On Tuesday, September 15, 2026, the Jonesboro City Council convened at 5:30 PM in the Municipal Center. Mayor Harold Copenhaver called the meeting to order. Roll call showed 10 members present and 2 absent. The meeting began with special presentations, then moved through the consent agenda, resolutions removed from consent, new business, unfinished business, mayor's reports, council reports, and public comments.
That's more than something. But we're just saying that we need to start wearing all the time. All of my cards are just like that. Um all our hands down the world. And after you and we do it and I go on now and you have your hand of the second over us and all the police officers, firefighters are going to honor that on the day and basis and give us a connection that you all thank you for everything we do for uh also. And we do have 10 present this evening. So now we'll move on to item number four. And this is special presentations. We do have a few short ones, Council, so bear with me while I get there. All right, the first ward counsel that I would like to present this evening. Patrick, if you would please come forward. Do you have anybody else as well here, Patrick? Okay. And Miss Miller, are you here? There we are. Come forward. Good to see you. You two. So council, it's an honor always on behalf of this community to receive awards on the good works and service that not only the citizens provide the opportunity for us to do, but more importantly, the vision of our directors, our city employees, and volunteers from the community. And so Patrick is here to show you this evening. We did receive a volunteer, not a volunteer, excuse me, the 2026 government recycler of the year award, if you would hold that up, Patrick. We didn't win this ward though because it was just not about recycling. It's because it was the team approach that we've taken in the city. Not only has it been efficient and effective, it's also available to everyone to participate. So I want to say thank you to our sanitation department, our code enforcement departments, and our Keep Jonesboro Beautiful Committee for working together to earn this recognition. Now, I will say we were the only city recognized amongst the peers of this type recycling organizations in our state. So I want to say thank you, and this has to do to our cleanups, the recycling programs that we have taken in hand, and Patrick can speak on just a few of those that we were recognized for. Patrick. Also, I would like uh Miss Miller, she would like to say a few words on behalf of Jonesboro Beautiful. On behalf of Jonesboro, keep Jonesboro Beautiful and other community members who champion green and sustainability efforts. We're proud to celebrate the successes of Jonesboro Recycling that we've taken part in. It's worth asking how we got here and how can we work together to replicate and even improve efforts towards a more clean, green and beautiful Jones World. One of the actions that we did was uh the glass recycling, which started with a letter from Shelley Lamb and ended up with us starting with embassy suites recycling and partnering um partnering with them on that, and we've taken in about 13,000 pounds of glass out of the waste stream. A few months later, um Mr. Curtis attended a recycling summit, and he made that connection, and we've just been going strong with glass ever since. Um that's only one business uh highlighting embassy suites. We have several uh that participate in in the glass recycling program, and we do that as well with the monthly uh recycling. Um so that's a lot that we're taking in and diverting from the waste stream. There's also cardboard. Um I serve on the Green Business Committee with the Chamber of Commerce as well as EcoWorks. I work at Jonesboro Human Development Center, and we employ the residents of Jonesboro Human Development Center through recycling with EcoWorks. With the city, we have diverted about 8,000 pounds just in this past month. Um, out of the waste stream, uh, out of our landfill. So that's another good thing. And we and we create jobs for people with intellectual disabilities by doing that. Um, we also want to recognize Mr. Scott Roper for his efforts and uh Beverly Parker for her leadership. She is great. Um, she gets things done, and also our other volunteers who participate in some capacity with press releases or promotional flyers, who dedicate their Saturdays uh to come out and do the uh cleanup events and who work farmers markets, educate the kids, all of these things along with our wonderful sanitation department go into making Jonesboro more clean, green, and beautiful, and we look forward to doing that even more in the future. Thank you all.