I'd like to call to order a meeting of the planning and economic development committee of the city of Jackson.

It's um February the 5th, 2026.

Schedule meeting started at 1.30, so we're three minutes behind schedule.

But I appreciate the attendance of four members of the council here in the chambers, Councilman Parkinson, Councilwoman Round Thomas, Councilman Hartley, myself, and then Councilman Grizzell is on.

Are you on present online?

Councilman President Grizel.

His name's up there.

He's on mute.

He may have stepped away.

Okay.

But we've got a quorum so we can get started.

Good too.

The and we also have Ms.

Graves, Matthew Graves, and Mr.

Brunson from Code Enforcement and the departments we want to focus on today.

The uh the agenda items are listed just in bullet points, commercial blight, cleanup of residential properties, code enforcement plans to address, and then discussion of the code enforcement's current current fiscal year budget and year-to-date expenditures for demon demolition cleanups projects currently underway and anticipated in the future.

And I want to get into that more in detail.

So the um one of the points that I want to get to on commercial blight.

If we could start out with commercial blight, which is a real um burr under my saddle, uh that that I just it drives me crazy because sometimes it just takes forever to get anything done on projects that really need to get done.

And the um uh as a as a starting point, if I could ask either Miss Graves or or Mr.

Brunson to sort of give us an update on where we stand with with commercial blight as far as projects that are underway or people have been notified and in sort of maybe a dashboard of where we stand right now with commercial blight here at the beginning of the beginning of February.

Well, commercial bright blight.

Uh as you say, it takes a little longer than the residential because so many entities you have to get in contact with.

But right now, we are uh some of the biggest projects we'll have.

Excuse me, you may want to put it mic.

Some of the biggest projects we have is uh uh Coca-Cola, which is completed today, uh give some grocery stores, uh and think we're trying to target places and yes, also 349 apprentice.

I know that's been uh I saw Mr.

Stokes area for a long time, so that has been started on too.

We are currently have about 500,000 left in the commercial properties uh account, but we have some of this been already uh gear uh earmarked towards some of the other projects that we have.

We have a lot of different the projects of Freeman, Mr.

Harlett area, just a lot of small buildings like uh 737 McDowell Road that we that that is down, uh and some of the stuff we targeted on Bobby Rush Boulevard at the corner there than Highway 80, the old shell station.

Uh we have dealt a lot on highway 80 uh with District 71 money and some of our own money.

We have the project on Ellis Avenue 520 uh 1525 Ellis Avenue.

We cleaned up the rubbish there.

Uh so we're working through a contract on that.

I think that's gonna be another what 167,000, 200 some thousand dollars from this 500 uh thousand dollars that we have here.

And we also looking for other commercial properties that we've handled.

I think we are I've been getting a lot of calls targeting uh the old Virginia College that's um 5341 uh Ridgewood.

So we know so we got a thing in hand, but we try to be careful because with commercial property, you can go over this budget easily.

Uh one project can really take you know over this budget that we use in residential money for commercial uh properties.

Okay, the couple things on that, and I'm gonna let other people bring in to me.

One of the things we really need to kind of figure out is okay.

Let me start over.

Thank you.

Let me make mention a couple of points on commercial properties because I I think it's really important.

Um, and that is that the um too often by the time we get engaged with it, the parties have left, or they they are not willing to put any money up.

And and so we end up having either having Jeff Rent the Judge Randall, or is it Jeff?

It's rentals, excuse me.

Judge Reynolds has to strong arm and try to get them to pay some money or or uh pursue them, and oftentimes they're out of state, which makes it more difficult to pursue.

So we've got to come up with a um a way to be more proactive to identify these things earlier and pursue the people while they'll st why they've still got skin in the game where where they have a vested interest in the thing being fixed or sold, rather than just run into the ground and then walk away and go to some, you know, uh out of the state where it's hard for us to pursue them.

And the um I noticed just in the past week or so that the the further up north of where the Virginia College is, there was this restaurant there, the bulldog restaurant that has been torn down.

And I didn't know uh that um I don't know whether we were the the catalyst for that or whether the the whoever owns that property decided to tear it down.

Um but I hope we didn't spend any money on that.

That's a good thing.

So if to the extent that there's gonna be properties torn down, I I think it behooves us to be in a forward-leaning position and get other people to pay down a turn down torn down and not us.

The um and with that in mind, I uh I I can't help but wonder if if we could come up with a um maybe some kind of blight dashboard for both a dashboard for the blight housing and a blight dashboard for commercial properties where we could, you know, the the big thing would be to identify what are the problem, you know, what are the what are the ones that are are candidates to be on the blight list?

And if we have maybe there's five, maybe there's 25, I don't know, but you have those candidates, and then the council members, the leader the city's leadership can reach out to those businesses.

It shouldn't be up to a code enforcement officer.

In that case, the the city's leaders should reach out to those businesses and say, hey, you gotta get your your property squared away if you want to continue to do business here, and and we're not gonna let you just walk away from it.

And if we can that dashboard might be helpful to us in identifying, so here's the hot spot for things that that um uh we need to focus on so we can identify them early on where we can hold them accountable before they decide to just leave town.

Anyway, that's just a couple of thoughts I've got.

And does some Mr.

Harman?

I want to add to that.

Uh you know, we we constantly, as some folks, we leave the Jackson area.

They're leaving these abandoned properties, and I agree with my colleague here that we need to do something, uh, especially with commercial, and we'll talk later about our budget for commercial demolition.

But if we could do something to intervene before they fully pull it out, I don't know how we can do that.

Okay, but um I I think that's that's one of the things that's needed here.

Today I found out about an apartment over there on my uh over on Bobby Rush Boulevard.

I got a call from one of the tenants said that hey, they had been given uh they have been given uh 60 days to leave.

I haven't verified all that.

Um and if you guys know anything, let me know.

But the vintage apartments.

Yes, we do.

You're aware of it.

Yes, uh, we have we have been in talk with them.

That matter of fact, they did uh send the representative to the court when we took them to court, and uh that's how we found out about the 60 days that they give them to leave, and they do have a plan to secure them, uh remodel them or try to sell it and keep the propped up.

They also are hiring securities to be on the property, remove the garbage dumpsters.

So there they have been in talk with, and just to piggyback back off, was you say Mr.

Footz about um the commercial property, uh we got to have more than just code enforcement doors.

We have this thing called tax sales every year.

And when this goes on, we won't know who owned their property.

It might be to February of the next year, but we actually find out who who bought it, who paid taxes on it.

And so those kind of things changes and and and also we won't know when the business that left.

This day you know you'll see a win is uh McDonald's by the Jackson Mall next day boarded up.

No, the next that me just buy something that night the next day is boarded up.

When they stop paying their taxes the first year or so, that kind of got to be a flag, but none of that is not data base.

That's the counties.

So we're gonna have to have partnerships all the way across the board with stuff like that for us to get a hold of stuff like that.

And just like Virginia College, no, structurally, no, it's just it's just no problem.

It's just the vagrants.

It's the it's to keep tearing the boards down when we're boarding.

And now that it's going to the state, we can move a little easier on it.

But uh we got to find a way that all this database works together.

For the time we get the call on this, this they gone.

Uh someone broke in, wires have been taken out.

And so, you know, our approach to it is like uh Pro Act uh reacted to what happened to still the proactive.

And so I think we got uh database for us when someone stopped paying their previous license and start getting all those kind of license.

We do have that part of our database that we can look at, but we got to have kind of like centralized of kind of like what code enforcement thing.

So those are different kinds of cold enforcement officers that would go out for that.

So we got to have something that red flags us say, hey, let's talk to these people before they leave.

What kind of incentives they need to stay?

You know, though uh uh, because if they close down something then in Georgia and Atlanta, Georgia change the branch here gonna close down too.

So it's just it's just not a one fixed thing, you know.

We just we just reacted to what we see.

Okay, uh, I think the director, did you want to chime in?

Yeah.

Yes, uh Angela Brown, planning and development director.

Just in terms of being more proactive in terms of the business space on the economic development side of the planning development department, we are trying to do a little restriction right now, but one of the things we do want to focus on is business retention.

Uh, we don't have a lot of gaze engagement with the current businesses that do exist.

And um, I think that is um adding to some of the departure that we're seeing, and so we do want to be more proactive and having a person that's actively engaging with the businesses that are in Jackson, understanding their needs.

Um, hopefully we can develop a rapport with them so when they are getting ready to leave, we're notified in advance so we can try to address some of these before they get to a place of needing to be demoed and um adding to the blight of our community.

So those are some of the things that we're thinking about uh implementing as we kind of work to restructure our department.

Okay, Mr.

Barkins.

Thank you, and thank you for that.

Um, Mr.

Brunson, I think you bring up a really good point that if we could be looking at licenses, for example, that can give us an indication before too long.

Even that give is just annually, right?

And and we just get that from the county.

I'm also wondering another potential way to approach that situation is to establish relationships with utility providers or even our own water provider.

Because if somebody stops paying, if a if a commercial property stops paying their water bill after two or three months, or it's gone two, three months without them paying a water bill, that could be a big red flag for us that the business could be in trouble and the opportunity to interview then before we find out, oh, it's been a year, they stopped paying their taxes, and then they just close out, move out, and go away.

And I agree, and we do have cities do uh used to have a uh something in place like that called the water bill.

So we got in a lot of trouble with that with departments not paying their water bill.

You can tell about the management of companies that do the same thing.

When they start paying those bills, like you said, the light bill, it's hard to get uh energy to give you that kind of information.

Sure.

For one thing, but but when it comes to water, that's what that's pretty much the the first utility they stopped paying.

So yeah, that I that's a really great point by both Mr.

Brunson and Mr.

Parkinson.

I mean, I was uh it was shocking last, I guess it was last spring, or was it like whenever it was when Judge Wingate had the hearing and he had held the list up there?

Here's you know, 10 apartments that are behind hundreds of thousands of dollars in their water bills that they hadn't paid for years.

We didn't know that.

And and obviously some of them ended up being blight, like the one down um Blossom.

Chateau Ridgeland or Chapel Ridge.

Oh my gosh, what a nightmare.

And they hadn't paid their bill in like a year, their water bill.

They hadn't paid their garbage for about six months, and waste management finally just stopped picking up their garbage, and it just became um, you know, um a big huge mess before we could really respond to it.

So uh I think the billing, the licensing, all that stuff would be great um to put on our whether it's on a dashboard or warning lights that you know the brakes aren't working or whatever might be on your dashboard, so that you can you can prepare for it and take some action to address it.

I mean, it was just uh embarrassing that all those people had not been paying their water bills and we didn't even know about it.

City didn't even some of them is before even when we were running the water department, we didn't they run paying the reader, but excellent points.

Any other yeah, uh yeah, okay.

So I'll just say, you know, as I think about commercial blight, you can think about it in um a few different buckets.

It on one hand, it's it's a uh resource allocation problem, and and we just don't have enough money to go tackle every single blighted issue that we have.

Uh on one end, it's a process issue, right?

Do we have enough people?

Do we have enough uh do we have a smooth process of going from identification to to knock down?

Um, and then what we've been talking about on this last bullet point is it's an information management problem, and do we have all the the information we need sort of centralized to know um where are the hotspots and and what's kind of coming down the pike?

Um, and to that end, I'm wondering even something as basic as um do we have a list of every business in the city?

I mean, obviously, everyone submits they have to get business licenses, so we would have a file of them somewhere, but do we combine all that information?

Like if we wanted to say what you know, a list of every single business in Jackson with either a mailing address or a contact name or something of that sort.

Do we have a database like that that we can just pull?

Okay, we do not.

Yeah.

Um, I wonder if we don't have business licenses that we talked about.

I am not aware of one.

I know we do have those that have registered, but we also have businesses that have not.

Um, and so we've talked about as part of this, how do we get in front of some of these businesses to try to get them to get their business licenses and be more proactive in that as well?

But um, and we're trying to partner with the chambers and other organizations that do have a more uh comprehensive business they work with, sorry.

I'm sorry if you could stay until the mic, I would really appreciate it.

Okay, sorry about that.

Uh thank you.

And so working with some of the other organizations, downtown partners, the chambers with them, they hold regular meetings to try and they have lists that we can try to partner with and get some of that information as well.

But I don't know if a comprehensive list that exists.

Yeah, because that I mean, if we don't even know what are the businesses in Jackson, then it's gonna be, I mean, not that we don't, but we if we have them all centralized in sort of one spot, I think that's gonna help.

And it'll even help in terms of um regular communication.

Maybe we do a mail or a quarterly or a biannual or once a you know, once a year message to our businesses where we both solicit their input and want to, you know, hear how we can support you, but we also highlight for them here's some things that we need you to know, and and you know, remind them of the code, remind them of what's expected of them.

Um, but I think step one is getting getting a list of what are the businesses in Jackson.

And also for um Miss Fallon, do we have uh update on the Kroger's Ontario Road about that building?

Is it an update?

Uh we did have the uh the owners did come clean it up.

Uh also we did a sweep down there to clean up the on the two weeks ago, but I think they're uh they had a buyer for it and it failed through.

So this that's one of the things.

Because they had to off the boards again.

Right.

Again, yes.

Uh some of the and just going out to those kinds of owners every time they do something to improve and it's get torn down.

It's just uh it's something we can't can't govern because they will boil it up, secure it, and every time they'll put something in, it'll be taken out.

Uh you know, crime is the thing too for us, you know, uh trying to stay ahead of stuff like that.

They have they have been a good owner for us, no, clean around the back.

I can't tell you how many times someone will dump them the back of it that they cleaned up, but it's just trying to get it to the uh to the right uh person that can come and uh remodel, put something else there.

Yeah, I think we would probably all agree that if there's as we talk about commercial polite, putting a big emphasis on anything that could potentially be a grocery store, because we've talked a lot about site development and having stores and locations ready to roll out so that as soon as somebody expresses interest, we can show them four or five potential locations.

Um and we've seen from plenty of examples, it doesn't take long for a place to go from basically turnkey ready to just completely destroyed.

And so uh I I think that would probably be an equation.

What's that?

Uh that's the scene.

I got a couple questions.

Um turn key ready.

That's gonna be the realtor of the owner of the property.

That's not the city role, and most cities don't go in and do what we're saying.

Oh, of course.

And we do have a list of businesses in Jackson.

The Hines County can provide you with everybody that pays taxes.

Uh and businesses generally, if they rent, they pay personal property taxes.

So that list is writtenly available to the city of Jackson.

Every county has it.

Well, let me uh uh interject one point, Miss Clay.

Thank you for being here on the on the call with us.

The um what I like to do is task um Ms.

Brown with the challenge or the the task of coming up with a list of all the businesses, and you can use the whatever tax rolls, the licensing, you know, the variety of different tools that are available to come up with a list like that.

So if if you could take responsibility for that, I mean it may take a while uh to to put all the pieces together, but I think that would be a good starting point for us for future discussions a month from now or whenever Mr.

Hartley.

Yeah, and and I agree, please come up, please.

Uh Ms.

Angela Moore, Angela Brown, Planning Development Director.

I agree.

We need a comprehensive database.

We can get it from CMP DD.

They may have some information we can get from Hines County, but we need that within the system within the City of Jackson GIS department.

Uh I asked for a list of business or map, and uh it was uh very much outdated and complete.

So I agree if we can do that.

I do have another question.

Do we have uh are we on the list uh somewhere in the department with the health department?

If they go in and condemn an apartment or something like that, would we know about it?

Um or do I mean is there anyone within you know the you know, the city that would pay attention to that kind of stuff?

Because sometimes we can get a heads up on the decay of a building.

So I don't think this has been a partnership in my department, at least not that I'm aware of today.

Okay, uh, but I think that's some follow-up I can take back to connect with the health department.

Okay.

It's especially with the with the apartments.

Uh I'm seeing more and more of these apartments uh deteriorate.

And then the people sometimes are left in an emergency situation where the city has to step in, and then sometimes they'll put an ultimatum.

Hey, we're giving our uh tenants uh two months, uh they have to find uh location.

And I and I think we discussed it earlier, coming up with some type of procedure.

So when that happens, we like Chapel Ridge initially started out as a public health emergency because of all the garbage and stuff.

But then we we fixed that, the city and others went in and and patched that up.

But then we have to you know make sure the water stayed on, giving these folks an opportunity.

But at some point, you know, when the when the business uh says that okay, tenants uh you're gonna leave, then it's not a whole lot we can do.

Uh but uh we're just trying to get a handle on it.

And uh and these apartments too, they really have to be boarded up, you know, airtight, because we're gonna have squatters going in there.

Right.

And people are gonna go in there and do a lot of damage.

So the next person that comes on about uh is gonna have to start paying a lot of money to get fixed up.

Yes, sir.

We do work with the health department, they will call us on their help, something, and we we do have a contact person with them, and also we do work with hood, because a lot of the apartment complexes are on the hood jurisdiction.

So we do work you know hand in hand with them at times to because like the chapter reads, some of those had did have vouchers, no, that they could move on, but they chose not to move, as you know how that was.

So we do work with both of those entities, though, of the health department in uh hood.

I got follow-up question on that.

The and that is um who is does the city have a contact person that has a relationship with HUD so that um they we can reach out to them and then we they know who we are and we have a good working relationship with them.

Who and who is that if that's we do hood is a little different than because depending on what it is with them to come to hood, you know, if it's an apartment or house or you know, and they do do they some of their own inspections, they do have officers that go out to inspect the apartments uh for uh supposed to be for every year that someone live in it, but we do have a relationship with them.

If they make an if they inspection and if they inspect our apartment and find it, you know, uh coming up short.

Do they inform the city?

Do they inform us that they do get calls from them too?

What's that?

That we do get calls from them if they have to complain.

I'd like to be informed by them if they if they you know find a apartment complex not meeting their standards.

I think the city of Jackson ought to know about it so we can be, you know, proactive and trying to deal with it.

So good.

The um one thing that let me on your on your list that you're gonna work on.

If you could make it user friendly for council members.

So if we come across some place and it's it's run down or whatever, that we could refer to that list.

I could ask my my clerk to refer to the list, and she she'd have an phone number on there or contact that we could reach out to them and say, hey, what's going on here?

And and not have to try to dig that up through the the tax off, you know, through the property rolls or whatever.

If if that could be a a list that's user-friendly for us and also for the code enforcement.

And I will say through the market value analysis report, they do have a blight map that um we're gonna partner with working together, Jackson to try to post on our website.

So there are some dashboards and uh mapping uh resources that we'll have coming up from that experience.

So that's great.

It'll be able to track some of this.

I don't think it has commercial.

I did I definitely know it's residential, but we'll have that from the residential side.

So, sir, on that same subject.

We are we're we do have a uh ordinance that called vacant registration properties.

So we just rewriting that now to conclude business.

If you're going, we need to know it's vacant.

Uh-huh.

That means you have to complete all code violations before you leave, and and we put a placard on the building.

So what the who's uh who to call, yeah, who owned it and stuff like that.

So we rewriting that.

So uh, I think a lot of businesses and and residents don't know that if you if your house becomes vacant, you're supposed to register as that vacant registration properties.

Okay.

I tell you the one that I remember in the past, you know, going back several years, were the businesses that had ownership way up in New York City or New Jersey or someplace.

And we had a hell of a time trying to get just in to talk with get in touch with them.

So the the contact information can make you know facilitate a much more rapid response on our part of the city, whether it's code enforcement or the city councilman or whatever.

Mr.

Foot, this sort of gets into item two, which I'm very excited to discuss, but I I think I just want to uh emphasize what Mr.

Bronson just said, because I I had just heard about this myself.

I knew we we took some work on a rental registration program and got that back up and running after all the issues and this, that the other.

Um but I learned recently that we have a vacant registration process that already on the books, and please correct me if I'm wrong.

If you're a home, if you own a property, a home, whatever, and it becomes vacant.

I I believe you have 30 to 60 days or or something of that sort.

You have to call the city and you have to register that property as a vacant property.

Do we have a single house on that vacant property list?

Yeah, we have a few.

Um that the company thin.

So we are rewriting it um just to re-launge it uh and change in the wording.

That's great.

And I think we're gonna need to do a huge education push on this.

Um, because we know we have more than just a couple of vacant houses.

So um, and I believe the property owner can be held responsible if they do not uh notify within the whatever the window is that.

That's something to Paul we're working on to make an appenity if you don't.

So a lot of times we have these different ordinance and rules, but we don't have no nothing to go to no teeth in it, put it that way.

If you don't do this, this is what it costs.

It costs you more not to do it.

But it also helps sell the house is like free advertising.

It's got the blue plaque and say they I own it.

You call me this number, and but it's but also make sure the properties are free of code.

So the cold enforcement officer put this on the property.

So they check for code violation first.

So we have a person to contact, so want to take a board off and call someone.

So it works.

Let's move since we got started on this.

Now let's move to item two, which is clean up of residential properties, code of code enforcement plans to address.

And so, I mean, this is something that's near and dear to all of our hearts, you know, this list of cleanups and trying to get them cleaned up and without spending all of our money.

The can you bring us up to date of kind of how many we've got and where we stand?

From I'm just gonna take us back to uh January 2025 until today, we have 6,000 56 properties.

That's the city.

In the city, let me 6,056.

Is that residential?

This residential and commercial property.

Total cases we have.

Um from October of this year of last year, our physical year start, we have 1,527 cases.

That's up to date.

So we're we're down from 6,056.

No, that's a part of the 6,000.

So we haven't cured 6,000 cases.

So and we came to the reality that we had like 350 something owners complied.

Our business complied.

So when we say with the fight on blight, this is real numbers.

Okay.

This was this is what we're up against, no, uh, to try to cure.

So we gotta come over unique ways of why we take people to environmental court to get uh if you can't clean it up, we can just give you 90 days while we clean it up, you know, in jail.

So we we're working with judge the judges to to put to impose more penalties, you know, stop to slap on the hand, because we're in uh we're in triage and we we still try to treat this like it's gonna just go away.

It's not you don't get um 4800 cases in one year.

Don't mean that the 3,000 you had the year before were cured.

Quick question.

I know that you used to provide Mr.

Ward that fantastic spreadsheets showing the updates on the properties that it's in court.

Do you still do that?

We st we still do that.

Uh do you have a copy of it that you can send me?

Uh yeah, I can send you um something for your ward, you know.

Uh you can get the whole spreadsheet of the all all the case if you want to.

Uh the other shows that's um where where is that in the system, if it's been to court, you know, if you need to go to court.

And our job is that we have to trust what people say.

Somebody said they're gonna clean up, we have to trust it.

Sometimes that don't happen.

So we have the individual taking the court.

And some people just can't take care of some properties.

So we got to come up with ways or programs or some kind of referral program to help those someone eighty, eight or five years old, just can't do it.

You know, we have to come up with a way to uh we have ordinance that's around schools and churches, uh the uh the 1500 square feet, but we got to be serious about the penalties for that.

And and speaking of penalties, uh my question is this is there anything this council can do to change an ordinance, change the penalty, or or anything along that line.

I think there is something that the the that we can do as a city.

We can start making some of this stuff a civil debt.

Okay.

No, and stop just going out to the way from the property.

We have an attorney online.

Walk away from the property, it goes for taxes, and we turn it down for 10,000.

Now the land is worth 200.

We will never get that back.

But this person can walk away, and this person can have a hundred houses and go to tax sales and buy some more houses.

So we got the limit that who can go to tax sales at LLC.

If you got 80 houses and 70 percent of them in the violation, we're letting you buy more to hold on to it.

Right.

I I'm concerned that uh that I think we need an agenda item just for the penalty part.

I mean, maybe in our next meeting.

We have to do something to get folks' attention and something drastic.

Um and this of question maybe for the attorney online.

Uh, you know, I have some corner businesses, just leaving whatever there.

And uh, like the shell station on 80 and Bobby Rush, you know, uh like um uh like the area over there on uh uh Lynch Street uh down from Jubilee.

There's cases where the major eyesores do the council have subpoena power.

Can we just call someone in and say, look, you're invited, Mr.

Owner here.

You got a major part, a big eyesore here, and this is your special meeting in front of your city councilman to say clean it up, get with the community.

I I don't know if that would help, but we need some options.

We need some stuff to to put for put in our hands so we can vote on.

This thing is serious, it's very serious, and it's getting worse.

So anything we can do to get folks' attention, you know, let us know ordinance, penalties, direct meetings, subpoenas.

I I want that guy that owns uh the shell station in front of me.

I want an official hearing.

Hey, boom, hey, you got this thing here.

Uh you need to clean it up.

You're hurting our community.

And and and no reason, there's no reason these people have money, they have resources.

They're just not using it, and we got to get their attention.

So uh another question um to this is uh a hairball of an issue trying to solve this.

One is the we've got a lot of these homes that are owned by people who don't live in Jackson.

And and I find that you know frustrating at one level.

Um but that's just the nature of you've in fact, even the president of the United States came out and weighing in saying that he didn't like the idea of private equity buying homes.

And then they buy them, you know, thousands of them in neighborhoods in Denver and this, you know, cities all over the place.

And they probably own some, I don't know if they only private equity, but those people usually have lots and lots of money.

And I don't know if they've got ownership here in Jackson, but if we know knew that, um if there was some way we could know the nature of the owners, um, whether it's you know, maybe it's through an LLC or if it's you know something we can track down, um the so that those people that we know have sufficient resources that we can hold them to account and get them to fix their home and not us fixing it because we can't get a hold of them or whatever.

I you know, I don't that's information that that uh maybe um Ms.

Brown can help us track down for the list or something.

I think it's our from the beginning when you come to uh a site plan say you bring something to Jackson, we want to know where you already at.

No, no, how they feel about you.

No, no, no, council members in the northern city uh accounting all of them is no they have in the problem with uh you already have that you have co-violations, and also you can kind of see what kind of people that we're allowing to come here.

Like we talk about the store on uh Elders Avenue, then that he owns just their store.

Yeah, you know the other ones that make a profit, you know, but just that just don't bring money.

So we just we're we're we just got to gather the store from the beginning and see who we bring it in here in the screen.

Mr.

President, can we put just as uh agenda item maybe for the next meeting, just the brainstorm, and you guys can brainstorm out there with the attorney, just to brainstorm penalty issues, enforcement.

How do we get more compliance?

Because we we're letting folks get away with murder, and sometimes it's literally leaving a building vacant, and they have resources, you know, and and it's just no need.

We need to, you know, I'm not sure the answer, I'm not sure even approach, but I know you all have some good ideas because you have to do it all the time.

Perhaps a meeting with you all in legal, but we need a part where we come in here and say, hey, what are some ideas here?

Put it forward and we'll get into the legislation and we'll we'll get it done.

Is there a way to find out from the property whether property is uh rented out, whether it's owner occupied well, we do have rental registration, they require to register the house that they rented out.

So they haven't registered, let's just say, I mean, I'm sorry.

So this is just another sort of information point.

This goes back to um what councilman Parkinson said about the information process.

That we need we need information so we can make you know timely and informed decisions, then y'all can make informed decisions as well in a timely manner, and we don't spend all our time, you know, digging through tax records or something to find something that that uh ought to be easily available.

So um, and I I think the rental part of a home is important, whether it's rented or or owner occupied for us to have that information that's available.

Um the um, I mean, there's there's so many things you can discuss this.

I think a brainstorming session is great with an attorney to tell us about the legal uh possibilities, what we can pursue and how hold how to hold whether it's a homeowner, owner occupied or a renter uh accountable for for keeping their property in good shape.

And um, I don't know we need to do that a at a scheduled council meeting, but we could have a brainstorming session with the attorney and just have it right here in a meeting like this.

Okay.

Yeah, uh I have a few things.

Um, I strongly agree with uh Mr.

Foote's recommendation on a dashboard.

And I don't think I don't think a dashboard would need to be anything fancy, and and I wouldn't want it to be anything that takes you out of the field because the the more that you're in the field, I think the better.

Um, but I think here's some of the issues is my understanding is if a car is parked the wrong way on a street or it's missing a tire or it's the wrong type of vehicle, that's a violation, right?

But if it happens in the street, my understanding is JPD can stick a sticker on the car, wait a few days, and then we can just tow that car and just get get rid of it.

But if a car is parked on someone's grass, or if they've left their house, uh the grass gets cut up too big, or or if there's any kind of violation, which is also a violation of our city, but if it happens on their property, that I've learned takes months and months and months and months and months to go through.

And I can appreciate that the state has a process to ensure due process, and you know, we can't just be going on people's property doing this, that, the other, you know, we got to give them a chance.

But what it's resulted in is if you park your car the wrong way on the street, that can be resolved within days.

If you do something on your property, it takes an exceedingly long amount of time.

And frankly, um, it's a convoluted process that uh I struggle to always follow in terms of what happens and and where.

And I I think people get very frustrated.

And if there could at least be a dashboard that indicates this is a property, you know, we're aware of the situation, and it that this step in the process, it will reassure the public that we're doing everything that we can.

You know, we're bound by you have to wait this many days to do this, and then we go to court, and then you wait that, and then we do this.

Um, we're bound by that.

There's not too much we can do about that.

Um, but if we can at least have a system that notifies people, and you know, maybe there's technology we can invest in.

I think it's great that you prepare spreadsheets for Mr.

Ward.

Um, but you know, it hopefully it's not something that takes 10 hours a week, but just something that I mean it could be a it could be a Google spreadsheet for all I care, but just something that you can look up and and let the public know we're aware of this, it's in the process, and and here is sort of the next steps.

I'm glad you mentioned that because you y'all must have been in my some of my meetings.

But um, we're already in the work in progress for that.

We're not trying to take if a car operable, yeah.

We want to citation to a citation for someone like this key parking grab.

But if it's inoperable, uh junk vehicle, we're gonna to a point that we're gonna tag it and just like the police would do on the street, so many days we're gonna tow it.

We're not trying to drag that in court anymore, because our ordinance do give us some leeway in there.

Okay, we're working on rewriting some things in it.

Uh that we can that's I agree with you.

They just tie a cold enforcement officer up for this car and do a month, then they move it.

But the car is one example, but but uh there's all kinds of code violations.

And and um sometimes I get even confused because one person will report it, and then your folks go out, they inspect it, they do an ADU, eventually it goes into court.

Let's say the court determines it's a public nuisance, then it comes to us, then we determine that it's a public nuisance, and and we might do hundreds of those every other Tuesday, and then um a fraction of the, you know, some of those, once that happens, they get their act together and they fix it on their own, but most do not.

And so then we have to uh pick of these, which ones are do we think is so severe that we're actually gonna go ahead and do it ourselves, and and then bids get put out, and then it comes in front of council and we approve the bid, and then the work goes to go get done, and I mean it's just a it's I mean, we're talking some if someone has a complaint about a house today in their neighborhood, it could be a year before we actually go do the demolishing or do the I mean whatever the work is.

I used a car as one specific example, which I'm glad that there's a solution for that.

But no matter what is, it just takes an unbelievable amount of time.

And I think you're going as fast as you can.

So this is not an install.

I mean, this is just truly it's a process.

I mean, we're just I mean, it it just you have to go through step one through step 100.

But if we can at least notify the public to say, okay, Bronson's done his thing, now it's in the city attorney's office.

Okay, now you know, next Tuesday it's going in front of court.

Uh, okay, now they've declared a public nuisance.

Now we need to get on the city council agenda.

Now it's here.

I mean, it just is a mind-boggling process.

And meanwhile, the public's looking at us like, why aren't you doing anything about this house that is obviously in terrible condition?

So I I think the dashboard is is going to be effective for that purpose.

And I think some of the things you mentioned when I have two or three coal enforcement officers at that time.

But I'm know y'all have paid attention this this year since I have more coal enforced officers.

We're on the we're trying to get everything cured by 90 days.

Either we got the money to do it or not, going to be out of our hands, though.

That means it to a point that we can cure it.

So that's what we look, I don't know.

You've seen the the 200 come across with this, the hundred and four.

There'll be I got some officers that do that.

I'd love to have more.

Get into court more faster.

And we're and hope you all won't be seeing much about cars and stuff like that in the more because we're gonna do environmental court that this judge ordered and we can immediately know go on that on that judge.

Uh, like real jurisdiction say I want to move in seven days.

No, so we can do that.

But with everything we're saying, it it costs money to cure.

It costs money to cure, but no more just hold trying to hold out a year now that all these also have an area.

I have one area that's not covered in in Jackson's.

I would love to have more co-inforce mobile.

Because you can get a lot more done faster.

Nowadays you can call before noon, we get an inspection that day.

So a lot haven't improved.

I'm very proud of that.

And we're doing uh we also doing a hundred inspections a day.

Uh well, I mean a hundred inspections a week, 20 a day.

So we we're we're in these areas.

And you should be proud.

I mean, I think you've you've done enormous work.

And and you know, our questions are more at the systems level, what can we do to support the system?

Because at the end of the day, the ideal situation is people just keep up with their properties on their own.

If that doesn't happen, the next best solution is we put them on notice and then they fix it on their own.

If that doesn't happen, then you go to the next.

But that the more that we can go, I mean, obviously, the worst case scenario is when someone just doesn't do what they're supposed to do.

We give them chance after chance after chance, we take them to court, we declare on public news, and all this other stuff, and then we have to step in and say, we're gonna do it ourselves, and then we're gonna we're gonna charge you, and and then we never get that money back.

That's the worst case scenario.

The next worst case scenario is we do all of that work, but at least they've paid us the money back.

The next worst case scenario is where we don't even have to do the work in the first place because they're doing it on their own.

The next, I mean, you just keep going down the line, and so you you the question is how do we get more people who aren't paying when we do the work to at least pay?

And then of the people who are at least paying, how do we get them to do it in the first place so that we never have to step in in the first place?

And then of the ones who are are doing it once we pastor them like crazy, how do we get them to do it without us having to pester them?

And you just work everyone down the ladder, and each one of those is gonna need new solutions.

Sometimes the solution is gonna be increase the penalty.

Sometimes the solution is more knowledge.

Sometimes the solution is, and I heard you say sometimes we have to trust people, and I can appreciate that spirit, but folks are running tired of trusting people when they're not doing what they're supposed to do.

So there's gonna be different solutions at each one of those stages, but it's just identifying what is what is the thing that could take some of these places and move them here and some of these places move them here and just work down the line.

We got to understand what work in some other cities too.

Um when you when you do a civil debt, you go get your license, guess what'd you flag?

Go get your tag, you flag.

We hold everything on property taxes.

Somebody don't pay their property tax, they walk away, but they still got to drive, though.

We we will know.

Listen, in the interest of of uh trying to wrap this up, so I appreciate everybody's comments.

Uh we've had today, both some of the council members and and the uh staff folks.

The um the last point I had down here on my my list was um code enforcement current fiscal year budget and year-to-date expenditures for demolition and cleanups.

How many projects or what projects currently underway and anticipated over the next, which will now be about um seven months, I guess.

Um or eight months, yeah, eight months.

Do you um where do you stand on your budget?

How do you spent how much have you spent versus how much you've got to spend?

Glad you brought that up.

We got nearly 400,000 worth of work to do.

Okay, it's been our our work that's been identified.

The work we got in the future, and that list growing every day.

Is that uh residential?

Residential and the fruit commercials in there that we have no over nearly 400,000 more that we have to do.

And you know our budget is now.

So versus what's how you where do you stand on your on the budget for the year?

122,000 for commercial demolition.

That's that's how much you've got left.

For uh general funds that we're using for residential, and then we have 95,000 for grass and weeds that's coming out of general funds.

We're down to 17,000 for district 71.

And for the highway 80, it was depleted with the Coca-Cola plant.

Okay.

So you're you don't have the 400,000 dollars of you've got 400,000 worth of work to do, but you don't have the money for that.

Is that what you're saying?

Exactly.

Okay.

Um do we know if our lobbyist is working on any grant money with the legislature, uh, whether it's for district 71 or anybody, any other districts can you give us update on that on what we might get for from the state legislature?

The state legislature and the C B C D B G, if there's any other opportunities.

Um, so the I know that we are actively um talking to legislation about trying to get additional allocation in terms of uh blight remediation and including demolitions.

I stepped out just for a hood call um just to talk about how do we have some more set aside for uh with C D BG for blights um for our city.

Um and so we're doing that with the federal office trying to get more allocation here in terms of our kind of local allocation that we currently have.

I think we have some dollars now that we're trying to move over for demolition.

That's not what you included in that, Sam.

Is that an addition, right?

Okay, so that's some dollars we're trying to move over now uh with money we have to spend out of our C D BG to push towards demolition at this point.

So I think at all levels we're trying to find as much money as we can to continue to help fund this service.

Okay, I I think it's really I do think there's an opportunity uh because of the new administration this year with the state legislature to get some funding, but they've got to be convinced that we're gonna be good stewards of it and put it to use in a meaningful way.

And I'm oh go ahead.

So anyway, that that's where your list and the dashboard and other things come into play that we've got a process, it's gonna be and we've been talking to HUD now.

I know we've had some issues with timeliness and just meeting some of the requirements, and so we're doing a lot of restructuring in our housing department to make sure that we're we're being accountable, moving our dollars out as fast as we can, and so that way they're able to advocate to get more money here because we're using what we have.

Okay, yeah.

And go ahead, Miss Brown.

Okay, how do y'all determine what properties or what areas that you all to for demo?

Yes.

And how do you split it in all seven wards?

It's it's it's not that we're pick out what we want to target.

We uh we're the only well, there's with two code enforcements in the state of Mississippi that pull their own asbestos.

This we are one of those that we have to go in and dress up Hazmat suit and put a space.

So that holds down on demo because you you have to pretty much put two or three guys in there.

We just got three guys certified to be able to do that.

So unless it's severely burned on the ground, it takes some takes some time.

But according to our policy, you know, uh, where's readiness, burnt structures, uh some of Maine thoroughfares, uh, around schools and churches, it's written like that.

So we're rewriting our uh policies to uh meet is supposed to build other community.

If I got seven on this street to turn down, and there's one on another street, I want to get these seven first.

They're thinking they're gonna it probably gonna be help a whole neighborhood out versus a dead edge street with one house on it.

So, but it's just it's about what you can pull a special sample for the longest just me and another officers had to do that.

Uh one and that's and that's a lot if you got thousand houses to pull as best of samples on it, you know.

So it's just not gonna demo this, and it's just you ready to demo it.

Yes, ma'am.

Mr.

Foot.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, uh, I thought we were trying to appeal that ruling because that is not a real ruling.

That ruling was set up for Jackson.

So, where are we at on appealing uh best uh best this ruling for Jackson?

Uh I don't know about that.

The I'm asking code enforcement.

He knows what I'm talking about.

Oh that that does not uh that ruling is only for for Jackson, right?

Everybody else, uh every other city that have to do that.

So I thought we were working on getting that overturned.

Yes, that would be a legal answer with uh where we're there.

I know we met on this some months ago.

Um, been trying to get it together.

And I know they can also be working on it.

So legal, yeah, legal needs to tell us, and we need to get rid of that because that's costing us money.

We're the only people that are doing it, and by law, we don't have to do that.

I will have to ask the journalists.

We don't have a representative.

Well, she's on my comment.

Yeah, Sergeant Monikier, Office of the City Attorney.

I can find out the information for you all.

I'll get with the city attorney and uh get you all the update.

Okay.

Excellent.

Thanks very much.

The I appreciate everybody's um participate participation in this meeting day and and uh a lot of the ideas that were brought forward, and we need to probably have another meeting just like this to follow up uh a month from now and or a few weeks from now.

A few weeks.

Okay, and um I'll be work working with Mr.

Hartley on trying to get that scheduled, and if everybody could just move forward and work on on all the projects and and you know come up with some good suggestions on you know the dashboard and other things like that, it'd be great.

And we also, if we need more code enforcement officers, let us know, you know, whatever.

And likewise, and if you identify any any in your um pots of money out there, let us know about that too.

So I'm gonna adjourn this meeting.