2025-12-19 Jackson City Council Public Safety and Parks Committee Meeting
2025-12-19 Jackson City Council Public Safety and Parks Committee Meeting
The Public Safety and Parks Committee of the Jackson City Council convened on December 19, 2025, to address critical infrastructure and safety concerns across the city's park system, law enforcement staffing, and municipal building security. The meeting focused on the urgent removal of hazardous dead trees, the operational limitations of the park ranger program, the need for enhanced security at City Hall, and the status of the city's camera surveillance system. Council members and administration officials discussed resource allocation challenges, the potential for public-private partnerships, and the necessity of aligning police programming hours with community needs.
Consent Calendar
- No routine approvals or unanimous consent items were discussed.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments or testimony are recorded in the transcript provided.
Discussion Items
- Park Safety and Hazardous Trees: Councilmembers expressed severe safety concerns regarding dead trees in parks, specifically Jamie Fowler Boiler Park, Battleship Park, and Westside Park. Positions were taken that these trees pose a threat of falling on pedestrians, blocking access to senior communities, and damaging power lines affecting 10,000 residents and the local fire station. Councilman Foote expressed strong support for addressing power line risks immediately, while Councilwoman Thomas noted the trees' impact on community festivals like Wells Fest.
- Tree Removal Funding and Partnerships: Council President Grizzell and staff reported that dead tree removal costs in Jamie Fowler Boiler Park were reduced from an estimated $250,000 to approximately $75,000 through on-site chipping and vendor creative solutions. Councilman Harley expressed full support for expanding public-private partnerships to reduce maintenance burdens, suggesting churches or local organizations could adopt parks for grass cutting in exchange for city funding for tools. Councilman Foote advocated for using reserve deputies and private landscapers to offset staffing shortages.
- Park Ranger Staffing and Hours: Council members expressed concern that the four current park rangers patrol only during daytime hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), creating a coverage gap for evening community programming such as gymnastics and sports leagues at parks like Francis Grove Park. Councilwoman Thomas expressed full opposition to the current deployment strategy, stating that four rangers for 54 parks is insufficient. The Chief of Police defended the current allocation, noting that rangers are required to respond to 9-1-1 calls if staffing shortages occur in precincts, effectively allowing their hours to vary based on city-wide emergency demands. Councilman Harley expressed support for better aligning patrol hours with programming needs and increasing reserves utilization.
- City Hall Security: Councilwoman Thomas and Councilman Harley expressed strong concern regarding the lack of screening to access City Hall, noting that unauthorized individuals have entered offices and left threatening notes on doors. They advocated for mandatory ID checks, photo badges, and escorted tours for visitors. Councilman Foreman noted personal safety concerns, mentioning past threats in the Hood building. The CAO agreed with the need for higher security standards, citing the 10,000 residents served by power lines as an analogy for the city's need to protect its infrastructure and staff.
- Camera Surveillance and Real-Time Command Center: Councilwoman Thomas and Councilman Harley expressed full support for expanding the camera system, describing it as a "force multiplier" essential for virtual policing. Councilwoman Carlwell expressed concern that the program stalled due to a process error regarding the purchase order and lack of funding, despite cameras being delivered. The CAO took accountability for not securing a specific line item in the budget, while Assistant Chief Vincent Grizzell explained that the order was placed without a Purchase Order (PO), causing the transaction to be halted.
Key Outcomes
- Tree Removal: The administration is proceeding with reducing costs through on-site chipping and seeking public-private partnerships, such as community groups adopting small parks for routine maintenance.
- Park Rangers: The meeting concluded with an agreement to schedule a follow-up discussion with the Chief of Police and Park Recreation Manager to align patrol hours with community programming needs and evaluate the use of reserve deputies.
- City Hall Security: The administration agreed to circle back with IT and the Police Chief to propose ID screening and badge requirements, with plans to discuss specific security measures in an upcoming executive session.
- Camera System: The council agreed to place an item on the December 30th agenda to identify a funding source for the delivered cameras and correct the purchase order process. The Chief reiterated that internal controls successfully flagged the missing PO, preventing an illegal expenditure.
- Lighting: $270,000 is currently budgeted for park lighting (including Pitman Park). Councilwoman Thomas requested specific updates on Pitman Park, while Councilman Harley recommended lighting improvements for Battlefield Park to enable evening tennis programming.
Meeting Transcript
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.
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