

Um they commit to either contracting out the grass and and they'll pay for the grass, or if the church has members that want to get out there and physically mow the grass, they'll physically mow the grass themselves.

But in my mind, it's I I don't think we should reduce the parks budget.

I think we should uh just if we could offload just the grass cutting uh at each of the parks and make sure that churches or other groups either cut the grass themselves or pay to have the grass cut, that will we could take the money that we currently allocate to parks and do some of these these other projects.

I mean, I I don't think it's fair to ask a church to take on adopting a park if they're afraid that there's gonna be massive electrical issues or massive things that they feel like they're gonna have to take out a hundred thousand dollar bill or or something like that.

Like I think we can still be responsible for some of the big things that need to come up, but if if we can even I mean, gosh, I don't know.

How much would you estimate that we're paying just to cut the grass at these parks?

Like if we could if we can reduce that, but but still have the grass cut.

I mean, that to me is the true types of public private partnership that I think can do really well.

I think it's just one what you have to do one at a time.

I mean, it's it's not a good thing.

Oh, sure.

We would never wouldn't have a template, but you could just try to find an organization and see what they're willing to do, and then work with them that way.

I mean, there's if you if you look in the page uh at the sixth page of the Jackson Rising thing, it's got strengthened parks and public places, got six bullet point points there about specific parks and all.

So, I mean, the the I don't think it's gonna be a straight solution.

Um that uh, but I think there's people out there that want to be bought want to be involved, and that's why Jackson's rising, because there are people want to see it rise, and we got to take advantage of that that uh mojo right now.

Um we're still in the honeymoon phase of this administration.

You're absolutely right, and uh in my attending the Jackson Rising meetings as well as recently meeting with the Parliament Bridges and La Flores East and the uh representatives of the tennis center, I have taken those documents and there's one good thing about being a lawyer, not just CAO, and I am creating a template because I think our legal department has enough work to do.

That's I'm looking for about a two-page template that we can share with any organization, and maybe we change out uh some of the duties depending on the organization, but largely we have a two-page document that covers a relationship that we can have.

So, yes, uh, we want to take advantage of the fact that people want to be partners with the city of Jackson.

I I another example of partnership is that Jackson Academy adopted the fire station.

I think it's fire station number 17, uh, and went over there and spent some time doing putting sheetrock in and doing some repairs to the inside of the building, but it was it was a good civic civics project for the for the school, gave them some ownership in the fire station and and help them with with the um inner works in the fire station and and uh the a lot of these schools have those sort of things where you gotta earn credits for the students, and that this is a great opportunity for the city to say, hey, come earn some credits over here and help revitalize this park, you know, whichever part it might be.

Yes, uh, and I I love that idea.

I'm getting approached at least once every few weeks by some landscaper who's saying, hey, the city needs to use it, use this, use this, use this.

And so I think that may be a good option uh for a lot of our parks.

You know, it's not like them working in uh in in the neighborhood where they have to watch out for this and and different things and uh you got wide open space, hey, just cut it and maybe so that I think that uh that's something that can help uh also uh I I just believe that um as we move forward, another consideration is working with solid waste and you know getting our landfill picture together, because if we had that, you know, the sale open and all the equipment, then it would be much cheaper, even if we uh uh use the chippers, then you have to dispose of the debris, okay, unless we can find some innovative way or some uh, for instance, uh wood pellet company or someone that can buy the uh the wood chips.

So again, I I I I applaud the city for moving forward with this and those considerations.

But uh yeah, we kind of take some of the heat off me if we can get some of our landscapers out there.

Anything else on this item, colleagues?

Uh let's move to uh item number two, park rangers.

Do we still have them?

Yes.

That's I met one the other day.

I would love for them to uh be a part of our meetings.

Uh see we got some parks and riggs employees here.

Their faces are kind of saying one other thing, but how many uh park ranges do we have?

When do they serve?

What are they doing for?

Only on the morning side.

Okay.

Well, I'll tell you what, one of y'all come up here.

One of y'all come up here.

What would come on up?

Come on.

Come on, Red Hat.

Great, how you doing?

What let me introduce myself.

Yeah, because somebody will ask.

Um my name is Lisa Wilson.

I'm the recreation manager for Parks and Recreation.

Okay.

Thank you.

And welcome.

Uh the park rangers, are they serving, are they doing what we need them to do for the parks?

Well, from my perspective, I haven't seen the park rangers.

Um I'm over all the community centers.

So basically, I have the outside parents doing the job when we have participants at our community centers.

Now, in reference to the athletic part of it, I do think they do show up for the athletic functions of the games and the different leagues.

Am I correct?

Okay, now do they show up at the zoo?

Okay.

Okay.

Um, but you say they normally serve during the day.

During the day.

But at night you rely on parents.

Correct.

Has your department met with JPD to um kind of work out a schedule or see what the need is so that they can um uh help out.

Um, I guess that's a question probably for Peter.

Have they said they was gonna meet with us or what's going on?

Because we don't know.

Have you requested a meeting?

No, we have not requested a meeting.

Okay.

Please restate the question.

Well, we're just trying to see what their need is.

Apparently, the park rangers work during the day.

But like say Francis Grove Park, it's live at five at night.

You know, uh, we have gymnastics, there's a lot going on over there in West Side and a lot of the other facilities and parks.

And so we're just trying to see what the need is, because if the park rangers only working during the day when nobody's really in the buildings but the staff, and we need them in the evenings, like we just gotta figure out something.

I think that question is I understand the park rangers are uh under the police department.

Correct.

So I think that question is better asked to the police department.

I will tell you that on Monday I have a meeting with Mr.

Melvin and Lisa to discover discuss programming needs, and to the extent that we have identified programming needs that will help us identify when we need some uniform presence.

I don't want to be tied to park ranger.

Uh our chief is also the sheriff.

He has a lot of reserve deputies, and so I think the important thing is to figure out a uniform presence at the time we have um programming activities.

And that was that's why I asked, did her department or anybody from Parks and Race request a meeting with JPD to see, you know, if if the needs are met or how they could be better met?

Not to my knowledge.

I think um we've had some other challenges we've been working recent recently working through in parks and rec.

Thank you.

Mr.

Harley.

Yes, and I I'd like to uh perhaps in the future we could have as part of this meeting the park rangers to come in and introduce themselves and talk about some of their issues.

I remember when this issue uh when we first started the discussion on funding park rangers.

I'm sure Mr.

President, you remember this well.

One of the things that was said was uh that uh well, I assumed it was gonna be full time all during the day.

I also assume that they may be called out for other police emergencies.

Uh and now we're hearing that maybe only part of the day they're available.

Uh and and I think maybe some of the reasons we have these questions because we don't see them as much.

I um this week I saw a you a strange uniform I never never saw before, and I asked, hey, you know, what type of uh uh enforcement person you said I'm a park ranger.

I'm like, okay.

That's that's what you guys look like.

So any rate, I I it would be good if we had uh maybe an introduction and some discussion on park rangers in the future where we can kind of uh uh marry everything together.

What are they doing?

Uh what are some of the limitations?

Uh you know, other issues I noticed we're gonna talk about lighting in the park.

We can go ahead and lump it, go ahead and talk about it.

Okay, uh, but uh Chief, Sheriff.

The the park ranger program overall, how's that doing?

Is it successful or uh are there any limitations that we need to be aware of?

Well, we have park rangers assigned to the park, you know, as she stated, they are there are far from my understanding, and their hours of work are doing today.

Uh, but we have to also address the issue of uh manpower allocation, um regarding the staffing of the police department to be able to fulfill uh park rangers longer than daytime hours, evening hours, or maybe over into the night.

Now, there's a possibility that some of those hours may be able to overlap what we can have later into the evening covered, but as far as a manpower allocation at this point, we wouldn't be able to uh afford to uh designate any other park rangers to the program other than the four that we currently have.

Um we have been in communication with people that may be holding events at the parks, whether they may not be necessarily a city related event, right?

Where they are asking for manpower or security.

We can do a directed patrol for that particular park during the hours that they're there.

Uh there have been times uh people have reached out about uh say they may have something at Smith Park and they may need police presence.

We're able to allocate somebody there for that period of time if there are no park rangers available during that time.

Do you do you know?

I mean, is it is it only half days or is it a full day?

Do they have 40 hour day weeks or they they work what you mean as far as the hours they work 40 hour weeks?

Well, let me well um to my understanding that a from eight to five, basically whatever their work schedule is, so it's a full day, but it's just on the morning side.

Okay.

Excuse me, councilman foot.

Is I hear the concern it isn't whether they're working 40 hours, it's whether the 40 hours align with the programming.

Correct.

Because it doesn't do any good for a park ranger to patrol the park from eight to noon when there's no criminal activities, if there's also no programming either.

So I think on Monday after Mr.

Melvin and Lisa and I meet, uh, we will circle back with the chief.

And also, can I add to this in defense of the park ranger?

They do have four, but each one of them are assigned to several different parks.

So they doing their best.

Well, we have we have what 54 parks in the city?

So we have 54 parks.

We have four rangers that patrol during the day.

So does that mean that they go?

So what's 54 divided by four?

Roughly 12?

12.

15.

So each person has 15 parks.

So they go to one park, they look over it for 10 minutes, then they drive to another park, they look over it for 10 minutes, they drive to another.

Is that how is that how we're working this?

So they they patrol the parks and they answer calls for service directly related to parks where there's a report that should be generated, they will be the ones that be primarily responsible for generating the the reports.

Uh, but they're just like any other, you know, off officer, if they are off work, if they are out sick on vacation, then you would expect the next person to fill in the gap.

And as she said, you know, with the amount of parks, that's that's a that's a huge responsibility, you know.

Uh, but they are out working when we have our weekly staff meetings, we address the park rangers and you know, exactly what they're doing.

But I think that there should be a conversation with my office coming up soon with you know, parks, so we can do develop more of a plan, you know, we have a better understanding of manpower allocation hours and things that we can fulfill, and for those that we can't at that particular time, what's the backup plan?

He's uh CAO stated earlier about reserve deputies.

Yes, I do send reserve deputies sometime to fill in for events at parks, and they are able to get their uh community service hours during that time also.

And I I just think that uh yeah, organization is is critical here and working together, and I appreciate uh uh Mr.

I think exactly where where we're trying to go.

Yes, sir.

Make a point.

I remember when we passed this uh whenever it was three or four years ago, and um I was I was thinking in my mind that they were gonna be available for security in the evening.

Um so the but now here we are in 2025 or getting ready to go into 2026.

Um if we've only got four park rangers, that's just really a paying lip service to to trying to secure and provide security for 54 parks.

I think we need a lot more park rangers than just four.

I mean, it it it's hard to say well, we've got a special program for park rangers that's providing security parks if you've only got four and you got 54 parks.

So I'm not holding that against anybody other than we need to allocate more money for park rangers if we're really serious about providing the security.

Well, to your point though, Mr.

Foot, I thought we did allocate more money.

I did, yeah, I thought we would ask for seven, one for each ward.

That's what I thought.

But uh, and of course, this was under another chief, and he just he just didn't do it.

But um I know the funding has been there, and I think it's just more of a planning part.

We need to make we need to bulk up this program, muscle it up because it Ford's not gonna people laugh at us if they you know, if there's something incident happens that we've only had four rangers for the whole dang city.

And also to the point of the reserve force, they are heavily underutilized.

Is that right?

You got folks like Mr.

War who looking for something to do.

All right, he's looking for something to do.

Get him out there, you know.

A lot of these folks are looking for something to do.

And and I think that if we we engage our uh reserve more, um, we can definitely get a better bang for you know what we got going on here.

So you all just allow me just another minute here.

Uh when we talk about the four people that's allocated for the for the program, you know, we still have to prioritize patrol and park rangers also.

You know, we're facing staffing shortages in the precinct, so the manpower is not necessarily there because of course when we talk about prioritizing, we we have to have people to answer 911 calls for service, whereas the park rangers would not be responsible for answering 9-1-1 calls for service throughout the city.

We talk about the 54 parks.

How many of these parks are within the CCID also?

Do those parks fall on the responsibility of the city of Jackson if they are in the CCID?

I wouldn't imagine so because that's their primary responsibility, and maybe that can provide some of the relief for the current park rangers that we have, so they won't have that responsibility, and we can depend on Capitol Police to uh address those parks within CCID.

Uh some of the parks I do know for a fact, Palm Bridges, they hire off-duty deputies in the evening to cover some of the events that they have over there at that park, and that may be directly related to the uh LaFleur district organization or whatever it is over there.

I think what what about parks?

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.

I I think what you said just makes a lot of sense.

I just want to make sure we're really clear on what we're saying when we say it.

Um, are we saying that if we're short uh officers who can respond to 911 calls, we might pull the park rangers because responding to 911 calls is a higher priority item than patrolling the park.

So I I think that makes sense.

I mean, I think that's a good use of resource, but just to be clear, that means we have zero park rangers.

Not necessarily.

That's uh I have to disagree with that.

When things are being prioritized and you have an influx or you have a lot of 911 calls for service coming in, okay.

Everybody from myself all the way through the command staff have a responsibility.

If we have to go out and answer 911 calls for service, we will.

The 911 calls for service are going to always prioritize any type of direct patrol, any type of uh park activity, unless there's something going on currently.

So, yes, there are times when there may be an issue and we need officers to respond to a call, they can respond to that 911 call for service, or they can respond to that immediate emergency, and once that has been cleared up, they can go back to doing their normal duties.

And once that has been cleared up, they can go back to doing their normal duties.

I wonder if this is why there is.

Oops, sorry.

I wonder if this is why there is some confusion around do they work full time, but do we do they work 40 hours a week or 25, 20 hours a week?

I wonder if it might be, you know, part of any given day where there's the shortage and then they're really responding to 911.

I think uh when we first um proposed this ideal of park rangers and adding them, part of that discussion was in fact that they would have auxiliary duties if called within that general area, they would have to respond.

Um, but again, I think the issue now is making sure that they are prior, their activities are prioritized to the benefit of the city.

It's unreasonable to ask that they they you know they're just burning up gas looking at an empty field.

However, if that uh park has a has a history of of criminal activity, including copper wire thefts and and other things, prostitution, drugs, right?

All of the above, right?

Then uh then yeah, I believe that that needs to be a priority.

But yes, it was when we uh thought about this conceptually, we did uh envision them being able to respond locally if needed within that local area.

And all of this is a case-by-case basis, it's not something that may happen every day, right?

Right, but when it does happen, we have to be able to address the 911 calls for service.

We'll prioritize uh riding through parks and observing parks during that time.

But once they finish, they are expected to go back to what their primary duty is, and that is to patrol and be visible in the parks.

I think an underlying issue here is the the communication piece.

I know we're in a transition, and typically what the council puts into place, the expectation is that it will be done.

But even on our end, we tend to drop the ball because we don't follow up to kind of see how things going so that we can make the necessary adjustments uh from our end, uh, since we manage the budget and we, you know, ordinances in place.

Um, and so what I would like to see is for parks to get with JPD and the administration to kind of see how their needs could be met, but also we're gonna have more of these meetings so that we can communicate directly with JPD to make sure that our constituents are also being served because one of the pluses, like Mr.

Harley stated, was to make sure that these park rangers service the immediate area.

You know, they're in the parks, but they're also driving up and down, you know, having visibility in a lot of these communities.

And so, and we understand, you know, all the law enforcement agencies are understaffed, egregiously understaffed, but we gotta all pull up our bootstraps and make sure that we're using the resources allocated, even to the point of getting the reserve officers out there to make sure that our facilities, our parks, and our communities are taken care of.

All right, Mr.

President.

Yes, sir.

I think you have really hit on just like we've talked about with light elimination and other things.

Everything in this city has to be tied to some sort of data and evidence.

Right.

We know we do not have enough resources, either personnel or equipment or time for all the challenges that face us.

But every one of these things requires the same type of inquiry if we're gonna improve our city.

I think collectively, as we've discussed these things over the last five months, more often than not, a majority or majority plus of the city council and the administration tend to coalesce around the same solution.

So I just want to encourage the city council to continue doing what you're doing, continue asking the questions to the chief, to myself, other department heads, because everything we do in this uh city, we ought to be able to look at our citizens and say, when you want to know why we do X instead of Y, here is the reason.

All right.

And I think it's a good reminder for us to, you know, we we're placing greater and greater emphasis on uh increasing funds as much as humanly possible, given that resources are limited to the police department.

You know, it's our hope that uh we get JPD so well staffed that we won't ever have to pull the park rangers because we have so many officers, and I think that's a joint responsibility.

It's up to us to make sure we're allocating enough funds to do that.

Then it's up to you to make sure that you're aggressively recruiting, retaining, and training up uh officers.

And if we work together, hopefully we can have a police force that that won't that we won't ever have to pull on park rangers.

And to and to add to what you all have said, which is true.

Um previous administration, we had at least six park rangers.

Okay, and out of those six, they used to only focus on the community centers and the gymnasium.

So they was always at those locations.

Um, and I would like to see them more so back at those locations instead of out at the all 52 parks, but they were at all the community centers and gymnasiums and special events that we did have.

So, and they did a good job when they were there.

Okay, quick question for you.

With the Sykes Community Center, what is going on with that with the occupantcy that's in there?

Okay, Sice Community Center is is up under Pam Jr.

Human and Culture.

We are only over the gymnasium.

Okay.

All right.

So that I can answer that question though.

We have sent the occupants of that.

Uh we the legal department has sent the occupants of Sykes uh a letter asking them to vacate because they had violated the terms of the agreement.

In fact, the agreement time frame had expired before this administration even took place.

So we have notified them, we being the city again, Drew Martin City Legal, notify the occupants that their time is up, their agreement is over.

Unfortunately, they did not leave the community center in very good condition.

And so we are probably going to have to brief y'all in executive session about that and get some direction about what action to take.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, if it's okay, let's go ahead and go to five and then back to three city hall security.

Uh thank you, sir.

Brown Thomas.

Thank you.

My concern about the city hall security is that people have too much access to the city hall, and with everything that's going on in the world, that we need to have more and better security and measurements.

How you enter this building.

People openly, you be in your office, and somebody just come in there.

You don't know who it is.

So I just feel like it need to be more security measurement before you can get access to this building.

I certainly don't disagree with you.

And I share the same concern across the street in the hood building.

Once you walk past the security guard, you can tell them you're going to two, and they can end up you can end up on any floor anywhere.

And I was discussing with uh Mr.

Funches over there that we have got to figure out a better plan.

I appreciate you sharing that about City Hall.

Uh, if we can transition out of 633, that will allow us to pull some security back there.

With City Legal having moved, uh, we will now hopefully pick up the security guard that used to have to guard that.

They won't need that now that they've relocated.

But yes, we share your concerns.

Uh we are very 1995 in how easy it is to access our buildings.

Uh, I think we've been very fortunate, knock on wood, praise the Lord, that we've not had an incident.

But I share your concern, we need to I hate to use the term tighten up security, but we're just in a time where when you're entering government facilities, there's a minimally accepted or expected level of screening that should occur.

I I think to that point, uh I see you, Mr.

Harlow, but I think to that point, uh it's been brought to my attention.

You know, somebody left some ugly notes on the door at City Hall.

Have you seen them?

They would they were they were very ugly, and I know on the council's floor over the years, we've had people to wander on our floor.

And so the uh check-in procedures, like my clerk, she keeps the door locked all the time.

But uh when they check in with security art, we may need to put some some things in place to where they either leave an ID with them, or maybe we snap a photo and or give them a badge to say, hey, I'm gonna visit it, I'm going to this floor, or maybe have them escorted around uh to make sure that you know that our employees, our staff, first of all, are safe.

And I know you know there have been some instances where uh we've had some close calls in the building, and I think it's really important that you know we do keep City Hall and the staff uh safe.

Uh yes, and I certainly agree.

I think uh and I recall one time when I worked at the Hood building, we had some uh uh some contracts, emergency contracts.

I had one uh one individual that circumvented uh security, went up a back steps, was in my face in my office.

Well, first threatened my assistant, and then got in my face, which wasn't a good idea.

But that's those are the kind of things that we uh that that needs to be looked at.

Uh I'm not sure of the answers, but also here in this present um political climate, especially, we need to be more conscious.

Uh folks, uh and I'm I'm looking when I walk into the building looking for things that are out of the place and so forth.

But this uh we live with a high threat level, especially regarding political um uh dialogue and political um uh officials.

I think we need to have uh just some higher level of security, especially during the holiday seasons.

A lot of folks are depressed, a lot of folks are holiday blues, and a lot of people they want to act up and get a lot of notoriety.

Not giving them trying to give it in write a playbook, but we just need to be security conscious.

Well, I want to say I appreciate the direction from the council and you expressing your feelings.

I think uh President Grizzell's point, most state office buildings now, they do ID you and they print out, you know, it's not the best looking little paper ID, but they let you know where you're supposed to be going.

And there's a way for other people in the building, whether it's the Wolfhope building or um over here at the Security Center with the Department of Human Services, they do have that.

And certainly as a practicing attorney, we've been screening for some time to go into court.

Uh you go to the federal court down in Gulfport, they have for a decade made you produce your ID to go into the federal court down there.

Even if you are an attorney, they they will ID you and then they ask you for your bar card, and that will allow you to take your phone or tablet in there as a member of the bar.

So we are behind that.

Um I've watched that from afar.

I've had some questions the last five months since being back, but I did not know how the council felt because you are the representatives of the people.

And I know you balance all of you are very accessible to your constituents.

We're at the target.

I see you in the community.

Well, I know you try and balance accessibility with safety, but with you conveying these thoughts today, know that they are heard.

I will circle back with IT um some IT solutions or proposals, and I will also um talk with our chief as well.

So I think um, you know, I've been assaulted before, you know.

Um, but I'm I'm hard like that.

I wasn't scared, but we do want to make sure that you know, City Hall is safe.

Um if there is an emergency, who are the first to respond to City Hall?

I would have to defer to the chief on that question.

That's a good question.

I'm sorry, I don't have the answer, but I don't.

Say, for instance, I know we have security on the first floor, but the clerks sometimes they'll work late or desire to work late.

But if there's an emergency, somebody wandering on the floor and and they need emergency assistance, who responds first?

Again, I'm gonna defer to the chief.

I know I know that.

I was gonna say in the hood building, we have security until seven, and when we have had some community uh meetings that occurred past seven, I've simply reached out to the chief.

If I have acknowledged and say we're gonna have something that may go to eight or eight thirty tonight, and uh JPD has always made sure to have an officer around, and we usually keep the security guard longer, but they've also made sure to have an outdoor presence.

So I don't know about an emergency.

I know for planned events, I think we work pretty well in making sure there's always a presence for planned events.

I'll turn it over to the chief for emergencies.

Yeah.

JPD is ultimately responsible, primarily responsible for any city, city building, whether it's city hall, the um I say response, uh, what's the building up on State Street, uh police headquarters, uh any affiliation city uh building, even though we are some of these buildings are within the CCID, we're still ultimately responsible for the building itself.

Now, if there's something that happens on the outside of the building, meaning the street or in close proximity, there's a strong possibility that CCID Capitol Police will be the ones responding.

But if there's a report that needs to be generated or something happens within that building, the Jackson Police Department is responsible for it.

Now, when we're talking about an emergency response to something that may be um active within a city building, of course, JPD will be primary because we would be the first ones to be alerted to it.

Now, that doesn't mean that other agencies won't be responding.

You have Capitol Police, you have Hines County Sheriff's Office, you have everybody that's available responding.

We even have a unified response where there's a an active shooter or there is a uh something uh of that nature, you we can have units and people to come in from the state uh outside of Hines County, meaning Madison Rankin County, everybody will respond, and it would be the same for JPD if we have to go outside of the uh city of Jackson to respond to an active threat.

Okay.

I think that one of the pluses of having a former police officer on the council, you know, she really brings to light some things, and this was this is one of the things that she wanted to talk about.

And in light of the notes that were left here, um, I think there's a heightened concern to make sure that again the staff, but also us as elected officials are also, and I always say this reasonably safe, you know, a lot of safety's in the mind, but to make sure that we are uh taken care of.

Um I'm gonna leave it there.

All right.

Well, and yeah, and I and I agree.

Um we're we're a soft target, and uh I'm not sure if every meeting we have a police officer's preg present.

Uh, but that sometimes that would it should be a requirement.

I don't know who gets to make all those decisions for us, your personnel and so forth.

But uh, you know, to have security and they do a fine job there, but also to have uh someone, you know, that's that's as we say in West Jackson that's packing and intimidating looking.

Uh sometimes folks come up here with severe uh disagreements.

That needs to be handled.

Um and uh, you know, I mean this job is precious, but it's not as precious as as uh as our lives.

So uh we just appreciate anything that you can do to make sure that we're protected as well as the the public when they come in this building.

Yeah, I don't think that's an issue.

We it is mandatory that we'll be somebody from the police department, and as you can see, many times there are multiple officers that are here doing city council meetings or any type of proceedings that you all may have in the city council chambers when you all are present and or the mayor along with his uh security staff.

So you know, uh I do understand everything that you all are saying, especially in uh today's time in society that has to be uh prioritized, security management have to be prioritized.

But uh I I think that we should probably maybe have some of these conversations in an executive session type of setting also, so that way we won't uh we won't make publicly available all of the security measurements and things that we have in place for city hall and people that may visit City Hall also.

I think that's where they're putting it as a discussion item, perhaps for one of our upcoming meetings.

Yeah, well, we could definitely do it, and that's why I stopped short because I know that some folks who had access who would have been a first responder that access was cut, and I would really like to see that restored.

Um, but colleagues, let's go ahead and go on to uh item three, please.

I don't like to have we've we've been here since nine o'clock.

Thanks, Chief.

We've been here since nine o'clock, and I don't like to have a day full of meetings, but I took advantage of we're not gonna meet until after the holidays again.

But um the cameras, uh the real-time command center, each council member has visited the real-time command center, right?

All right, and are we in agreement that this is a jewel for the city?

All right, um, for the the last term plus, I know we've been intentional about getting cameras.

Uh I know I asked for 225,000 we put into the budget, but for some reason I was blamed for not giving it a line item.

I didn't know that was my job to do that.

But we do we we have a really strong momentum here, right?

And I know that some communities like again, Bellhaven Fondren, and there are other communities who have actually purchased into this system, and there are a lot of residents who actually upload uh data into the system.

Um, but I do have a concern after communicating with the mayor that I think the administration has tapped into some kind of philanthropist who wants to help, but in light of the momentum that we do have, I'm concerned that the program that we have is gonna stall.

Because we got some cameras that we need to pay for.

The last administration told us the money was there.

This is not the full order that we that we've been expecting, but I think it's important for us to make sure that as a council that we have the resources necessary to support JPD, but also make sure that our communities are getting what's expected with these cameras.

Okay.

Um Ms.

Carlwell, she's gone.

She I think she's outside.

Okay.

They're getting there now.

Yeah, she's coming.

While she's coming, I want to say from an administrative standpoint, I certainly support the expansion of our use of cameras.

It gives us an opportunity to leapfrog some of our current problems.

We all know that cameras are less expensive than people.

Not that we can't live without people.

Let me make that clear.

But if an officer gets shot, unfortunately, some of us have been around long enough, Councilman Hartley, to have to attend the funeral.

Uh camera gets shot at the less expensive proposition.

Right.

And so uh I fully I personally fully support this, and from the administration standpoint, we hear you.

And in fact, we need to be putting these in the parks as we determine which parks are our priorities.

We need to make sure we have cameras in those parks, not just park rangers, but parks.

We've discussed it specifically for Grove Park because this council is indicated wants to put a lot of uh money in the revitalization of Grove Park.

We don't need to do that, and then six months later, not have the copper, Councilwoman Thomas.

So I just want you to know my position is to work with you on this.

I think this is the type of thing that gets us out of the current stuck place we are.

Um, and I appreciate all the efforts that have occurred before I returned, but I want to help the momentum as well.

Thanks.

So I mean, to that point, um, and I know that Hines County purchased some cameras, and I know there are other entities that are trying to come on board with what we have, but my concern is uh and even when I talked to the mayor, there was some concern about integration.

But I think we need to express to these other entities that they should purchase what fits what we already have, since this is what we built from the ground up.

And I know that you know, like I said, Hines County has put cameras in throughout their districts, uh, and we're grateful, but we need to be more intentional about communicating that if they're going to, and I'm talking about all these other entities, all these partnerships, they should buy into what we have since this is something that we had to grow and invest in, you know, from from the ground up.

And as I understand, uh President Grizzell, what this council has invested in is actually a uh, if not a Rolls-Royce system, certainly a Mercedes level system, and this system that you have invested in is actually compatible with lesser technology.

So you're absolutely right.

Um, if somebody wants to buy the same high quality cameras that this council has invested in, they should.

And we would welcome that.

If they want to buy a lower res camera, I understand that it's lower res cameras are still compatible with the city's system.

So you're absolutely right.

The same way that Miss Wynn is the backbone for the state of Mississippi on E911 communications, our camera system here in the city of Jackson ought to be the backbone for the metropolitan area.

Okay.

Ms.

Carlwell, go ahead, Ms.

Harvey.

Uh yes, uh, concerning this camera systems.

First of all, it is a force multiplier.

We just finished talking about park rangers, uh, the numbers for JPD, et cetera.

It is folks force must multiplier, and I agree with the president there.

We need to do a better job.

If we could have uh our communications director to put together a package that will actually advertise and target businesses and get them all the information they need from step A to step B to step C, I think that would be helpful.

But be able to communicate uh and uh you know, just look, as we we tried to reach out uh and crack this issue called crime.

I think this is important thing.

When when the uh when I heard that the grocery store on McDowell and Terror was closing, I went to the owner, I went to the store and visit with the owner, and one of the things he said was crime.

And then I asked him, Well, you have cameras.

He said, Yes.

I said, Well, are you tied into our real-time command center?

No.

Uh you know, I and again, that may you may uh may not have been the real reasons behind it, but I want to cut out all possibilities that people can throw out at you as the reason why uh crime is their issue.

And I think uh I think they're willing.

Look, man, for a thousand dollars, you can get that interface.

That's the that's a small business write-off for them, very small, and now they have the presence of JPD around their facility.

Mr.

Yeah, I agree with that, and Mr.

Grisell.

And and I remember when Balhaven came and they were very graciously going to be able to purchase uh these cameras, and they very graciously, which I think it's wonderful, and they asked, what's the best camera to use to support JPD's efforts?

We went to JPT and JPD selected uh recommended flock, and so we we told them flock.

And then I even remember when we canceled the flock um shot spotter detection.

I specifically asked, is this because there's an issue with the vendor?

Because we've been recommending them, and they assured us no, this is a separate unrelated issue that we have to cancel this for other reasons.

But they said we still really like flock for the cameras.

So if we're changing vendors at this point, like I hope we can really get a grasp on that really soon, so that when others are looking to this, and then to Mr.

Hartley, you know, um Mr.

Grizzell's been very helpful with me, and and I visited him, and he said there are some packages that are as cheap as 250 dollars that'll get a business for cameras that'll hook up directly to JPDs.

And I mean, that's negligible.

I mean, that is just really really um a good thing.

So especially convenience stores, I think we need to get the word out to convenience stores that for 250 bucks you can add a lot of our protection.

That's very helpful.

And I think JPD and comms working together on that is is wonderful.

My question is the status of this program.

If there are, for example, we have one site in our ward that has consistent illegal dumping.

If we recommend to JPD, hey, we'd like a camera here.

Is that are those requests being received, or are we pausing on the purchase of new cameras?

Or I I'd love to hear if if we could make recommendations for specific cameras, what's the what's the status of that?

I'll have to uh allude to Ms.

Callwell, where we're talking about the uh purchases of the cameras.

It's my understanding there was supposed to be in a recent purchase that was made for cameras.

Matter of fact, it's my understanding that the cameras had already been uh delivered.

However, it had not gone through the proper channels uh for the purchase of the cameras, if I'm correct, and there was a lack of funding to fulfill this order also.

Is there a lack of funding?

Because my understanding that we have money for cameras.

So, due to the budget issues that we discussed, there was no budget set aside for those those um the purchase of those cameras.

I'm gonna take the ownership for that because again, I didn't name a line, even though I asked for 225,000, but it's my fault uh because I didn't name a line.

Um and colleagues, make sure you hold me to the fire for that next time because sometimes you shouldn't have to.

You see what I'm saying?

I that's what I think, but um I know that we have two million dollars, right?

Uh clerk.

Oh, we we allocated close to two million?

I think that was a fund balance if there was a fund balance.

Yes, contingent upon the fund balance and mail.

Okay.

And at the discretion of the mega balance.

And I think it was a million, was it a million for police and a million for fire?

If the I think we said the first two million dollars of fund balance would be split that way, and then if there was up to four million dollars in fund balance, the remainder the additional two million will come to council directed projects.

Do we know what that looks like?

So currently, due to the financial situation, is not two million remaining to do those type of projects.

I'm gonna just say this, uh, Mr.

Taylor.

Um virtual policing is where we are.

Yeah, we don't have people running to be police officers anymore.

We have really good momentum.

Mr.

Foot is fascinated by the tag readers.

How many tag readers do we have, T?

They have 16 tag readers.

Is that just city-owned?

Because I know Balhaven also got license plate readers as well.

So is it is that just the ones that the city has purchased, or is that total in the city that are connected to our system?

That's that's those are the city.

Now there are some uh private cameras that have them.

Then you have capital police that have them, and you have um some other surrounding areas that have tag readers that ultimately we can all tap into and be able to utilize those resources.

Uh another thing that we have to address, or we're talking about the real-time command center, we have to address the manpower allocation, being able to have somebody there to staff it.

We're still waiting on an uh interlocal agreement, MOU, uh, I think it's more of interlocal agreement with Capitol Police.

Uh the council has already moved forward with it.

We're waiting for them to get back with us so that we can have an agreement in place.

They want to help us, and they want to actually help staff the real-time command center uh also.

So we're waiting for that to be returned back to the city so that we can get that approved also.

All right.

Uh I understand how virtual policing work.

You ain't gotta have somebody sitting there all day, right?

Um but it helps.

It does help.

But I know that the officers, because like I said, we've been putting a lot of money to JPD, and I want to make sure that it is working.

Uh, because a lot of other departments have taken hits because of the money that we've dropped into JPD.

All right.

Um what can we do?

So we're currently yes or not.

We need these cameras.

Okay.

And I'm gonna take the fault for I'm gonna take the blame for it.

Even though I didn't give y'all the line item, what can we do today?

Mr.

President, yes, sir.

The easiest thing to do.

I understand there are a number of vacancies.

It's a lot easier and a lot faster to purchase cameras than fill vacancies.

I'm not trying to deprive the chief and the department of the positions they need, but you could easily take funding for three, four positions and say, for right now, I think we've got 30 vacancies in the department.

Correct.

Take some of that money and money and say, okay, these positions, uh, we're gonna take that money, go buy cameras.

Because we can get cameras in 90 days, it's unlikely we're gonna fill all the vacancies out there as quickly.

That's not to say we permanently remove the positions, right?

But it's you can make the decision on how to best use the funding.

And it's a one-time purchase.

Yes.

Well, but yeah, but like I said, I don't want to see, because again, we got a lot of residents who are loving where we are with the virtual police.

And I don't want to see any kind of stoppage, especially over how much is this last invoice?

Because we we're in a transition and this stuff was put into place before y'all got here, all right.

And I understand, Chief Jones, it may not have gone through your office, but the last CFO told me it was there.

And as one of the legislators for this city and the people who hold this this wallet, what can we do today to make sure that we don't stop the momentum?

Especially if I can add to that, because the the fiscal year is already a quarter of the way through.

And so if we have 30 positions that have been vacant, then a quarter of that that we had allocated for is is now no longer spent.

And so I think that's a a piece to remember too.

And then I'll also say having no money is is I think a reasonable thing to consider because we I mean, we just got back the audit, we you know, we're just going through some of these processes, but I'm also disappointed to hear that there was a process error.

And so I'm wondering, because it it sounds like if and please correct me if I'm wrong, had there not been a pro, it sounds like somebody submitted this in the time it took to get it.

We realized there was a process where we said we can't make this purchase because something went wrong in the process.

And while that was happening, we simultaneously realized we don't got enough money.

And so there was two things happening at once, but had that process error not occurred, then we would have placed this order a minute ago.

And so, in addition to making sure that we find funds to reallocate, I'd also like to get to the bottom of what the process error was, so that we can make sure that we're getting it through.

Correct.

And so the process error became from the steps should be to secure a purchase order for you know these type of purchases, and that was not done.

Okay, and that would be the responsibility of the police department, yes.

Okay, and we're already addressing that council members because we have re-in implemented uh monthly fiscal staff meetings that are led by the purchasing department entering to the CFO, in which we're putting all these people in the room, so we don't continue to have those sort of errors.

And these are largely once once a month staff provides bullet points as to what uh the CFO staff is saying, and then likewise it's an education back and forth.

So, yes, we are addressing to do that.

Those also tie into our audit findings and other places.

So we've got to do better at that.

We can't have process funding errors.

We come in here and discuss and wrestle with process errors, the CFNO, CFO and I have already tried to take that uh bull by the horns and our addressing.

And I also think too, maybe the message got mixed in the transition.

Because again, my my understanding is different from you know, uh, you got something to say.

Vincent Grizzelle Assistant Chief.

So let me take the blame on what it looks like as far as the cameras being delivered.

After solution works and warrants each and every camera we have in Jackson.

So they bring cameras delete inside of the real-time command center and not in the truck.

When I receive, of course, Chief was out of town.

When I receive the invoice, when I noticed at 206, and I sent it to you, and I kept it under the mount that you requested, and I sent it to physical fairs, and get rid of by time I got ready to get rid of my last meeting to do the procurement process that we were taught by Kent.

That's when uh Sam Brown told me that they brought the cameras here, they just stored them in the thing, they're not programmed, nobody signed for them.

So we're not actually responsible for them, but they don't leave them in a truck because wildlife was broken into.

So they have a truck, because with City don't have a bucket truck to use.

So they leave a truck up on the hill and they bring parts, those cameras.

They have to be programmed, allocated, and also tested, uploaded to the cloud before anything gets done.

So by the time I send it to my chief, uh at 223, I got a response, but he wasn't in town for us to actually discuss the logistics of it for me to do the procurement process.

So that's what a delay was.

The day that I was confirmed, uh president, you told me to watch the money.

I did, and I mean so um when I see that an order had been delivered, and you have a company saying, I've delivered your products, we want our money, and I find out the money is not there, then we're in a bad situation because before you make any purchase or before anything is delivered, a PO has to be secured.

And in this matter, there was not a PO secured.

So you have no PO, you have goods delivered, and you don't have the identification of the sources for this purchase.

That's why that particular project at that time was put on hop on hold because of my understanding the funding was not there and it had been done improper because a PO had not been secured.

Now, I spoke with uh City Legal about this issue at that time, and she just uh reiterated that we can still what's the word you use, ratify, right?

Ratify the purchase if the funds are available at a purchase order is secured.

We can still move forward with that, but we have to go through those two processes before we can do that.

What needs to happen today?

Because I don't want to keep it.

Before we do that, let me just real quickly give appreciation because this is an example where the internal controls worked, where it was caught and there's collaboration between uh the chief, uh the CFO, the CAO, the the city attorney's office, and so I totally agree.

We need to move to what needs to happen because we all agree this is a priority, but I just want to uh as someone who constantly talks about processes.

This is an example where the processes worked, and we had good strong internal controls, and so I want to appreciate everybody in the system who uh you know mistakes happened, but we had the controls to catch the mistakes, and so we can learn from it, and now we can work to address it.

But I want to appreciate everybody who who made who made sure that that we didn't get into a sticky situation.

I appreciate that.

Um happy council, happy administration.

Yes, sir.

What can we do today?

I think we can place an agenda item on for December 30th that identifies a funding source uh for the cameras that were reasonably anticipated.

Make sure the purchase is done correctly, but that shouldn't take much time to get a proper purchase order and bring that to you on December 30th.

I know we're trying to have a short meeting that day, um, but this is a time sensitive matter, and we've got five of you here who express support for this.

Um, but this is a time-sensitive matter, and we've got five of you here who express support for this.

Thank you.

And um, I guess that's it.

But Ted don't be dropping off no cameras before we handle our stuff.

That's uh just I've I understand how it's been working.

I understand the relationships.

We got a new administration now.

They just can't be doing that all willy-nilly, and we do get our cameras colleagues.

All right.

So um, is there anything else coming for this body?

Oh, yes, sir.

Oh, like we kind of talked about that already, but if you want to.

I think we should.

Well, I just wanted to um again uh um where you go on our CFO and I had talked about uh the financial part.

I've had some inquiries about that, and I just wanted to hear how we're doing on lightings and funding for that.

Yes, so the budget currently has available 270,000 for parks lighting, and that that is separate from um the Grove Park um upgrades that have been discussed.

Okay, uh, were there any earmarks for uh for um uh pitman park?

Yes, that's that's included in the 270.

Okay, I have uh there's neighbors around there that are really uh, you know, that's one of the gateways and feeding spot for a lot of the homeless uh folks uh that come into Jackson, and they are very concerned about safety and security due to not having lighting there.

So uh, do you know if there's a specific amount or what's gonna happen next?

So the parks department had been handling the the um dealings with integy to get those lights upgraded and installed.

Okay, and you don't know of a time frame or anything.

I do not do no point of contact for that project.

Shannon Kelly um was the person we were working with, which is the fiscal staff person for the parks department.

Okay, I'll also say uh if we're throwing out individual parks, uh Battlefield Park is one that could really use some lighting.

And uh my belief is any dollar invested in uh lighting for Battlefield Park is actually gonna come right back to us because they are not able to do their tennis program in the evening times during daylight savings hours, um, because people are just so afraid to leave, like come and go with without proper lighting.

But if we can light that up, then in uh, you know, because in Mississippi, you can have outdoor tennis in September, October, November, sometimes even December, um, and pick it up again in March.

And so, but it still gets dark.

And if we can light that up, then we could bring in some revenues and increase the tenants programming that happens in that park.

Yes, and Battlefield Park is one of the parts that they have been looking into.

All right, very good.

Is there anything else, colleagues?

You all have been really great today, and I really appreciate your time.

You know, I don't, you know, I don't like having long meetings, but I think we got a lot accomplished today.

Uh, and I'm really excited about where we're headed.

So if there's nothing else coming for this body, we are adjourned.