The Public Works Committee met on April 29, 2026, chaired by Councilman Foote. The committee discussed blight management, parks operations, and water/sewer infrastructure challenges. No formal votes were taken, but several directives were issued for developing a comprehensive blight plan and addressing service line issues.
Okay, I call to order the uh public works committee meeting for the city of Jackson on the agenda. We have uh hopefully if legal will when legal gets here, we can have that discussion on the Metro Jackson Water Authority, get an update from the city. But also uh while we wait, while we're here, I want to go through several items with the public works committee uh with the public works director. Mr. Anderson, how are you today? Doing just fine, sir. Thank you. Good, good. Okay. Um, you know, earlier we had discussions about coming up with a team approach. I think Councilman Foot uh started that discussion about having a team approach to going out and uh taking care of Blight. Okay. Um have you been doing any work or exploring those that concept? Yes, sir. We uh just uh Lorenzo Anderson Public Works Director. Uh we just left a meeting about Blight, but it was more on the demolition side, um, see what we could do internally for you know the housing and demolitions, but as far as the one point uh can you hear me? Okay, uh as far as the 1.4 million the 1.4 million, uh that's better. Yeah. Uh the 1.4 million dollars on equipment. Uh we are uh going to do it by cruise where uh in the past we didn't have the equipment and the personnel. Uh we are working with the parks personnel that we uh inherited for parks and rec. But once we get the priority list from uh administration and council on the number of parks that we want to do, we can schedule that out. Uh what I vision is uh dedicated blights where that's all they do. They do curb and gutters, they do tree removal, they do uh anything as far as blight, uh area that has been grown up. Um it's a nuisance uh dedicated net. Um, and I will um more than likely get a part of the list from the council on that too. Um concentrate on that area, that crew, uh move on to the next. Because once we we do it, we want do it, we want to do it more like a clearing and grubbing because it uh piecemeal, you know, uh going from the south side and one time and then going to you know, northwest or northeast Jackson. We want to make a visual impact and and have a schedule where we're gonna be in this area for two, three months out of the summer. Everyone can see the impact in the area, and then we move on to the next. But uh that's how we we plan on uh implementing the uh light program. Okay. Um questions about that. The um I've got a follow-up on concerning the equipment stuff that uh Councilman Hartley's worked so hard to uh get us to order and get in place. Um I have to go back to my days in the army when we had lots of equipment that's similar to what what branch you're in. But see, one of the things that um were you in the space for that was that were you in the Space Force? Was I in the one? Space Force. I I was in the U.S. Army. Okay. So the well, one of the things in the artillery was in the cavalry, which I was also in, but the was that um people had their own equipment and they were responsible for that equipment. It may be a Jeep driver, it might be you know, a Hummer driver, it might be a tank, it might be an ammunition carrier. But those people, you know, they knew where their equipment was. They you know, they took care of it because it had to work for them tomorrow and the next day. And I wonder what kind of setup we've got within the public works department and also JPD as well. They probably have their own cars that they drive, but I think there's you know, connecting the operators with the equipment so they can hold each other accountable. Uh, I think is an important part of of being operationally sound and being ready to go on the job at the first, you know, the crack of dawn or whenever you get ready to go, that they're out there working and not trying to get their vehicle started or something like that. Right. So I I don't know what system you want to come up with, but I think there needs to be a connection between the operators and their equipment and the their responsibility to take care of that equipment.