This regular meeting to order.

Mr.

Beast now is gonna lead us in the pledge.

I'm gonna lead us in the prayer.

Well Heavenly Father, we pray and ask that you watch over us this day, Father God, that you give us guidance and wisdom, Lord, that you touch upon the crowd, touch upon our families that are represented here, touch upon this city, that even if we disagree, we may come into agreement for the common good of our city to help it grow, prosper, and be the example throughout the state of Louisiana.

Lord, I pray and ask that you watch over my colleagues, that you give us sound judgment, sound wisdom and understanding.

Give us a listening ear that we may make the right decision.

In Jesus Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Here.

Mr.

Viceno.

Mr.

Pondell, and Mr.

Weatherford.

Here.

We have a call.

I want to take the uh a little time at the beginning.

Uh as you can see, you can look around and see we pretty crowded in here today.

So I'm gonna ask that we follow the quorum of the uh city council.

If you come up here to speak, direct all your questions and comments to the council.

Uh we're not gonna talk back and forth between clients and from the audience.

And I would ask that you respect that as we go forward.

Uh the first thing we're gonna do, we're gonna oh, let me do the deferment.

We're deferring number thirteen, number nineteen, and number twenty-two June seventeenth, twenty twenty-six.

Thirteen, nineteen, and twenty-two.

Till June seventeenth, twenty twenty-six.

And we're deleting number eighteen.

Deleting number eighteen.

Okay.

At this time, um, if there's no objections, I'd like to move number eight up to the top of the list and we discuss that first.

Any objections?

Public hearing and consideration of the lake public hearings.

Public hearing and consideration of the Lake Charles Planning and Zoning Commission's decision to deny a request for a variance in order to construct a new addition united way.

One construction of single story building versus required two-story.

Two, allow channel letters and a six-inch logo, thereby exceeding the allowable three inch in height or three foot in height within a T5 Urban Center Transect Zoning District at 815 Ryan Street.

Mr.

Marks, I think it was a six-foot logo.

Just this is six foot.

I said what six inch six foot logo.

All right.

Big difference.

The nerves would just be crap.

So Mr.

President, I'm gonna be brief.

The variances by vote of uh four zero.

Just want to be clear.

The vote was four to zero against correct.

So this application is before you on an appeal just as it was presented to the commission.

Okay.

And if I understand correctly, uh Mr.

Bigueres, the application has to come back as it went to planning and zoning, correct?

You're voting on it just as it was it was as it was presented to planning and zoning.

Okay.

It hasn't changed or been modified.

Okay.

Virginia Webbs.

I think you that's an appalling.

I think you may want to.

I don't know which order you want to go.

Oh, oh, we need to have well my bad.

United Way representative.

Yes.

Mr.

Lofta.

Yeah.

State your name and address for the record.

Billy Lofton representing United Way.

We would ask that our director be allowed to speak first and then one of the board members, and then I'll come do my presentation.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so very much for allowing us to be with you today.

Denise Durrell, 815 Ryan Street, Lake Charles.

And I am the Vice President, the President and CEO of United.

I'm sorry, I'm nervous.

The President and CEO of United Way of Southwest Louisiana, and we greatly appreciate the opportunity to bring our application on appeal with you here today.

As many of you may know, United Way has actually been in the city, downtown city of Lake Charles for 86 consecutive years.

And I would think that the only two organizations or businesses that have outlived us in downtown is actually the city of Lake Charles and probably Calcashu Parish.

And then in 1981, we were extremely fortunate that the fair department store location at 715 was donated to us.

And then as we began to grow and service more and more people, we saw the need to move.

And so in 2016, we actually purchased our current property at 815 Ryan.

Currently, we are in a two-story building that is 100% compliant with the SMART code.

And I'm happy to say that we have been there 10 years and through the wise investment of not only our board but our donors, we are now mortgage free.

We have paid that uh building off in full in half the time that we were allotted to do so.

Um so with that being said, just proves the commitment that we have to not only this community but to downtown as well.

So we are here to stay.

Uh we don't have any plans to relocate anywhere.

We know that this is the best place that we can and will serve our community.

So thank you very much.

And I would like to invite one of our board members who's with us today to share her experience with United about United Way.

Marcy Bradley, 5721 Hemlock Street, Lake Charles, LA 70605.

Um, like she mentioned, I'm on the board of directors.

I actually recently joined the executive committee uh this past year.

Um I work for Westlake Chemical.

I'm a chemical engineer.

Uh I graduated from McNeese.

I've actually lived in the area my entire life.

Um my United Way journey didn't start uh when I joined Westlake.

It actually started in high school.

I received the Southwest Hall of Fame Sports Hall of Fame Award.

And it was sponsored by United Way.

And that's kind of where my journey with United Way started.

My older sister worked for SitGo and she was involved with United Way, so my uh intriguement kind of continued throughout when I uh started work at Westlake.

I would knew immediately that I wanted to donate my money to Unite Way, but donating money and donating time are two different things.

Um and so I joined the committee and then I worked my way up, and I actually was the campaign chair uh two years uh back to back, and then I joined the board of directors, and then like I mentioned, I'm on the executive committee as well.

Um I live in South of town.

I actually grew up in Solfur.

I graduated from Lacassine, so downtown was not like a central area that I spent a lot of time in until um United Way.

I come for a meeting at least once a month.

I was actually here yesterday for an event that we were doing literacy kits where we put those together because we try and do many, many events.

I attend several meetings, um, being on different committees and then just doing different events along with um they do their three big events are smoke and barrel, uh battle for a paddle, and then uh the Dolly Run, which are all hosted downtown.

And what that does is that gets the community here.

Um so it might not increase night life, but what it does is you have meetings where you have people who come and they eat lunch here.

You have events where they come and they do shopping.

There's many times that I'll come to a meeting early and go uh shopping.

So I just um having all of that, it may not increase nightlife, but you're getting all kind of different people here that may not always spend their time uh downtown.

And so United Way does so much good for this community, and I've been able to see that from the time I was 17 years old to now being 31.

And I just want to be able to help continue to watch them grow and help our community because I love Southwest Louisiana.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Billy Lofton, 113, Dr.

Michael DeBakey Drive, and I represent United Way.

Um first of all, I have uh time, I think that's been allotted to me from five different people.

Uh and then with my three minutes, I would ask that I have a presentation and then reserve some time for rebuttal in the event that some of the opposition brings up an issue.

Well, we do have a 12-minute limit, Mr.

Logan.

Okay.

Okay, great.

We'd so I'd like to reserve some time.

Don't let me go beyond six or seven minutes.

Um I put a package in front of all of you uh that I'll refer to.

There are all of the items in there are numbered.

Um so uh members of the council.

Um in connection with this application.

I I represent United Way, and as Mr.

Bergair stated, uh, we're simply asking for a single story versus a two-story, and to uh increase the size of the logo and the lettering uh to six feet versus the three-foot um requirement in the currently in the smart code.

Our application is set forth in the package that I gave you and labeled as UW1.

Now let's start off by looking at what what we're asking for here.

Uh if y'all would look at the screen, I don't know if you have it in front of you, but uh we have the the overhead view with the layout of the uh proposed development.

If you switch to slide two.

Uh that's some more detailed uh drawing of the various rooms and the footprint inside the new building with the new building being the in yellow on the left.

You'll switch to the third slide, you'll see what the front rendering of the new building looks like with the uh left side of that building being the proposed new development, which is once again an addition to the existing building, which is fully compliant, and that is on the right side of that image there.

We'd ask that you go to the next one uh slide.

Might be the um uh separate file called street view.

We thought that it was important to provide this view to the council because uh what it does is it shows the uh front elevation of the buildings, as you can see there on the far end, which you just saw from a straight on perspective, in line with the streetscape, including the B-1 bank building.

Uh the reason that we think that's important is uh because uh and by the way, those images are all as you uh UW2 in that package that I gave you.

Uh so the reason that that's important is because all that we're really asking the council to do is to just give us the same variances that were given to Bank One.

It was just that simple.

They had the exact same request to be a one-story with a nice facade on the front street to give the effect and the look of the smart code and to change the size of the lettering.

Uh that was done and approved by the DDA in 2022, uh, and then by the Planning and Zoning Commission also in 2022.

They later came back to the council just 24 months ago and got another variation for the signage that uh allowed for uh multiple signs that did not that were not consistent with the smart code, and also to do insign lighting versus up lighting on those signs.

And uh the council approved that in 2024 that is listed as Uth 3 in your package, just for reference if you want to see the various approvals that have been made.

Uh we're we're not asking you to deviate, we're just asking you to be consistent.

The United Way uh is a good partner uh with the community.

We're just asking for the same uh exception or variances that were granted to bank one.

Um we support the SMART code.

We're not in here to say that the SMART code is a bad thing.

Uh we just do not believe that rigid application of the SMART code is in the best interest of our community or our downtown.

Uh we think that rigid application is deterring development downtown.

Um I've heard various councilmen and other people talk about how it's important to support your planning and zoning commission.

I see some of the members here today.

I respect the planning and zoning commission.

Uh they do an excellent job.

However, as the elected officials that supervise and hear the appeals of the planning and zoning, I think that it's important that y'all keep the planning and zoning consistent.

They've approved the B-1 variances, and all we're asking is for the same thing.

It can't be different.

That deters development if a developer comes in thinking I'm gonna be able to do this, they've approved that, and then they have to go see an architect.

We're on if if we don't, if this is not approved by the council, we'll be on our third round with the architects.

Developers don't want to come in and pay soft costs associated with developments of doing three and four renderings to finally figure out what's right.

They want certainty and they want to know what is going to be expected of me in this community, or they're gonna go do it somewhere else.

So let's not defer deter that.

I I'm here to tell y'all that the smart code is good, but let's be a little more flexible with it.

Um there are many reasons that the smart code cannot be rigidly or strictly complied with.

Uh it has to align with market demand and population density.

It has to remain smart.

The smart code has to be smart, it can't be over-regulation.

That's not good for the community.

Uh otherwise, we're going to continue to have the vacancies and lack of foot traffic that we have.

You can look at the buildings downtown, we can see them from here.

We're talking about Bank One, the farmer location that it was in, still vacant.

Zephyr's still vacant.

I don't need to point it out to you.

Y'all are councilmen, you know.

There's too much vacancy down there.

Okay.

After 20 years, we still have those persistent vacancies.

We have low foot traffic, and we rely on events.

We rely on events to create traffic downtown.

The key authors and planners all recognize that you can't zone your way into this.

They recognize that that the following things that actual demand is necessary for the smart code to work.

Jeff Speck, uh well recognized uh author and planner, and I even see some of the opposition with Jeff Speck books right right out here.

He even acknowledges that there has to be actual demand for the smart code to work.

Andris DeWani, the the designer who helped us with this smart code back in 2006.

He says that phasing and market realism should be emphasized over ideal design.

We have to recognize these things, guys.

Um we have to we have to look at what we even have.

The plan that we have, and I did not put this in all of y'all's package because two reasons.

It has a picture of me in the second page that looks like I'm about 40 pounds heavier than I was right than I am right now.

And while I'm thinking about it, Renee, I'd ask that that be made part of the record, all of the exhibits that I just referred to, as well as this.

In this Charette report done by Mr.

Dewani, that we adopted.

The code and plan can later be adjusted based on direct practical experience.

Even the planners that created this contemplated change.

There's a picture of you in here too, Stuart.

As well as you, Mayor.

So we have to recognize that.

That's what we're working under.

We're working under a smart code that we adopted, but let's keep it smart.

It's it's not smart if we don't if if we don't recognize changes.

Um here we are 20 years later.

We have to look at the SMART code.

We have to recognize that it's good, but rigid application is a deterrent to development.

Okay.

This SMART Code is just a tool.

It's a tool for us.

It's not a guarantee that this is going to happen down here.

We may have this idea of what we want, but it might not be working, and we have to make adjustments, and even the planners and the experts in this field recognize that.

Let's work with the tools that we have and let's recognize their limitations.

And we would just ask that y'all be consistent and grant this variance to the United Way, one of the strongest partners that y'all have in the long one of the longest occupants of downtown.

Thank you very much, and I'd reserve any extra time I have for rebuttal.

Thank you, Mr.

Lofton.

Any uh questions for Mr.

Lofton?

From the council.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm gonna read into the uh the opposition first.

There's a um there's a well, let me do this first.

These are all the people who don't wish to speak but want to be made a matter of record that they're in opposition.

Uh Donna Reeshard, Virginia Webb, William Vaughan, Amy Monk, William Monk, Chiki Chapman, Shelley Young, Jacob Raftery, Savon Sonier, William Vaughn.

All those people are in opposition.

We have a letter from Ms.

Riani Vaughn, 2709-2 Jude Road.

Dear Councilman, I am writing to respectfully express my strong opposition to the United States zoning variance request scheduled for consideration at today's meeting.

Although I do not reside in the downtown district, I'm a frequent patron of the area and actively support many of the small businesses that contribute to its character, economic fertility, and appeal to both residents and visitors.

These businesses bring unique activities, services, and ideas that help sustain a vibrant downtown environment.

In contrast, United Way's proposed development, as described by their representative, appears to offer little added value to the district beyond development for the sake of development.

Development without meaningful benefit risk, displacing opportunities for small businesses that rely on visibility and foot traffic to generate revenue.

During the April 13th zoning meeting, a board member suggested a reasonable compromise, constructing a two-story building and leasing the ground floor to a small business to help offset increased cost construction costs.

United Way's representative stated that this was not feasible due to funding limitations.

However, they their submitted site plan indicates an attention and inattention to renovate their existing building as part of the project.

If funding is the barrier, why not redirect a portion of the donated funds toward the additional cost of the of a two-story structure?

Another viable option is the two-story building they already own at 314 Broad Street, which they previously start to demolish.

Renovating that property rather than allowing it to remain unused would seem to be a more reasonable investment of donated resources.

If the organization was aware from the beginning that the property could not meet building codes or zoning requirements without variances, it raises the question of why the property was purchased in the first place.

While United Way's proposed facility may serve a worthwhile purpose, I do not believe downtown is the appropriate location, particularly if no compromise can be reached that also supports the city's economic goals and the needs of local businesses.

The SMART Code was created specifically to encourage development that balances community benefit, economic opportunity, and responsible land use.

A nonprofit whose mission emphasizes strengthening community resilience, should be willing to engage with residents, listen to concerns, and work towards solutions that benefit all stakeholders.

Instead, their representatives argue that variances should be granted simply because similar requests have been approved in the past does not reflect thoughtful consideration of the community's needs or the intent of the zoning ordinances.

Regarding the request for a six-foot sign, which is doubled the permitted height, the proposed design is inconsistent with the aesthetic character of downtown and would detract from the area's visual appeal.

City Council decisions have a lasting impact on the quality of life, economic health, and long-term development of our community.

I respectfully urge you to prioritize the concerns of your constituents and vote against United's way appeal for these zoning variances.

Thank you for your time, your service, and your consideration of these concerns.

Sincerely, Rayna Nan Vaughn.

Lauren Herrell.

State your name and address for the record, please.

Lauren Harrell, 725 Ford Street.

Good afternoon.

I'm here as a citizen of the downtown area and as a licensed architect with an advanced degree in historic preservation.

Before returning to Lake Charles, I work for the state of Texas, teaching communities about preservation tools and techniques.

Since my return, I have served as a consultant to the city and other citizens for multiple historic preservation projects.

So I am an expert in this.

Walkability is extremely important to the economic development of the city and particularly to downtown.

That's a great reason for a variances.

Variances are not intended to allow citizens to circumvent the code when they are inconvenient.

The code is easily and fairly applied on this site, and there is no reason for a variance.

The site can be suitably developed within the framework of our codes.

Again, a simple solution would be to construct an actual two-story building as required and use the first floor space along Orion Street as a leasable space for a use that contributes to the viability of downtown.

A common misstatement about these types of codes is that they limit economic development, and nothing could be further from the truth.

There are plenty of studies proving that they encourage economic development because citizens are assured that their investment will be protected through consistent expectations and quality of development.

Continually giving variances is not a consistent expectation.

A consistent expectation is what's in the codes.

And if you look at the codes prior to your development, you don't have to go back to your architect three times.

Allowing the project to proceed as proposed would be short-sighted and demonstrate a disregard for the plans and guidelines funded through years of grants and tax dollars in the city.

We have already missed several opportunities in the downtown area in the recent past.

Please do not contribute to the continued degradation of what gives like gives Lake Charles a sense of place and maintains its authenticity.

Thank you, ma'am.

Anna Crawford.

And I'm I'm going to take the liberty of announcing the next name, so if y'all stuck in the middle somewhere, you can start moving as we go.

Melissa Buxton.

Go ahead.

I apologize for that journey.

No problem.

Anna Crawford, 727 and a half Ryan Street.

Yes, ma'am.

I have nothing prepared to say.

So this is going to come straight from my heart.

If I go over time, if there's anybody who wants to donate a couple of minutes to me, I'll take it.

I approach this as a uh a resident of 24 years downtown.

Matter of fact, I didn't realize I could see my window from here.

Um years ago when my sweetheart Johnny said, Come on, I got a place for us to go look at.

I had no idea where we were going.

And I knew when we walked in that we weren't leaving, and I'm still there.

He's gone to heaven six years ago, and I still grieve him.

If he were here, he would say, This is funny because really this downtown issue thing, it's our downtown.

And this parking life is our parking lot.

He knew every homeless person there was in a three-mile radius.

He would go ride his bike, he'd go visit the homeless, and he would leave things for them.

We watched our grandkids grow up riding bicycles and tricycles and whatnot in the parking lot.

If you ask my grandkids, who does that parking lot belong to, they would proudly say, Well, that's La La's parking lot.

That's our spot, that's where she parks.

So with that, I'll say I'm grateful to Sherman properties for 22 years of allowing us to park there, and for the last two years to United Way for allowing us to park there.

Through the years, I have seen almost everything you could see in a parking lot.

When people think that you can't see them, you can see them.

God's watching.

And um, I unfortunately there wasn't many times when I felt like I had to call the cops per se.

But it gave you an opportunity, gave me the opportunity to pray for probably a lot of you here.

Because when you see people come in and out with families and having gone drinking and whatnot, it offers an opportunity to pray for that father, that boyfriend, the mother with the kids, calling, hauling the kids.

There's a whole vibration from that parking lot.

I don't know yet what's the outcome of it, because the first phase of proposition included a parking lot, I thought.

And I thought, okay, good.

They're gonna have a parking lot.

Maybe it'll be available to the public as well, even if it's for pay.

People would park to keep from having to walk.

We're not used to that around here, if you hadn't noticed.

Somehow, some way.

I just don't see that it's gonna be taking away 37 to 50 parking spots that are needed.

Not to say that we won't find a way to make it happen because we're survivors.

Mr.

President, time of the ladies expired.

How much many more minutes you need?

Maybe one.

Okay.

Please vote to give a one more minute.

7-4.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think we can find a way to make this happen.

When I counted on one of the most filled times of the parking lot being full, I want to say I counted about 38, 39, and that wasn't counting all the ones around the back and along the side.

But we do need parking.

And I'm supposing when United Way's building is finished, they're going to allow for that somehow.

I don't know.

I haven't seen it yet again.

Maybe they will, but I'm telling you, we do need the parking.

The suggestions that have been made are far away.

They don't seem it to some people, but to others it is.

And when you come downtown to eat, and our neighbors who have taken over taking care of me, by the way, the businesses around here, they are my family, and they take care of me.

Let's just find a way of doing it if we can.

I think they have good reason, good nature.

I don't want to say anything ugly about them.

That's not my place.

But I think we can find a way, a united way of making this happen to where it works for everybody.

Thank you for your time and your extra minute.

Thank you, ma'am.

Ms.

Buxton.

Next up, Leslie Fair.

Faint.

Fane.

Melissa Buxton, 729 Ryan Street.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

Thank you for allowing all of us to be here.

My name is Melissa Buxton, and I'm the owner of Bucks Cajun Corner in historic downtown Lake Trolls.

I'm here tonight to ask one simple question.

What kind of downtown are we trying to build?

Are we building a downtown that encourages walkability?

Fiberant storefronts, thriving small businesses.

Are we creating a downtown where the rules only apply to some while others use their influence to avoid them?

Downtown is not just a collection of buildings, it's a community.

For those of us who own businesses here, downtown has become a family.

We celebrate each other's successes.

We support one another through hardships.

We know each other's spouses, children, brothers, sisters, parents, and even some grandparents.

When one business struggles, we all feel it.

This sense of community is what has allowed downtown to survive hurricanes, economic uncertainty uncertainty, and years of rebuilding.

Since the parking lot at Ryan and Broad was suddenly closed, our businesses have all experienced a dramatic decline in sales.

Customers are confused, foot traffic is down, small businesses that already operate on very thin margins are being harmed.

We, downtown, will adapt, as this is so much more than just a single parking lot.

We will continue to serve our customers.

What is deeply troubling and hard to explain to our customers is that a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the lives would knowingly take actions that negatively impact the livelihoods of these local families.

What message does that send?

And what message does it send when the Board of United Way Southwest Louisiana includes respected community leaders and elected officials such as the sheriff, district attorney, tax assessor, and others who are entrusted with serving the public interest.

We continue to hear that because B1 Bank received variances, United Way should receive them automatically as well.

As a mother, that argument reminds me of things that I taught my children growing up.

Don't worry about what your brother does or your sister does.

Worry about yourself.

That's where the focus should be.

Each project must stand on its own merits.

And yes, there's an important distinction.

B1 has truly tried to become a partner downtown.

They are employees shop in our stores, they eat in our restaurants, sponsor our events, and actively support our small businesses.

They do contribute to the vitality of downtown.

No one here opposes United Way's mission, and we do greatly appreciate the important work that they do.

But this issue is whether a proposed development aligns with the vision established for an historic downtown Lake Charles.

The SMART Code was adopted to ensure that downtown remains walkable, mixed use, and economically vibrant.

It was designed to prevent single-purpose developments that reduce street activity, limit engagement, and weaken the interconnected ecosystem that makes downtown successful.

When the exceptions are granted that undermine those principles, it sets a precedence that threatens the future of downtown if we allow developments that do not meet these standards that we have established.

You need one minute to finish.

One minute, probably 45 seconds.

Please vote for one minute.

7-4.

Thank you.

If the rules are not applied consistently, the vision for downtown loses integrity.

And if influential organizations can bypass those standards, small business owners are left wondering whether the investment of our time, money, and our heart truly matters.

We're not asking for special treatment.

We're not, we are asking for equal treatment.

We are asking that the same standards apply to everyone, and we are asking you to protect the vision of a downtown where businesses, nonprofits, residents, and visitors all contribute to a thriving and connected community.

Please stand with the small businesses and families who have invested their livelihoods in historic downtown Lake Trolls, protect the smart code, protect the integrity of downtown, and protect the community we have worked so hard to build.

Thank you for your time.

She's gone.

Oh and Sean John Patrick, I can't make out the last name.

Web, I think it is.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Um hi, thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Uh Leslie Fain and my address is 1215 Kirkman Street.

Uh I live downtown.

Um of the main major reasons that I think that uh the city council that I that I ask you to uphold the planning and zoning board's decision recent decision to um refuse the variances is that one, it was a unanimous decision by the the uh planning and zoning board.

So this is four to zero, and the the people on that board are well respected people in our community, they were chosen for the um planning and zoning commission because of experience and the reputation they have, and it just seems to if to if you were to vote down what they voted for, it's it's almost like a huge vote of no confidence for our planning and zoning commission.

And I think that would be a real um that would be a real shame for Lake Charles and for downtown.

Um so that's that's the first thing.

Uh the second thing, as I stated in the planning and zoning meeting when I spoke, um, uh I'm sorry, I can't read my handwriting.

Um so when the city of Lake Charles invited Jeff Speck to come speak, um, he's a celebrated urban planner and author, it really opened my eyes to the potential of downtown Lake Charles.

I mean, I've always been a huge downtown fan.

I mean, I wanted to live here uh over 20 years ago when my husband and I moved here and and we were newly married and he uh was gonna be deployed to Iraq, and I mean I wanted to live downtown.

This is where I wanted to be, and I have not regretted it one moment.

My kids have grown up here, my husband works here, and so it really opened my eyes to uh what the downtown could could you know eventually be, not just how good it is now.

Um according to uh Jeff Speck, making the city more walkable uh can make the city more uh aesthetically pleasing, safer pedestrians, and and uh cyclists, uh more viable for businesses and more attractive to tourists.

I mean we all know how it is.

Does anybody want to give me some time after we all know like how when we go to other cities like Fairhope and Savannah and places like that, you know, the things that you love when you walk around and you want that for Lake Charles, and I think that you know, yes, it's kind of a it's ambitious, but you know, you've got to start, you know, dream that's how dreams are you know come to fruition is is having a big dream and ambition.

So um so anyway, Jeff Speck said the key to having a walkable downtown is in the city of Lake Charles Smart Code.

So if I had known then what I know now about this, I would have been at every meeting where a business, sorry, I know B1's been great for some of the businesses downtown, but had I known that I would have been at every meeting.

The time is expired, Mr.

President.

You need another minute?

Yes, if you don't mind, thank you.

Can we vote for another minute?

So I would have been at every meeting opposing it had I known.

So and I I I believe that that's probably true of a lot of people in Lake Charles.

They either don't know about it, about walkability in the smart code, or they they're just finding out about it, and they're excited about it.

So I want to bring up bring up one more point about the lack of support.

I live in I live downtown, I've lived here over 20 years.

I talk to people who like the idea of walkability and the smart code.

I live here, I talk to these people.

I don't know where the lack of support ideas coming from, but it's not from the people I talk to, the business owners, my neighbors that I talk to about it.

Um, you know, and I just want to point out it's great how many people I see here tonight, but I know very few people in this audience, and I've lived here over 20 years.

So I'd like to know where all this support against walkability and smart code is coming from.

Um then uh is another thing about the expired, Mr.

Speaker.

Okay.

Uh does anybody else want to give me a minute?

What's your name?

Okay, Mr.

Webb.

You want to donate your time to her?

Okay, Mr.

Webb donating the time to five minutes.

I'll try to be quick.

So uh a couple more things uh along those lines.

Uh along the mention of rigidity, okay.

Well, one person's rigidity might be another person's wholehearted support.

Um so I I think being excited about something that has potential to really help downtown is not rigidity.

I think that that uh like I said, I think that that could be a passionate love of downtown and wanting to see it prosper.

Um and again along the same lines with the lack of support.

We've some of our most interesting buildings down uh downtown in recent years, Erdace, uh the Phoenix building, the Sanchez law firm, and I'm probably leaving out some other buildings.

Some of our most uh beautiful new buildings were built according to the smart code.

So I mean it works.

It um it adds to downtown, and I don't think it's deterring down.

I don't think it's deterring anything.

Time has expired.

Thank you.

Okay.

Those are all the oppositions.

Penny Sinica, Jennifer Barry, Dustin Abshire, Rebecca Stockman, Van Sinica, Ray Zombrecker, Hunter Graham, Megan Dagle, Laurie Morrison, Ashley Surrett, Morgan Clayton, Christina LeBitt, Urane Surrett, Harley Ashworth, Kevin Lacey, Timothy Newsom, Charles Clayton, Jessica Lacey, Lorena Caesar, Billy E.

Lofton, Tammy Chris Christoph, Ashley Norman, Jennifer Demas, Kimberly Heckert, Shamika Lamel, Patience Frederick, Alicia Johnson, Laurie Martin, Chip Morton, Catherine Thavernach, Casey Patrick, Serena Clooney, Rebecca Answorth, Jacob Johnson, Autumn Johnson, Robin Oxley, Nikayah Thomas, Justin Keyes, David Stutz, Brittany Acres, Skylar Hassier, Kelsey Talbot, Missy Amadon, Jessica Saxby, Terry Johnson, Jonathan Johnson, Traviga Neymar, Leandra Hardy, Chiara Moss, Chet Velion, Bethany Road Rolacs, Paul, Lion B.

Limbury, Kevin Romers, Tanya Pousson, Aaron Chestnut, Bonnie Brunner, Anna Raspberry, Keith Fall, Jason Martinez, Cheryl Piper, Diane Mueller, Angela Eller, Ertha Gidry, Tina Collins, Tyra Ross, Paula Coontz, Christian Nelson, Gay Gibson, Carol Mack, Jason Ponder, Bradley Stevens, Manina McGill, Wendy Johnson, Murtiza Khan, Phyllis Lofton, Melanie Haley, Jr.

Jan M.

Haley, that's it.

All those are in support.

Those that wish to speak, Marcy Bradley.

You already spoke?

All right.

Rosalyn Simeon.

You want to speak, or you just want it to be on the record?

All right.

Denise Durrell, she's already spoke.

Okay, Mr.

Lofton.

Thank you so much.

Members of the council.

I would like to offer and introduce into the record of these proceedings all of the people that submitted cards.

If if y'all are okay with it, I'd also like for everyone that's here in favor of the United Way application to stand.

If you're in favor of United Way, please stand.

Show your support to the council.

Thank you.

Members of the council.

The opposition here today seems to be conflicting.

The people that are arguing about the code talk about walkability.

Many of the businesses here though are really talking about a parking lot.

That is simply a liability issue.

We don't know what the long-term plan is for that.

However, unlimited use by the public is not in the plan right now.

Ultimately, there's going to be a development there, regardless of which whether it's code compliant or has some variances to it.

So I think that the gist that I would like for the council to get out of this is that the opposition is conflicting.

They really want drivability, not walkability, because I think a lot of the opposition is driven by this parking lot, and that's not at issue before y'all tonight.

And I would ask that you take that out of the decision because that's not part of this process or part of this application.

I'd also like for y'all to consider the fact that United Way, we've got a ballpark estimate to do the second floor and to do something that is smart code compliant.

It's going to cost an additional 2.5 million dollars, and I'm ballparking, so I'm not asking y'all to please don't hold me exactly to that number, but that's 2.5 million dollars that we can put in the community towards our mission.

Anyway, we agree, we do not oppose the planning and zoning.

We're just asking that y'all, as the elected officials, just ask just please make them be consistent.

And that's all that we ask for.

We appreciate everything that y'all do for our community, and uh thank you for your consideration.

If y'all have any other questions for me, I'm available.

Mr.

Go ahead.

That's all I have a question.

Um like the bill is gonna be built one way or the other, and and uh I assume that you're gonna be by doing the second story, you're gonna maintain the current footprint, which means you're gonna add additional square footage.

Is there well?

I can why wouldn't it make sense to build if you need X square feet?

Well I'm gonna say 20,000 square feet, just to pick a number.

Why not build a two-story 20,000 square foot building instead of uh one story is 20,000 square feet plus whatever, the second story will be just comply with the code and build the size building you take.

And I think that if if you're ready for me to answer some of your assumptions are just incorrect, Mr.

Weatherford, we would shorten the depth of the building, we would shorten that and bring some of the square footage to the top, and essentially what would happen is is we would end up spending 2.5 million extra dollars.

And so that's the answer.

It's an additional cost.

Uh and and it can be done.

We're asking for a variance because we just want consistent treatment.

We had some of the opposition come up here and just say, we just want to be treated equally.

Well, that's all we want.

We're not asking for special treatment.

We just want to be treated equal.

And and so that's that's the answer to you.

Okay, so that it's gonna be it's not gonna be probably not gonna be a significant amount of more square footage, just that it costs more to build.

No, it's not.

It's gonna be the same square footage just moved up, it's not gonna be as deep, and it's gonna cost two approximately.

I don't have a hard number, but it's gonna cost a couple million dollars more that could be used towards our mission.

Okay, Mr.

Lofton, if we need you, you be ready to come back up.

I'm ready to go.

Did you let me know what I need?

Before I would like to take this opportunity to bring Mr.

Begueres back up before we hear from the councilman.

Mr.

Begueris, is this an accurate depiction of how it would look?

That's for the applicant to determine.

Based on what he's presenting, you can say uh the building has to take on this look and this feature is a condition of whatever.

Uh but that's for the So is that based upon what you know?

Is bank one a true depiction in this picture?

Uh my opinion is yes.

It is very, very close.

Okay.

Mr.

Lofton, if you don't mind coming back.

Yes, sir.

This picture that you're showing us is how is what you plan to do now without the second story?

That is correct.

That is the application.

It is, I think my UW number one attachment to my package that I gave you.

It also uh we have that's the streetscape that shows you in connection with the B1 building, but there's also uh uh the first page, I think, no, the third page, D three.

Uh if y'all don't mind on the uh IT guys, if y'all would show me D three, which is the third page on the first exhibit.

That's the front elevation of what we're requesting and the side elevation, the north elevation.

So the addition is from the tan portion?

Correct, very almost the center of the building.

And you can see the the right side is a true compliance smart code two-story, and to the left is the variance that we're asking for that has the higher facade like bank one.

Uh, and it appears as if it's a two-story, but it's it's not a true two-story.

That's what the variance is for, and that's how our that's what it will look like.

Okay.

And the side view depicts from the north, it still up gives a two two-story appearance from the north side if you look at that elevation.

So, well, the the thing that makes this not smart code is the second floor.

That it does not have that true two-story, exactly like the B1 building.

In the logo, right?

Oh, and the logo, that's correct.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions for Mr.

Lofton?

Mr.

Harvey.

Do I see it?

Yes.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um for starters, I have two two questions for clarification.

Um, one, it was stated several times that the council um actually voted to, I don't want to keep saying that the name of the established, but the to the building adjacent to your current established.

That is that is not true, just for the record.

Um, that was voted and cleared in planning and zoning.

That actually never came before the city council.

So I know it's been stated several times tonight that the city council actually approve the B1 bank.

Uh approved the B1 bank building.

That's not true.

We only approve the signage.

So I just wanted members in the audience to be able to understand that.

The second thing is respectfully, I appreciate everybody coming out tonight because obviously this is a major issue.

Um, but another thing that stuck out to me is when we when the planning and zoning heard uh the case for the B1 bank.

Um the DDA created a resolution uh in support that's obviously included in the packet tonight.

Um I've asked this before.

Um I've met with certain people in the community, whether it be residents, business zones, outfielded phone calls, emails, text messages, letters in the mail, um, and I appreciate all of that.

But I guess my question is there was major support of the B1 bank doing that particular time.

And I guess I want to know does the DDA have a stance tonight, whether they for or against this particular project.

Because we've had projects in the past that they took a strong stance for or against.

And I don't have anything in a packet tonight.

I just wanted to know how they where do they stand?

Councilman Harvey.

I'm I'm not aware of any position taken by the uh downtown development authority.

I know they did hear the uh proposal by United Way for information purposes only, but I'm not aware of any type of uh resolution that came out of that.

Okay, Mr.

Harvey, mayor it was in the record that they took that stand is right there.

I don't know who passed it out, but I have it in a package.

I did.

I think it would be UW number three, and that would be the DDA resolution that was in connection with the approval of the B1 item, and that was uh what the it was presented to the planning and zoning when the planning and zoning approved it.

Okay.

And so I think I had it under uh exhibit.

I'll tell y'all real quickly.

I think I had it under exhibit uh three.

Sorry.

That is the downtown authority.

DDA, yes, sir.

And we're asking that for the same variances that they approved on the up on the B1 building.

And again, I'll just those two points really stuck out to me because I just want to know the difference.

Um obviously, you know, everybody is jocking for their side, but I know that that's a significant uh authority that people are respected authority in the community.

So I just want to know what's the difference between then and now anybody wants to ask.

Any representative from that group here?

Uh nobody had anything listed.

Our position is that there is no difference, and uh that what I think there's individuals here from the DDA, but they don't think they have a a formal vote on any position.

So that's just the United Way's position.

That's the only two things I have for now, Mr.

Putin.

Mr.

Young, anything?

Uh yes, sir.

Uh thank you.

I've certainly heard from more individuals on this issue than I have any other issues come before the council in the last 10 and a half months that I've been able uh to serve here.

Um I think there were a lot of great arguments made on both sides.

Uh a couple of things that I I do disagree with is that the United Way uh does have permission to use their property in and as a parking lot or not in any way that they choose uh as a private property owner.

I do feel that way.

I think it's incumbent upon the city uh for us to work with the mayor to figure out a parking situation uh solution for downtown to be able to service those businesses and really be able to support them, but their parking lot is theirs to use.

Uh I do have to disagree with the uh use of the word consistent because I think across the board um this council has strived to be consistent.

We've had many discussions about uh planning and zoning and uh upholding those decisions or letting them go.

What is the value of that of that organization that thoroughly reviews the process?

Um supporting the zoning code across the board uh however we can as consistently as we can in the time that we have.

This council uh has consistently supported planning and zoning.

Um I've heard from several constituents uh in my district that starts uh it's not really inclusive of this part, uh, but the south part of downtown that goes from Clarence moving south on Ryan Street all the way to McNeese, and there are several building owners who have built their buildings, invested in the community, and upheld smart code.

Uh the Sanchez Law Firm, uh Empire of the Seed and the Phoenix Building, uh, the original United Way building, Wood Ring Apartments, uh Crying Eagle, um, and and just a few others, but several that have dropped emails into my inbox to let me know how they feel.

Uh as of last night, and I've been in Baton Rouge today, so not really able to keep up with what was coming in the inbox, but as of last night, I had 44 emails, 42 42 in support of maintaining uh the code and two asking for this variance.

Let me be clear the work that United Way does in our community is extremely important.

Um we would not be where we are today post-hurricane recovery without United Way.

I say that emphatically.

Um also to Denise's credit, the organization that she has built uh here in Lake Charles is bar none.

It is not the United Way that it was whenever I moved to town in 2009.

Uh it's exceeded expectations, and it certainly services our community when they need it most.

And so I do want them to continue to be a part of downtown.

Uh that being said, a unanimous decision from the planning and zoning board is I feel one that we have to uphold.

If we break that tradition, then we open ourselves to supporting variances every time that planning and zoning decides something that the applicant disagrees with.

And at that point, what becomes the purpose of the organization that's filled with developers, architects, folks who've had long-term experience with this, they are an appointed body, therefore they are non-political.

Uh we are a political body, and we're, you know, working for re-election, and I feel like this decision should be made by an appointed body, not a political one.

So that being said, I do have to uh vote no tonight on supporting the variants, um, but I appreciate what United Way does in this community.

And if we need to have a conversation moving forward about smart code and its value, and should we change that?

That's certainly a conversation I think this council should have, but at this point, that is the code that we live by.

Thank you.

Mr.

Um There's a lot of talk about consistency and the comparison of the Bank One issue to this issue.

Um variances are meant to be exceptions, and if you really want consistency, and you can call it rigid, would be rigid adherence to the code.

And there's a mechanism in place that allows people to seek variances.

And uh I understand that this is basically more or less a mirror image of what was approved for Bank One, but that was a very different time than today.

That was um a building that uh that was a time coming out of hurricane.

We're cover recovering from the hurricane coming out of uh on the tail end of pandemic, freeze, flood, uh live insurance issues that people had to deal with.

Um that's why those variances were grant or the variance as far as the building goes by the zoning commission.

They felt like that it was a dire situation and and that um that it was more than any convenience for them, so that's why they granted that variance.

Uh situations can be different, especially based on time.

I understand that there's concerns with uh real or perceived that the smart code impedes development.

Um there's been several developments, large developments that have followed the SMART code.

Um if you're talking about uniformity, uniformity will be just to support the code blindly, and that's not what we are considering or should consider.

Um thing that uh may or may not be unique about this is that it's not a it is a new addition to an existing building that was compliant.

And that's kind of why I asked the question if if they could build a two actual two-story building.

It sounds like whether we grant this variance or not, there's going to be a building built there, added to that, and uh whether we give the variance or we don't give the variance.

If we don't give the variance, there's gonna be a compliant building built there.

So at least in this instance, it's not impeding that development.

Um so it's a tough decision, probably honestly, probably the easy the easiest decision that the the uh I wasn't at that zoning meeting, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who were opposed.

The easiest decision for the zoning commission may have been just to grant the variance.

Um they made what was a tough decision, and I agree with uh Matt that historically we've supported zoning, especially 4.0 rulings.

So yeah, there has to be a very significant, in my opinion, reason to overturn zoning, and I'm haven't really heard that tonight.

Uh now we also have another I say tradition, but uh we we do want to consider the position of the councilman whose district that is in as well.

And I don't know uh uh I don't know what we may or may not hear what his position is tonight, but certainly that's also another important consideration to consider, which and so I haven't heard the whole story yet.

So I speak, Mr.

President.

You want to speak now or you want to say I just I just want to say for the record, and anyone knows I'm very transparent.

This is not a political decision for me.

The decisions tonight is gonna be up to each individual councilman.

How I vote the I do not want it to reflect, I'm not trying to influence any councilman up here anyway.

And those of you who had conversations with me, you know that's been my settlements.

Like everyone up here is entirely to their own opinion at the end of the day, we all represent Lake Charles with this north, south, downtown, or whatever.

So I just want to make sure it's clear.

Every councilman up here is reflecting how they feel individual about this situation.

Ronnie Harvey is not trying to influence anybody.

My vote is going to reflect how I feel, how I think and the due diligence that I've done for myself, just for the record.

Mr.

Vendale.

Oh.

Mr.

Weatherfield, you do?

Okay.

Is it my turn?

Yes, sir.

You know, I I I I disagree with the fact we are elected to make these tough decisions, and uh it's just it has to be made, and variants are part of uh uh of the system because uh we we try to do what's fair, you know, and rigid code does not and we at times we we have variants, a lot of them I really don't like.

And I had I just recently had uh a situation where we granted a variance where 27 people was in against the issue, yet the council voted to go ahead with it, you know, that was impacting people at their house where they live at.

You know, this wasn't no business, it's where they live.

But the council has that responsibility, and we have to we have to decide.

That's all yes.

Uh I want to echo what my my fellow city councilman have said, and and and uh it's a tough decision.

But Doug, can I ask you one question?

Uh and and not that I haven't studied the SMART code, but let me ask you this one question.

So, does our code say that everything in this district that this smart code uh oversees has to be a two-story on the on the street side?

Yes, but there are some uses, it depends on what zone it's in.

You have T5, T4, T3, Civic, you know, there's there will be some deviation from the two-story uh for maybe civic buildings, so it's it's fluid, but along the corridor in this specific classification along this corridor, it's a two-story.

Has to be two-story on street side.

On the street side.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure I understood.

Can I have a quick clarification on that?

I I that's true in in TransTech, I believe this is five.

If they are further away from the we'll call it the main thoroughfare, the the density, because uh I'm oversimplifying it, but the smart code is is more of a density related code, whereas the code for most of the city is a use-based code.

Form of the fair that's fair.

Yeah.

So I mean it's a good thing.

Downtown's the downtown is designed to be very dense, very walkable, a mix of uses, you know.

So I don't know where that that where the various transects end, but and understand that they want to be next to their current building.

I'm not suggesting that they go find a place somewhere in it further away from their building that they could build a one-story building.

Because you can build one-story building in the smart code.

Depends on the if it's in the right.

Depends on where the transect zone.

Right.

Okay.

That was the only reason my question.

And let me say this.

I I do agree with some of my fellow city councilmen.

We have, as a group, not not 100%, but we have agreed that we would consider what planning and zoning does, because they do a great service to everybody in the city, to us, and they don't get paid for it.

Just so everybody understands that.

And without them, we would be here seven days a week looking at these things, because I promise you, my mailman doesn't like planning and zoning, because I get a lot of mail, and there's a lot that planning and zoning does.

So I really want to support their decisions.

And they make that decision based on what's right, not on politics, not on uh feelings and friends, and I see a lot of friends out here, and and I'm gonna make my decision uh on what I think is right and the people I represent.

I've heard from a lot, a lot of people that have an opinion on this.

Uh and I want y'all to understand we don't take these decisions lightly.

So we've talked a lot about these things.

We pay attention to what's going on.

Uh these are not easy decisions, but we're not we're not here to make the easy decisions.

Uh so but we've we've we've gone against planning and zoning when it's a two-two vote, because they basically didn't make a decision.

But on a 4-0 vote, it's hard to not look at that and think that they do their diligence.

Because why do we have them uh if we're not gonna trust some of their decisions?

And I know we have the the authority to overrule that uh, but we gotta give them the weight that that I think their their efforts are worth.

So thank you.

Mr.

Bibble.

Well, y'all, this is the part of it that I signed up for that I really don't like.

Uh I always listen to the planning zone and stuff, but today they bought it to the city council because we couldn't come to agreement.

The city couldn't come to agreement or downtown, the DDA, everybody couldn't come to agreement for something that's right downtown that benefits, because I told them if they had a storm yesterday, we wouldn't even be arguing with United Way.

Everybody be united with United Way, but since we have a storm in six years, we get a we we tend to forget.

We tend to forget that when it's bad, everybody running United Way, and now we want to tell them, well, we let Bank One did it because it was a storm, but we rather United Way spend 2.5 million dollars just to look like Bank One.

I I don't I don't get that part of it.

And I don't want to tell my age, but things change.

I remember down Ryan when you could play, they had a playground at the end of Ryan Street across some mothers.

And when my mama would go shop, we could go play in the area and she could watch us.

But things changed from that.

You know what I'm saying?

Things, decisions were made, you moved the playground.

So now since they made this smart code and you had this these hurricanes, things change.

Well, I believe United Way need to try and conserve as much money as possible because we don't know when it's gonna come again.

Just because I can afford to build a 400,000 house and a contractor charge me 300, I ain't gonna give them 400 just because I got it.

I'm gonna I'm gonna try and save my money.

So all the calls, I'm sorry, I didn't get to call people back today.

I didn't, my father's in the hospital, so I didn't get a time.

I usually try and return every call I get.

So I I didn't.

Even Mr.

Weatherfly, I'm sorry I couldn't call you back today.

But I I believe that we need to support the people that have supported this area for 80 plus years.

I'm 54, so longer than I've been here.

I believe we should support them.

And since I've been on a council, I've been a man on numbers.

And the numbers show today they got more people here today or sign these green cards that's in support than what came in red.

And I I personally walked to some of the businesses and I asked them, I'm not naming people, I asked them, if you were me, what would you vote?

And nobody has got back with me.

I say I'm I don't live downtown.

I say if you had to vote, if I'm asking you what would you want me to say in support of your business or the code or whatever it may be, what would you tell me to vote?

I'm asking you.

And nobody has yet to got back with me to say how would they feel.

That's all I want to know.

If you was me, I'm because I'm voting, my vote is for what you say.

Nobody has yet got back with me to say, well, Tommy, if I was you, I would vote this way.

So now I only can vote by how I feel.

And I feel that looking at the rendering and what that it was approved by the housing with them and the authority for bank one, I don't see no reason why I should tell them no, because they the one broke the code initially.

We don't break the code to say we broke it because it was a time frame, but now since it's good, we're not gonna break it.

If you did it, you opened the door for us to have to make this change.

If they never made that change or made that adjustment for bank one, I could honestly say, man, they ain't never made a change.

But when you open a door to change, now I'm forced to make a decision that we shouldn't have to.

So me, I don't mind.

I'm supporting United Way.

So that's it.

Could you put the first picture back up?

And after that, can I I'd like to make one comment and ask Ms.

Mr.

Lofton?

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Um it is gonna look like Bank One.

You said I think you may have misspoke and said what you know that it's going to cost them two million to make it look like Bank One is not going to.

That's in their current plan is to have the second the false facade on the front.

So it's going to look like Bank One.

That's correct.

It's gonna be we're asking for a variance like into Bank One.

Now the question I have has to do with the reason for the smart code is the density and to bring people.

If you build a bigger, if you build a bigger building or two-story building and spend the extra month, is it gonna bring more people downtown?

Because that's really that's the the per the density is the purpose for the smart code, and the reason that you want that, or say we the code is in place is to generate that density to generate people walking and going to businesses.

So is spending the extra two million dollars gonna generate more foot traffic downtown.

Members of the council, that's exactly what my argument is.

Uh-uh, that's why I'm out.

Yeah.

And the answer is No.

What we're proposing does not prevent walkability.

Actually, the opposition has come in and said they want drivability, they want more.

That's not the question.

The question is not it's not about the walkability.

Because I agree, it doesn't it doesn't impact walkability one way or the other.

That is the question is is that the density is about generating bodies down.

Two stories.

If you build a two-story building, are there gonna be more people in that building?

No.

No.

There's not gonna be the intent of the code is to the second story.

If if you could rent it out or if you could bring additional people there, it would be whether it's compliant or not, it would be compliant with the reason that the smart code is in place.

If that was going to generate more bodies downtown, which the fault you the having a true second story in your and maybe that's a question for um, it's it's probably for the directors at least.

But it what what I think what you're asking me is that are we gonna have more people with the second story, and the answer is no.

Okay, we're gonna have maybe we there may be increases in staff, but that's gonna be organic and natural.

It's not a good thing.

And that's based on this development.

And it's gonna be regardless of whether you have a second floor.

So that's my question, is it because that's the reason, the biggest reason for the smart it's gonna look like the smart code, so it's gonna have the appearance of a smart code building, but the real intent is to have that higher density that generates more people, and whether it's a false facade front or it's uh true second floor, um, at least initially, unless the market changes, it's not gonna bring more people.

If I'm understanding your question, I think you're correct.

Right.

Yes, sir.

With that being said, um, I listened to all of this uh throughout the night, and I'm looking at this picture, and based upon the picture, I I I just can't see making someone spend 2.4 million dollars to have a second floor when we get in the same look.

The height of the building don't have anything to do with walkability.

I think this situation came about whereas I respect planning and zoning wholeheartedly and we need them.

The problem came when you chose to make a decision about one building and kicked it over to us for the other building.

Now, despite what our uh my colleagues have said about us never overturning, I have always been an advocate of I re I want to want us to respect planning and zoning until such time where there has been an error made.

And when it had when an error has been made, we have to be the body that corrects it.

So, just like Mr.

Harvey said, the decision about bank one building was made within the planning and zoning.

They chose to make a decision on bank one.

And here we have another decision that needs to be rendered, and it's been kicked over to the council.

So now we're put in a position to be uh perceived as we either gonna break the smart code or we're not.

And I think that it puts a lot of responsibility on us, like Mr.

Fundale say, this is what we elected to be.

No matter what time it is, time changes.

If anything we can use to go against the smart code is because of time.

I'm I'm thinking about businesses that we want to attract to come here.

And if a business comes here and they got a million dollars to invest downtown, and we say no, you got to do that second floor, and that business say, well, if I got to spend another million fold, I'm not coming.

And we lose people.

You know, when you drive around the United States, you find all variations of things that happen.

And we have to change with the times.

Right now, or when the smart code was made, it probably was feasible for Lake Charles.

Now, with the changing of culture, with the changing of what people get into, we're gonna have to change with the times.

I'm I'm one of the people in favor of making smart code more of a reference than the rule.

And that way, you have opportunities for businesses.

Just think about it.

If this is 2.4 million dollars, I can't imagine another small business coming downtown.

A small business can't survive.

Not if we we lock them into this.

Now, then we make the code where when you the further you get down the street, it changes.

On the other end of Rhine Street, I just learned that some businesses have to put drainage underneath their business because they can't flow on Ryan Street.

And other business didn't have to do it.

And you're talking about another 200 and something thousand dollars before you can open the business that you've been saving up all your life for.

Not to mention you purchased a piece of property to do whatever you wanted to do with it.

Now it's different between the laws of laudering and breaking laws and all these other kind of things.

But I'm looking at this thing that we're being asked to make a decision of, and I'm looking at a picture, and I see no difference.

I see no difference.

We want to make a person that if the building was 10 foot long, we want them to make it five foot long and put the other five on top.

And and pay more money for it.

Now, I'm not gonna say I'm gonna have the same position.

If somebody else decides to say, hey, United Way got a break, well, that might not apply to you next time.

I might change my opinion.

But in this particular case, I see where I again I respect planning and zoning.

But I would much rather have them made the same decision that they made for bank one.

And I've heard people come up here and say bank one is good, bank one does this, bank one does that.

And they did all that with one story.

So what is gonna make this all that bad if we allow them to do it?

The parking issue, that's something like uh uh Mr.

Young said, we gotta take care of.

We gotta give our citizens more parking space.

We gotta help our businesses get more parking space.

Hopefully, we can work something out with United Way.

If they want to, you know, let people park, maybe let people, if you want to park there, you gotta get on the insurance for your business, put them as a rider, they're protected, you don't have it.

But to come here tonight and say I I'm in favor of letting these people spend 2.4 million more dollars just to have a second floor that they're not guaranteed to be able to rent out.

I I just think that's not right in this situation.

And I wanna be clear to make note of the fact that if anyone come tell me with Craig you voted that way the last, I'm letting you know right now I might change on the next one.

It might be different or the next one, depending on the situation, because that's what happened with bank one.

The situations change.

You know, and we look at the picture, and if this is an accurate depiction of what we're gonna be seeing on on the street, I I mean, both buildings just about taller than bank one.

So I just can't in good faith vote uh to keep that the uh the decision in place.

So my vote is gonna be for United Way.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay, we're gonna vote.

A yes.

Yes means yes, sir.

Just one I was gonna clarify and go ahead, Mr.

Mr.

means that you're voting to overturn the decision and grant the variance of vote no means you're affirming and you're voting no on the variance.

Everybody clear on that.

Please vote.

Five, four, and two against.

Renee, I mean, Miss Renee, I like the poll of council.

Could you please?

Okay.

Um, Mr.

Bilbo voted in favor.

Mr.

Young voted against, Mr.

Harvey voted in favor.

You voted in favor.

Mr.

Viceno voted against.

Mr.

Fondell voted in favor, and Mr.

Weatherford voted in favor.

Okay.

Appointments.

Number one, appoint a chairman to review bids for project number CP 3242, Southern Sewer Loop, Gulf Highway Station.

That's mine.

Uh, I think I'm supposed to read that just a point.

I feel like we should be able to move it and take an intermission.

We'll give them a minute to clear out.

The whole council.

Okay, appointments.

Appoint a chairman to review bids at project number CP 3242 Southern Sewer Loop Gulf Highway Lift Station.

Mr.

Marks.

Number two, appoint a chairman to review bids for project number CP 3507, Lake Charles event, center green rooms and amend the budget as necessary.

Mr.

Harvey?

Yes, sir.

Number three, appoint a chairman to review bids to purchase road based limestone aggregate per specifications for use by the public works department.

Mr.

Weatherford.

Yes.

Okay.

Number four, appoint a chairman to review bids to purchase replacement retractable telescopic riser seating in the Coliseum of the Lake Charles Event Center.

Mr.

Harvey.

Yes, sir.

That's a rebid.

Number five, appointment of chairman to review bids for the purchase of bus stop signage for use by public works department transit division.

Mr.

Young, would you take that one?

Yes, sir.

Number six, appoint a chairman to review bids for purchase of one new service body crane for use by public works department wastewater division.

Mr.

Viesner, would you take that?

Yes.

Number seven, appoint a chairman to review bids for the purchase of water infrastructure maintenance and repair parts for use by the public works department water division.

Mr.

Fundale, would you take that?

Um public hearings.

Number nine, an ordinance ordering demolition and authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 1400 North Shaddock Street.

Cleveland Nash and Elvira Nash owners.

Mr.

Hester.

Good evening, Council.

And this is a structure, residential structure that's been damaged by a hurricane.

It is in a flood zone.

You can see in the pictures.

There's roof damage, exterior wall damage, wind damage, all exposing the interior to severe weather damage of the structure.

Mr.

President, this time I'd like to offer in the record photographs of the subject property and proof of service through certified mail.

This is a rehearing from May 6th.

I will offer that at the last hearing, Mr.

Harvey commented that uh there might be someone living in the house and had electricity.

But I think Mr.

Hester is has confirmed there is no one lay living in the house.

We have no cards, Mr.

Harvey.

So we we definitely confirmed nobody's living there.

He was cleaning out the house.

Yeah.

And they were supposed to be here, someone here tonight.

Yeah.

Oh, they didn't fill out a card.

Do you want to speak?

Ma'am, you all want to talk?

Come up.

All right.

Right over here.

State your name and address for the record when you get up.

My name is Pastor Lawrence L.

Nash.

And the personnel that was standing in there.

Yes, Mr.

Nash.

State your address.

Uh 1766 Thompson Road in Boss Bluff, Louisiana, 70611.

Okay.

Go ahead.

The personnel that was there in there was my son.

Uh and he's been deceased for about one month now at the age of 43.

So uh what we doing uh as the the owners of the uh property, my siblings.

We asking that the council will give us at least 30 plus days so we can all come together to make a uh precise decision on what to do with the property.

Yes.

I'm fine.

I'm fine with granting 60 days.

Uh 60 days that sound good.

60 days, please vote.

74.

Question.

Mr.

Harvey.

This would be the only communication he'll you'll receive.

So he'll be back in the middle.

We won't get another letter in the mail.

You just have to know to come back in 60 days.

What's the date?

Let me get it for you.

Okay.

Well, we'll bow to that and stick to the day.

We will come with a precise answer on what to do with the property.

July 15th.

July 15th.

This is the only notice you'll get that you'll have to be back here on July 15th.

That's a promise.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

If you come up with something earlier, I'm sure Mr.

Harvey don't mind if you just contact him.

Is that a you come up with something before the 60 days?

Yes.

You can just let us know.

Uh we'll do that.

All right.

Thank you.

Number 10.

An ordinance order and demolition authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 411 Gelpie Drive.

Gerald Armellin, Senior Owner.

Mr.

Hester.

Residential structures.

You can see in the pictures, it's a storm damage structure.

This structure has severe roof damage.

It has severe exterior wall damage, window damage, and it's open to the public and exposed them to interior weather damage of the structure.

Mr.

President, this time I'd like to offer into the record photographs of the subject property and proof of service through curator.

This is a rehearing from April 15th.

Mr.

Bilbo.

Any cards?

No cards.

1515.

1515.

Please vote.

74.

Number 11.

An ordinance order and demolition and authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 902 Camellia Street, garage only.

Matthew Macintosh owner.

Mr.

Hester.

This is a residential, it's a garage only.

You can send the pictures of some roof damage or some exterior wall damage, um, window damage, and it's all exposed in the interior to severe weather damage of this structure.

Mr.

President, this time I'd like to offer into the record photographs to the subject property and proof of service to a curator.

This is a rehearing from April 15th.

I believe there's been some discussions by Mr.

Rubin.

Mr.

Ruben.

Talk to Mr.

Attorney Gene Tibodeau.

He represents one of the lien holders.

He's asking to defer this till June the third.

He'll be present on that date.

Mr.

Fundale.

We defer until June the third.

Yes, sir.

Please vote.

7-4.

Number 12, an ordinance ordering demolition and authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 2725 Louisiana Avenue.

Highley Rider Breuette and Zoe Gasport Ryder owners.

Mr.

Hester.

And this is another storm damage structure.

And you can see in the pictures, it has severe roof damage to the structure, exterior wall damage.

It's open to the public.

Exterior window damage, all exposed on the interior to severe weather damage of this structure.

Mr.

President, this time I'd like to offer in the record photographs to the subject property and personal service.

This is a rehearing from April 15th.

No cards, Mr.

Fundale.

Um I was contacted by the owner, and they asked for 60 days, and they will tear it, they'll take care of tearing it down themselves.

So I want to give them 66.

60 days to tear up 60-60.

Okay.

July 15th would be the rehearing.

Is it 60-60 or 1560?

Well, yeah, it's up to y'all.

Yeah, uh, and it's 60 days to pull a permit.

And 60 days to tear it down.

And then 60 days after that to tear it down.

First number is the amount of time you give them to permit to paint a permit.

Okay.

Second numbers is the total amount of days they're giving them.

So you're giving them 60 days to obtain a permit.

Yeah, I need to give them more on that.

And then another 60 days.

Oh, they could tear it down.

Yes.

So 60 and 120 is what you're saying.

So you want to give them 60 to pull and then 60 to tear down.

You don't want them to have it down in 60 days.

Is that correct?

6120.

16.

6120.

6120.

6120.

Please vote.

74.

Number 13 has been deferred to June 17, 2026.

Number 14.

An ordinance order and demolition and authorized the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 2107 Clarinda Street.

Julius Lee Funtno Sr.

and Jennifer V.

Funtel owners.

And being that they well, we'll do it separate.

Okay.

Mr.

Hester.

This is a residential storm damage structure, and you can send the pictures.

It has roof damage, exterior wall damage, window damage, all exposed in the interior to severe weather damage of the structure.

Mr.

President, this time I'd like to offer in the record photographs to subject property and proof of service through the marshal's office.

And we do have a card, Mr.

Funno.

State your name and address for the record.

Julius Leafontal, 2209 Clorinda Street, 70601.

Mr.

Fundel, what would you like us to do with it?

2107.

I would like to go ahead on and tear it down.

And if there's some way I can get some type of bids on that property for it to be torn down or however that goes.

I'm I'm not sure.

This is my first time.

I think that we can we can kind of give him an uh estimate of what it would cost to tear down at the city to it down.

Um can we give him that?

Oh yeah, yeah.

We can give them that, huh?

Mr.

Hester, can we give them an estimate to demo it?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, and then I mean.

Go ahead.

We'll go through the process.

You know, give him you know the time to get the permit and complete, and then once we receive the bids after that time lapses, we can inform him and he can make the decision to either tear it down himself or let the city go and do it.

Okay, so Mr.

Mr.

Fundow, after you leave here, you can get with them and they can explain it better to you.

Okay.

I mean that the real the quilt real quick explanation.

You can find a contractor and tear it down yourself, or you can allow the city to do it.

Yes, and what will happen is it'll be applied to your tax bill, and you would have to you're gonna have to pay one way or the other.

Yeah, but what Mr.

Fundel wants to know is what he's weighing against if the city tear it down as opposed to him.

Right.

I think that's yes.

Okay.

That's uh 2107.

So uh how much time, Mr.

Harvey?

I think the quickest way to exactly is 1515 since we're trying to get it torn down anyway, right?

And it's just to say if seven changed, your primary contact is Mr.

Harvey.

Yes, sir.

So number three, y'all treat him right.

So we give him 1515.

What we what we say, Mr.

Fund know is you got 15 days to pool a permit, and 50.

Well, we need to give them long.

Let's do let's do normal delays 36.

Normal delays.

Please vote.

Excuse me.

One quick question.

Yes, sir.

Um you said something about a permit.

I'm not sure what to mean.

If you take if you tear it down, you're gonna have to have a permit to tear it down.

It's a demolition permit.

But in the meantime, they're gonna do their part and then they'll inform you so that you can I I have a question.

I um is that your I assume you have a different this is not your residence.

No, sir.

So he can't pull a permit and demo himself.

He's gonna have to have a licensed contractor to pull the permit.

But all of that can be on hold until we oh no, I understand that, but but I just wanted him to understand that it's not he's not gonna personally pull the permit.

You have to have a license contractor to be came pull it?

No, if it's a good one.

If it was his residency could, but if it's uh okay, and Mr.

Funtel is on number 15 as well.

Number 15, an ordinance order and demolition and authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 21105, Clorinda Street, Julius Lee Funtnow and Jennifer Valmont Funtno owners.

Mr.

Hester.

This is another residential storm damage structure.

You can send the pictures.

There's roof damage, exterior wall damage, exterior window damage, all exposed in the interior to severe weather damage of the structure.

Mr.

President, this time I'd like to offer in the record photographs to the subject property and proof of service through the marshal's office.

And Mr.

Funt know, if I'm not mistaken, you want to keep this one.

Yes, sir.

I'm gonna keep this one.

I have a permit on this one to start.

We already started doing work on it, so excuse me.

So I do have a permit on that one.

Okay.

Oh, yours for me.

Oh, yeah.

I've been in constant contact with Mr.

Fundown.

I'm good with taking it off and deferring it.

So um we can come back and get an update in 90 days.

Okay.

He has a permit already.

So if if you don't mind, we want you to come back in 90 days.

August 19th.

August 19th, just to give us an update of your progress on this house.

In the meantime, you want to get with Mr.

Bigueras, and he'll tell you about the first house.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

One more one more quick question.

Yes, sir.

You guys can't will you all contact me or no?

I just from this point on, you have to do all the contacting.

Okay, August 19th.

Okay.

Please uh we we don't have to vote for uh do we have to vote for a for him to come back in 60 days, Mr.

Stutz?

90 days 90 days, yes.

Okay, please vote 90 days.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Fundnell.

Number 16, an ordinance order and demolition authorized the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 819 Mall Street.

Brian Keith Design LLC owner.

Mr.

Hester.

I'm gonna take Mr.

Hester's place for this one.

Uh this structure is located within the historic district, but the staff we are recommending an emergency demolition for this, that it is about to fall over.

Um it is we we've looked at it.

We've determined that we have to take immediate action on getting this torn down under the emergency provisions of the code.

I have the owner here uh to answer any questions about you know they've looked at uh cost to to renovate the structure.

It is damaged beyond uh reasonable repair cost to get this thing back into commerce.

So we're recommending uh 1515 on an emergency basis for uh getting this structure torn down.

And Mr.

Uh the the owners here representing the uh property if you would like to have any questions.

Uh let me, Mr.

President, if I may offer into the record photographs to the subject property and proof of service to the marshal's office.

Mr.

Uh Brian Valier, any questions for Mr.

Vallier?

No, I don't I don't have any questions, but the the neighboring property to the north side.

The question was about uh protection of their home doing the demolition.

We we will work through that issue.

We had a very similar situation with the home on Puget Street, so we're gonna communicate with this.

That was the question for the carbohydrate if he decides to do it himself.

We will work with him to make sure that's taken care of.

Thank you.

Number 17, an ordinance order and demolition authorized.

I think we have a vote.

Oh what was the thing?

1515.

Please vote.

74.

Number 17, an ordinance order and demolition and authorized in the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 1751 6th Avenue.

Burn structure.

Rose M.

George size owner.

Mr.

Hester.

And this is a severely badly burned structure to residential structure.

You can send the pictures, the roof is burned.

There's exterior damage to the walls, windows, and it's all open to the public.

I think there was a request to defer this.

It was requested that this should have been deferred.

Yeah.

August 19th.

August 19th.

August 19th.

Please vote.

74.

I just have a passing question.

Should I secure that?

No, I can explain.

Okay.

Uh this they found the sister from the size residence, and she approved, gave him the whatever you need to say he can get the house, and one of the people will help him build it.

But the house had to be there for him to fit underneath the program.

Right.

If they tow down the house, he won't fall and eat the program.

So it had to be still standing.

And she'd been in communicating with me, and she told me she wanted to come.

I said.

And that's his residence.

That's his residence.

So now is it his residence?

First, it was his mama's.

His mom was his mama passed.

So we had been trying to find it.

Everybody was working hard, but they found a sister.

And she signed her part over to us, so now the people can help him rebuild it.

But the house had to be standing when they come to anyway.

Yeah.

So we deferring for 30 days.

Or how long?

It was 90 days because they had to go through the process and they're gonna stay in contact with me.

If they get done beforehand, I'll let everybody know.

All right.

Mr.

Weatherford, you had a question.

Oh no, I just had a thought more than a suggestion, but you know, I don't know if they it's dangerous.

I thought maybe if some sort of fence around it just to keep people out, not tear it down, not take it down, but just secure the the you can't secure the building, obviously, but secure the the perimeter of the property.

Well, the perimeter has a fence around it, it's not down right there, but around the front and everywhere it has a fence.

All right.

All right.

All right.

Please vote.

74.

Number 19 has been deferred to June 17, 2026.

Number 20.

An ordinance ordering demolition and authorized the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 2401 Wooded Street.

Lashara L.

Stenson owner, subject to a tax sale to the state of Louisiana.

Mr.

Hester.

You can send the pictures.

This is a hurricane damage structure.

It's a residential structure, and it's in severe, badly conditioned.

It's collapsing.

The whole roof is collapsed.

Exterior walls are collapsed.

Window damage, all exposed in the interior to severe weather damage of this structure.

Mr.

President, this time I'd like to offer in the record photographs of subject property and proof of service through the marshal's office.

I recommend 1515.

1515, please vote.

74.

Number 21, an ordinance on demolition and authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for demolition of a structure located at 1206 Hunter Drive.

Brandon at Alexis Henderson and Edward Joseph Henderson, owner subject to a tax sale to the state of Louisiana.

Mr.

Hester.

This is a storm damage residential structure.

You can send the pictures of some roof damage, exterior wall damage, exterior window damage.

It's open to the public.

All exposing the interior to severe weather damage of the structure.

Miss Bramalay Henderson.

Oh, I'm sorry.

At this time I'd like to offer in the record photographs to subject property, and I believe Mrs.

Henderson here is here to speak.

State your name and address for the record.

My name is Brandy Henderson, 1206 Hunter Drive.

Okay.

Um we got in touch with someone by home as is.

Started in February, signed all the paperwork, everything, March, in the uh March.

Did all that and haven't heard from her?

You need a little bit more time?

We've been trying to get I've been trying to get in touch with them.

Phone call, email, everything.

Haven't heard from them.

Don't know.

I've started March after everything.

Started again when I talked to Miss Shelley.

Haven't heard anything.

She did follow it.

Start buying it from me.

Oh, okay.

Mr.

Bilbo.

How much time do you need?

Miss let's let's play it by ear.

But let's give it 30 days and come back if you hadn't heard.

Well, I want to be uh this one is you don't like it.

I've been getting several several complaints about this home.

Uh four or five people on Hunter Drive call me all the time.

They vagrants living in and out of it.

Animals and I really get a bunch of phone calls on it.

I would want to help her to say give us some time, but it's your time is just to sell it, or you sell it, or you your time is to fix it.

Sell it.

Well, see, that's that's not our.

I have to think about the other people on Hunter Drive.

If once you told me you hadn't heard anything, who trying to who you trying to sell it to, if you don't mind.

The company's name is Nation Home Buyers.

She didn't get all the paperwork for the sale.

She just waiting to hear back from you.

Do you have a purchase agreement?

No, that's what I'm saying.

I haven't heard anything.

There's no signed purchase agreement.

So you really you haven't sold it.

And yeah, exactly.

That's what we're selling.

What if she secured the home?

Well, I'll give a I'll give her 15 days to give us an answer.

If she can sell it in the 15 days, something could we you say you started this in January?

February.

February.

Mid-February.

March, April, it's May.

Yeah.

So that's the thing.

I've been trying to get in touch with these people since you want us to do.

I mean, we have to make a decision.

I'm on your time.

You don't know.

I'm on your time.

I'm I've been trying to sell it.

You want to maybe have her come back do 14, have her come back to our June 3rd meeting.

That's 14 days.

14 days.

Yeah, it's two weeks, yeah.

So we're gonna defer it until June.

I mean uh June the third.

June the third, come back and let us know.

If you hadn't heard anything, if if you hadn't heard anything before then, you can call Mr.

Bilbo before time.

Excuse me, give us a numbers from each other.

Come to the microphone to speak.

There's no papers back there.

I am so sorry.

Um Brandy.

My name is Linda Rideau.

I live at 1210 Hunter.

Okay.

Next to their property.

And I've been here several times.

Um they have given the Henderson's numerous uh times to do something.

She has not lived in the house for three years now.

That house has been vacant.

Uh they've done nothing since the hurricane.

And uh I deal with their raccoons that are living in that house.

I have to deal with all of the animals.

And they have given her, y'all have given her a lot of time to do something to that home, and she's done nothing.

They've done nothing.

And I don't see that the man she's talking about, his name is Mr.

London.

Mr.

London does not live in Lake Charles, and he told me he was wanting to talk with them because they wanted to sell the house, and he was going to look at it.

I was there the day he went to look at the home.

He told me he would get back to me if he had decided to buy the house.

I had not heard anything from Mr.

London, and I don't think Mr.

London is looking to purchase that house.

Miss Rito, we're giving them the minimum amount of time.

Either way, they got 15 days.

15 days.

15 days.

50 days is this for them to either start some type of action or just to demolish it.

That's the that's the pull of permit and tear or do what they're gonna do with it.

If they don't do it, then the city's gonna tear it down.

Okay, well, thank you.

Because that's been too much with them.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

1515, please vote.

74.

282 has been deferred.

Ordinances for final action.

And ordinance accepting the lowest responsibility and authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for project number CP 3520, wastewater treatment basin A, AO2 sewer rehabilitation.

Mr.

Weatherford.

Yes, sir.

We had three responsive and responsible bidders.

And the lowest um responsible bidder was Vortex Lining Systems, LLC.

Their bid was an amount of three million two hundred and ninety-one dollars.

I'm sorry, three million two hundred and ninety-one thousand seven hundred and one dollar.

And happy to say that that is oh 270 or so under the design, the engineer's estimate.

Any questions or comments?

My recommendation we accept that bid.

Any questions or comments?

Please vote.

74.

24.

An ordinance accepting the lowest responsibility and authorizing the city of Lake Charles Center and agreement for project number CP 3503, 2025 asphalt overlays and amend the budget as necessary.

Mr.

Billboat.

But based on information provided here above, we recommend the water project to Empire Dirt Works LLC, an amount of 1,058,564.

And I do want to let the council know that I was a responsive bidder, and Miss Wendy has been constant contact with me with this process.

You was the sponsor.

I was a sponsor.

And she actually called me and I'm like, I am.

So just for future references, you're supposed to let all of them.

I'm I'm sorry for not telling y'all, but she was.

She kept me updated with it, and I'm next time I'm gonna know to tell y'all.

All right.

All right.

Please vote.

Number 25.

Before we go to that, the mayor wants to make a uh you can read it anyway.

Read it.

Okay.

Number 25, an ordinance authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement with the most qualified architect engineering firm responding to the request for statements of qualifications to perform professional service to prepare cost estimates, provide engineering and design service, provide construction management oversight and other additional services as needed for the design and construction of an indoor recreation facility in Lake Charles.

Good evening, Council.

I just want to uh this is an item to uh authorize the city to start negotiating an agreement to get uh the design of this sports complex that we've that we've been talking about for a while.

So I want to give you an update on on uh all the that is occurred.

Uh we started off with the uh with the with the sending out a request for qualifications on in March that and to uh get qualified people to come in and design.

It's not the way that the way the the process works, the city uh picks the designer, makes a recommendation, the council uh authorizes us to get into a contract with them.

Once the project is designed, then it goes out to bid, and once that those bids come in, the council makes the the determination of who's gonna actually construct the facility.

So to walk you through the uh bid process, we sent out a request for qualifications on this project, um, and we wound up getting 15 responses.

Uh two of the responses did not meet the the requirements of the request for qualification, so those were discarded.

We had 13 that met the that met the uh qualifications, and we formed a committee to go, an advisory committee to go through and review these processes.

We had representatives from the uh city, uh the parish, uh local industry, uh Ward 3 recreation because of recreational components, tourism, and hospitality.

And we got together and through that process, we reviewed all 13 of the uh of the proposals and came up with five finalists to actually come in and conduct interviews.

Those interviews were conducted on on um on Monday, and up on the board is the some of the questions.

We ran a standard set of questions so that we were comparing apples to apples under responses, and it covered a variety of uh of topics from uh from reserving trees to the to uh to uh experience with the construction management at risk, which is the C-MAR construction method, which we would prefer, and we did find out from the state that they have authorized us to go that route, which is gonna exp expedite this process.

And out of that, out of that uh out of those five responses, we wanna uh interviewing uh five, and I'll I'll I'll talk about all five in order, but at the conclusion of that process, the advisory committee took a scoring system and uh came up with a score that that compiled the uh the the top rated uh firm that and what we're doing now is we need our authorization to go and start contract negotiations to start getting a design in place.

So I'll rock you through the the top, the five that came in.

Uh uh first let me start by saying that all five of these companies were extremely, extremely qualified to design this this facility because it it serves three purposes.

First and foremost, it is a community resiliency hub.

This this facility is gonna have to be able to withstand 140 miles an hour wind, have independent power sources, uh be able to stage recovery efforts.

It is a uh city uh resiliency hub as as put it together in the Just Imagine plan, and that's his first and foremost function.

The second function is to serve as a community recreation center to prep to house different types of programs where the community can come in and uh and utilize these facilities because it does belong to the people.

And then the third function is to serve as a uh as a nationally certified uh sports and recreation complex that can house nationally uh sanctioned tournaments, and that's the way of keeping the uh paying the bills, keeping the lights on so it doesn't become a burden on the taxpayers.

Out of the 13 people that responded, all of them were qualified, but the and the five, it was very hard ranking them.

So we when we got together with the five for the interviews, that would be the deciding factor.

But to give you an idea, uh I'll run through the five.

The first was Grace Design Studios, uh, and they have representatives here in the audience.

Uh Grace is for me, they're a national company that that designs uh sports facilities.

Right now, currently they're working on the green rooms at the at the event center and also working on the the amphitheater design.

Next was uh the uh next was multi-studio, which is also a national firm that's doing work in the cities right now.

They they actually designed the uh the new press box at Magni Stadium, and they also uh designed the uh uh 26 million dollar uh rebuild at Southwest Louisiana Credit uh Southwest Louisiana Center for Health Services on Appaloosa Street.

And so they were in town and they they qualify in the top five.

Next was uh next we had was um diverse uh diverse uh design, which is all they partnered with uh Perkins and Will.

Perkins and Will is a nationally renowned uh design for uh architecture firm that designed sports facilities of various types all over the country.

Very strong application.

And then finally, after that, we had the uh Chase Marshall, which partnered with PBK, which is also uh a nationally recognized uh design firm that designed sports recreations.

But the at the end of those times, the uh the committee got together, we had a scoring sheet, scoring mechanisms, and once all the scores were compiled, the uh the one that scored the highest on that on from the advisory committee was uh WHLC architecture.

Um HLC Architecture is a Baton Rouge firm, and they partner with uh Sasaki, which is an internationally known design firm.

So we we did pull in uh a very, very impressive group to look through, and the the scoring was very, very tight.

This is the this was the one that was ranked first, and I'll I'll show you what some of the things that they did.

On the next screen, you have uh some of the designs for both architectural groups as they come together.

Uh like WHLC designed the uh the Raisin Cain Center in Baton Rouge, the Pennington Biomedical Center, and various other uh buildings that are significant, and then Sasaki has designed buildings all over the world.

So uh we we drilled down on a few of them.

Uh jointly, they designed the uh recreation center at the University of South Alabama Rec Center.

And we asked them to give us some some uh comparative comparable designs.

This one was 116,000 square foot that was built, and and as you can see it uh on the right side in the small and the the the capital, the letters on the right side of the picture, you see that that design won several awards and was recognized by several publications.

The other thing that we looked at was the uh that the uh the East Way, go to the next slide, please.

The that's the East Way Regional Recreation Center.

So we're looking at sports and recreation components, and this was built in Charlotte, North Carolina, uh Sasaki.

This was 95,000 square feet, and it won, as you can see from the right side too, it also won a number of awards and publications.

But we asked uh one of the things we also asked of all of the people that responded is that given the location and given the um the site where this that where this facility is to be built, it had to have an iconic design that made a statement because it's gonna be a part of the lakefront for generations.

So we didn't want just a regular sports facilities.

We wanted something that would be a landmark, uh a segue into the culture and the and the and the vibe of our Lake City.

So we asked them to uh to come up with something, and then the next slide is gonna be they came up with one of the things they did was the CARE Community Recreation and Sports Complex in Kerry, North Carolina.

That was a 284,000 square foot facility.

But if you look at it on the top, it has uh it has uh greenery trees, and it has a window that circles down into the into the area itself.

If you look at the next slide, it looks from the interior, uh very iconic, very significant.

So these everyone brought the A game to this to this particular competition.

And then uh then also we because Sasaki was in place, we asked we looked at also they did the University of Lima Recreation Wellness and Student Life Center Center in Lima, Peru.

That's 180,000 square foot facility, and that is also one numerous awards.

So we went through and the the scoring was really really tight.

Uh and all of all of the uh all of the people that responded have local uh people associated with them and affiliated with them.

This one has uh the POSH firm, which is architectural firm that is designated to do construction management once the building is coming up.

So given that uh, and I want to thank our committee because the committee worked really, really hard, uh look reviewing these uh these applications, going through the spending the whole day uh interviewing, and I want to thank all those that responded.

They came in.

But now it's time to pick a designer, and we want to pick a designer, but we in order to do that, we have to uh we have to have authority to get into a contract with them so they can go ahead and start designing this facility so we can get a construction bid out that you can decide on who's gonna build this facility.

has uh the push firm which is architectural firm that that is designated to do construction management once the building is coming up so given that uh and i want to thank our committee because the committee worked really really hard uh look reviewing these uh these applications going through the spending the whole day uh interviewing and i want to thank all those that responded they came in but now uh it's time to pick a designer and we want to pick a designer but we in order to do that we have to uh we have to have authority to get into a contract with them so they can go ahead and start designing this facility so we can get a construction bid out that you can decide on who's gonna build this facility now each one of them has also said that the design process is going to be very interactive they're gonna run have charred where the community is going to be engaged the community is going to be able to come in and give input because it's obvious that in order for them to design a facility uh it has to be something that the community has has uh has put their input into is we did that with the um with Andrews DeWani we had the charettes uh after hurricane reader and so this is going to be an opportunity for the public to give all of their input because not only is this a recreations uh sports facility but also recreation center but the everyone was excited also because the um the aspect of of having a skating rink in there uh my for my understanding this may be the only sports complex that would actually have an actual skating rink as opposed to a walking facility so all of these people showed up they were very excited which was surprising to us since they built all over the country all over the world they were excited about this project they were excited about the opportunity they were excited because the the request for qualifications really laid out how important this facility is going to be how generation is going to be to our community so with that said I'm asking you tonight to uh to pass this ordinance authorizing uh us to enter into an agreement and start negotiating with the uh with the firm to design this prize this project uh the state has told us that we can do it as a uh construction manager at risk which means that we're gonna be expeditious in getting that to you and then you pick the uh builder and we go ahead and start constructing this facility are there any questions and the winner is the winner was who you we but the the number one ranked one is is uh is is the number one ranking came out to WHLC architecture Sasaki so that's uh and that was the recommendation recommendation that was made by the committee I'm willing to honor that but at the same time we do have to negotiate a contract and make sure that that everything fits so we're giving you permission to deal with Sasaki well the the ordinance is to we start with Sasaki but it's the most the most qualified architecture engineering firm so you know the the the engineering firm the architecture engineering firms usually do a percentage of the actual project uh that's their take on this so we have to we have to negotiate that but right now that negotiation starts with with uh WHLC in architecture Sasaki so if I'm understanding you correct you want us to give you permission to talk to all of them if Sasaki don't work out go to the next one yes why can't y'all work that out and then come to us well we can well I don't have the authority to do that right now so can we give you the authority to go and negotiate with them Mr.

Stutz?

Yes you can we give we give them authority to go do it without voting on anybody until they decide who their first one is well you can give him the authority to sign a a design and engineering contract which is a per professional services contract if we once we have a design and we have a bid for the project we absolutely will have to come back to y'all and have to be approved by the council.

Okay but I understand the bid what I'm saying is to select a person to in order for us to select a person because I feel like we're being asked to give you permission to go and select a person without knowing who the person is no no I think his the person the person is yeah we we have selected one oh that's what I misunderstand I thought you were just saying that that's the number one rank of it.

Yeah y'all are authorizing me to go out and get a contract for the design we've the we've made the the recommendation was to select WHLC Sasaki and I'm accepting that's my misunderstanding that's who we're negotiating okay all right that's all the questions I have anybody else okay thank y'all we are we're giving them the administration permission to go and uh enter an agreement with the with sasaki huh I'll say authority authority to go uh and enter an agreement with Sasaki for an e firm everybody is in agreement please vote seven for oh I'm sorry uh Mr Miles Brown well it's well I guess to be more more accurate or more precise is HWLC Sasaki well we want to take a well I'm no no I've got a I got a card that I got on the phone.

Yeah Mr.

Uh most of the things that the mayor presented, I pretty much got the answers to, so I just had one question.

Is it still confirmed that it's supposed to be the national scale size?

The mayor, yes, the mayor mentioned that in his presentation.

And that's that's really much all I had, so I appreciate it.

All right.

Any other questions?

Just HWLC Sasaki.

Just H W L C Sasaki.

Now I I will note that the ordinance that we have on file that in Tab 25 just gives the mayor the authority to enter into an agreement with the most qualified firm responding.

So if you want to specifically do WHLC, you'll have to amend this ordinance.

But but specific one.

Yeah, because it was it was designed to just give him the authority.

I mean, he he's picked WHLC, but you know, it it could be that something happens in the negotiations and he goes to the second rank.

But I'm just telling you that's the way it's worded.

Well, I'm I'm me personally, I'm all right with the um with the way the ordinance is written.

I just wanted us to designate a initial.

Yes, sir.

And I just wanted to make sure I was.

So in order to do that, you would have to end the order.

Yes.

We would have to amend that.

No, I think just Mr.

Mark's saying he's fine with it the way it is.

I said I'm fine with the way it is.

I just wanted us to have some sort of idea who we dealing with.

If they got to change it, he can go ahead on and change it.

I agree.

Yeah, that's that's what the ordinance is.

I think I think all the all of the ones that we mentioned are qualified, but this is the one that was selected, so that's the ones we we we under negotiate with.

Any other questions or comments?

Please vote.

Seven four.

Number twenty-six.

And artists accepting the the best proposal received for renewal coverage and authorizing the city of Lake Charles to enter an agreement for property and casualty insurance for the city of Lake Charles effective May 22nd, 2026 through May 22nd, 2027.

Any questions or comments?

I have a couple of things to offer on this, if I may, Mr.

President.

Yes, sir.

Um a couple of things.

One is I'm I've got to read something in uh that pertains to UM, but I also wanted to let y'all know that even after we had discussions with various council members yesterday, um the premium came in a little lower when it was finally booked in the afternoon.

Um and the proposal is that this year's premium will be 4 million five forty-four six seventy-nine seventy-four, which is a um about a little over a $200,000, $210,000 increase from last year when we paid $4,333 for our property and casualty and liability.

Um although I will tell you it's it's interesting, the insurance market is moving in a in a good way for us.

Um we actually added um a little more than $210 million in insured value for properties.

Um so that's that's almost a 40% increase in insured value for the properties.

I mean, we've built some buildings, we had some stuff come online, um, and yet the premium increase was like five percent.

So we we more than 40 percent we've it upped what we're insured by 40 percent, but the premium only went up by five percent.

So um just letting y'all know things got a little wacky there after the hurricane, but if we go a few more years without hurricanes, we might be doing much better.

So um and and again, at the time of the hurricane, we were only insured value at like ninety million.

Now we're at over we're over three over almost three quarters of a billion dollars.

So um and then I have something to read, but I'm offer also available for any questions y'all might have about that.

Go ahead.

Okay.

So what we do have to read in as part of the ordinance, it's it deals with uninsured motorists in Louisiana.

Uh part of the ordinance is that the mayor of the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana is hereby authorized to reject uninsured underinsured motorists, bodily injury, and property damage coverage as recommended by the City of Lake Charles' insurer and is authorized by Louisiana Insurance Code Title 22, Section 1406, effective as of May 22, 2026 through May 22, May 22nd, 2027.

So that means we're we're accepting uninsured motors?

No, we are rejecting the insured motors, which saves us money.

Okay.

Yeah.

But does it put us more in liable?

Not really, no.

I mean, the what what uh uh what the the uninsured motorists just means this if uh if if someone rear-ended a brain surgeon in town and they only had fifty thousand dollars in coverage, then if the brain surgeon that's a big big claim, but they've only got fifty thousand dollars in coverage, he's not gonna get much money from them.

He can personally choose to have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage for say five million dollars.

Gotcha.

So he can't do surgery no more.

That's a very big lawsuit, but the person who harmed him doesn't have any money and doesn't have any coverage.

Right.

He can then sue his own insurance company um for five million dollars.

thousand dollars in coverage then if the brain surgeon that's a big big claim but they've only got fifty thousand dollars in coverage he's not going to get much money from them he can personally choose to have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage for say five million dollars so he can't do surgery no more that's a very big lawsuit but the person who harmed him doesn't have any money and doesn't have any coverage right he can then sue his own insurance company um for five million dollars we basically have people working for the city who basically wouldn't have those kind of claims and also they would be uh in the in the of course in scope of their their business so uninsured motors just doesn't make sense for a a business as opposed to an individual gotcha one other question it makes your premium go up one other question I read in there about we got five thousand dollars that they give us for safety oh yeah well that's like just a little piece of coverage that they give you yeah for the but I um to my understanding it was five thousand dollars that they give us that we can do a safety program unless I read it wrong um I'm not sure I'll be honest with you I can't Dana's here rusty Dana's here good thank you Dana don't we steal your thunder uh members of the council the five thousand dollars that they give us it can be used for anything that we like um we in the years past we had a um antique for lack of a better way to say it program for our risk management claims handling we went in 2018 to handling our claims ourselves so we began using that money to go towards the new claim system so that way we could keep up better with actual the expenditures and handling of the claims do we still need that five thousand for that particular program?

Yes sir it's ongoing okay now we we do have a safety program in place okay that we do we have you know monthly safety meetings um we have miss howard actually oversees our safety program we uh so we do have a safety program in place I was just wondering if we could use that five thousand dollars in other areas I mean to have to be able to justify what you're using it for so for instance in this instance with the um for the actual software that we lease we actually have to have a invoice from them sent to the insurance carrier and then they pay them direct so we're we don't get the money and then we disperse it.

So for whatever we would choose to use it for then we would have to have them actually directly invoice the insurance company.

But right now it's beneficial to us to use it for what y'all using it for.

Yes sir it saves us it saves us about $10,000 for the claim software that we that we lease it annually.

Yes sir Mr Weather yeah well I'll I really don't have anything out of money is punishable whether we say it's going to that or it's going to the software if we're going to defray the cost of safety is still five thousand dollars.

Yeah change anything I just found it interesting that they was giving us that money and I just want to know what it could be used for.

Yeah that falls under our casualty coverage so it's used to help reduce claims obviously gotcha and in this instance it helps us to manage our claims gotcha appreciate it.

Thank you.

Appreciate you Mrs.

Stewart any questions or comments please vote seven four number twenty seven an ordinance authorizing the city of Lake Charles to accept North Ridge Road, Westmere Drive, Pinnacle Road and the ridge and at Morgan Field phase three including public right of ways, drainage water and sewer lines, sewer and traffic control devices for ownership and maintenance by the City of Lake Charles the City of Lake Charles will not take ownership of detention ponds.

Any questions or comments please vote 74 28 an ordinance authorized the city of Lake Charles to enter in a architectural and engineering agreement with D.W.

Jensen and associates LLC for engineering services relative to project number CP 3070 Oaklawn Drive and Ory Road Sewer Lift Station upgrade.

Any questions or comments please vote 29 somebody oh 29 an ordinance authorized the city of Lake Charles to enter in a cooperative endeavor agreement with the Cacashoe Parish police jury and the consolidated gravity drainage district number two East Calcashoe Parish to share in the cost of the Greenwich Terrace Buyout Initiative project number 29 Miss Carrie Withers but before Ms.

Withers come you can come on Ms.

Withers but I would like for Mr Stutz to explain what this is so we don't have no misrepresentation or misunderstanding about what we're actually doing.

I'm actually defer to Mr Cardone because he has a better command of this than me.

Mr Cardone yes sir this is uh if y'all recall uh Mr.

Council members that there was a buyout program that was initiated through the parish of buying out a lot of people that had repetitive losses in the terrace area those properties were bought out through that grant program and part of this is there were seven uh outstanding properties that did not participate in the buyout program and this allows the parish to go in there and buy out those additional seven properties they estimate the cost of around two hundred and forty thousand dollars and they're asking the city of Lake Charles to participate in that cost up to 120.

They estimate the cost at around two hundred and forty thousand dollars, and they're asking the city of Lake Charles to participate in that cost up to 120.

So that's the that's the remainder of the buyout program.

The intent of the property that will be used at this location will be a dry detention pond.

Uh the parish was able to get a grant for that dry detention pond, and it'll provide additional drainage improvements throughout the terrace area and the surrounding area because of having additional detention in the area.

The other component uh if you look at is a maintenance agreement.

Uh this uh detention, although it's located inside the city of Lay Charles, it's still gonna be owned by the parish and our gravity drainage, it will not be owned by the city of Lay Charles.

Uh they came to us and asked us to cost share in the maintenance of this property.

And uh our uh recommendation is that we enter into an agreement to allow us to participate uh up to um uh one third of the cost between the city of Lake Charles, um the Calgary Parish Police Jury and Gravity Drainage uh with a total amount not to exceed $38,33 per year.

And Mr.

President, uh just the uh for more clarification, those seven homes are on the General Moore Drive.

That's the remaining seven homes that's at the periphery of the uh dry detention pond.

And and is there an estimation of how much that money translates into for those properties?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

I mean it's about $35,000.

Exactly each one, but it's approximately $35,000 if you divide it by seven.

Okay.

Of course.

And so when you say uh dry drainage, are they digging?

What do they gonna do with that land?

Detention.

Mr.

Fondell, I am not an engineer, but I know that these dry detention areas, you know, if you look at the one that was built on Louisiana Avenue, that is a wet detention, so it holds water all the time.

This one is dry detention, so it will hold water, but it drains out to be completely dry, so it can be used as a green space when it's not being uh utilized as detention.

I I rode in that area, uh and the ground is just kind of level from people's homes right across the street.

Yes, sir.

It it it's it's not gonna be level.

There is when you design a dry detention.

Yes, sir, and lower it.

It will be lowered.

So the people that we're gonna buy out, what if they don't want to be bought out?

I don't anticipate if they choose not to be bought out, then I assume they can't be bought out.

That's my anticipation.

It this is being managed by the parents.

All for the 35,000 for their properties.

Oh, sir.

I didn't say 35,000.

Mr.

Marks asked what would that average out to?

The total estimate by the police jury was two hundred and forty thousand dollars for seven properties.

And which properties, you know, some may be twenty, some may be fifty.

I don't know because we didn't ask that.

Okay.

Can I ask another quick before you so we basically in this ordinance?

I guess we're meaning to say that um up to 38,000.

We'll just say, we'll just say 40.

Whatever the number, 38,000 plus.

Do we also need to put in that we're only or limiting ourselves to 120,000 to buy the properties as well?

That the that is the intent.

I don't have no problem with the council.

So we can put those two we 1240.

I like just to amend this ordinance to explicitly state that it's the 120,000, half of the hundred two forty and then one-third of whatever the estimate is.

Mr.

I think you would read that the city's willing to participate for half the purchase of the seven properties not to exceed 120,000.

Okay, maybe less.

Just premature.

Yeah.

Because we don't even know if they have an agreement with these people yet.

Yes, sir.

They've been talking to these people.

We've met with them.

If you ask me the specifics about it, I can't get into it, but they've been talking to them, and so they believe they can get it.

No.

No, sir.

But if they don't, if they don't give it to us, if they don't go through, we get our money back.

Oh, I understand, but I'd like to know.

I'm just thinking about pension pennies.

With some recent occurrences, we gotta look at every dollar.

It's the only reason I'm I'm asking these questions.

And did these seven people have the opportunity to participate in the buy-out program and why they did not?

I do not have that answer.

I know you and let me say this questions I'd like to ask the police jury before I uh agreed to it.

And keep in mind, in order to qualify for is my understanding, in order to qualify for the buy-out program, you had to have a repetitive loss.

So I'm not quite sure if these did not have the repetitive losses or at the time they just not want to participate in the program.

So, Mr.

Viesner, are you saying you want to defer this until you get those answers or what?

Well, it's just things that would make me feel good about us particular participating in something that we had some federal dollars.

There was enough federal dollars there, I think, for these people to participate, and the parish administered the program.

Now they're asking us, we made a mistake or we didn't get them all.

Even though we got the federal dollars, now y'all come and give us some more money.

Mr.

Viesner, if y'all want to defer to your privilege.

The reason the reason we're making a recommendation is because they are building a detention pond at no cost to the city, and it will definitely benefit the people in the terrace that has homes there and the surrounding area, because this area drains the toachole.

So it's a tremendous benefit for that cost.

But we also pay taxes for gravity drainage and the parish.

I understand.

All right.

So we don't have to defend but you're right.

But that is we've all just talked about this.

Yeah.

The city is in the parish.

And we do pay parish.

And we do pay property taxes.

And it's it's 120,000.

But I mean, but is it but it but it but it is, but you know, we but it's in perpetual.

We do have a 13.38,000.

The 38,000, yes, that's correct.

So but it is gonna benefit drainage and and we this is really is a gravity drainage project.

We handle uh right draining our roads, but ultimately in that area it's gonna wind up ultimately in Coach, and this is gonna hold water until it for a longer period of time so that Coach can clear out.

So it it will be beneficial.

I uh like I said, I'm not an engineer, but that they're gonna design that so that it benefits we've seen the immediate benefit from the uh detention pond that's on Louisiana Avenue.

That it those neighborhoods that would routinely flooding that they've been it's been working for them.

And if you were calling Louisiana Avenue, I mean they built the detention pond, gradually drainage owns and maintains it, but we did participate in part of the purchase.

So I was gonna ask that.

So just just we got three cards.

Think about it till after these three cards.

Miss Withers, state your name and address for the record, please.

My name is Kerry Withers, and I live at 2729 North Jen Wayne, right?

Um I'm not standing here in opposition.

We the people in the terrace wanted to know what the city had plans for the properties.

And those seven pieces of properties that the city and the police jury are trying to purchase, there are people that are living in those houses.

And I doubt very seriously, and some of them have nice houses.

I doubt that y'all gonna give them 2700, I mean 27,000 or 33,000.

This is something that these people have worked for a very long time, and I'm pretty sure that they're not just gonna let y'all come and give them peanuts for it.

I know I wouldn't I live back there.

And uh But just for clarification, Ms.

Withers, we are being asked to do that portion for the grant for the um detention pond and to help with whatever they're gonna pay those seven people.

Now, whether or not, like Mr.

Cardon say whether or not they're gonna buy it out or not, yeah.

They're only asking for our participation.

We don't have no kind of standing with it because we wasn't part of the program.

Right, I understand that, but the people want to know what the city and the police jury intentions about the uh property back there.

Right.

And because we've been hearing all kind of different rumors, right?

And uh one of the rumors was with about was about the retention pond.

And uh we won't some of them want to know well, why are we getting a retention pond when they built one on Louisiana Avenue?

It was supposed to be, I think, in our area, but they put one on Louisiana Avenue, now they come in with a second one.

So that was our concern.

Yes, ma'am.

That's and it's right to have that concern.

So my question is um the parish can't force these people out of their homes, need them.

I'm not sure exactly how the parishes apparently there's been a lot of discussions between the parish and the deep, and they just said that this is how much money they need.

I don't know if there's additional money, so that's all they have.

I would imagine if if people are actually living there, they're not they're not gonna sell their home for that kind of price.

So they just asked us to contribute.

She don't she don't want to move.

Right.

Then she won't move.

And we're not, we're not we're not gonna be involved.

Yeah, that's that's not that's not on us.

And and the thing is, if they're not gonna move, they're gonna need a detention pond back there.

But going back to what Mr.

Viesenar, I think it would be worthy to have the parish over here to explain this what we're doing before we so you want to defer it?

Yes, I I'd rather defer it too because all I want uh like she's saying, these people want to know what's going on, want to update.

And we can afford them that.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you, Ms.

Withers.

Thank you.

Miles Brown?

Okay, Paul Geary.

Good afternoon, Mr.

President.

Good afternoon.

My problem is that by the way.

2205.

Highway 14.

70601.

I hope I'm in Lake Joe's.

But anyway, uh you know, this serious business for me because the terror is just a viable community.

Right.

That community ain't never flooded.

I'm gonna tell you what's the problem with all this development going on around here.

And I know the first round was the state.

They come up with 30 million dollars.

Well, I didn't take some of that 30 million, fix some of this drainage round it.

And I'm I'm settling with this guy, yeah.

That's the first thing I bring.

We paying drainage to the parish and road maintenance.

So why we got all these put in?

They don't want.

But you know what?

I've been noticing uh contraband buy you been real high, even on interstate 10.

I know about this water we ain't never seen it that high.

It's something it's high time.

Something going on with this water we and one thing I know about drainage, somebody got the flood to say the rest of the people.

So you pushing the water back in the city.

This in the middle of the city, I don't know.

We could excuse me, yo.

Uh take that back.

Understood.

It's serious business we've been dealing with.

Right.

You're destroying the community.

I'm looking at voting strength in our district.

We losing people.

Where are they gonna build buy some more property with the money they want to pay them?

Right.

To me, this is the second moss view.

Now they want to buy out the problem away when guess what?

They undressed them with these storms and this weather, undressed our local government.

What they been ain't been doing.

Right.

According with their pants down.

So now they want us to re be the sacrifice again.

Right.

Well, I'm tired of sacrifice, I'm gonna show this community out of sacrifice.

So I'm suggesting y'all I wouldn't go along with that bug.

Because I don't know nothing of Paris when these co-op and devil agreements.

They I ain't never seen a way it benefit us in the city.

Right.

It's mostly on their side.

So I'm asking y'all not to support that.

I don't care if it's 50,000.

But what's going on?

I see we lose in our community.

Hey, hey, that's a vibe of community, man.

Been there for years.

It didn't flood till they eat us.

Right.

Then it came back back to back.

It's telling us something they're not doing right with our money.

Right.

So I'm thinking y'all really think this too.

Because you're killing the community, killing our voting strength in that district.

Right.

And taking the economics out too.

We already with no business.

Big old raggedy building we got down the street over there.

They got one tenant down to one tender.

So something needs to be done about this.

All right.

But you know, that just me.

I just appreciate y'all time.

Okay.

But hey, I'm from community, Juke.

Thank you, Mr.

Geary.

You have a great time.

Thank you.

So, Mr.

Mr.

Fundale, you want to um make a motion that is that I'm I I want to raise the question for further discussion.

Y'all think we ought to let these people know.

More information.

If you like to defer the motion and see if you get it.

I'd like to make a motion that we defer this.

Well, can I speak first?

Yes, sir.

I'm sorry.

Uh I live in District C.

I was young enough, I remember the flood in the 80s.

I I had an escalade.

I went and got people out the last big flood.

When they had a flood, these people was terrified.

I'm not worried about that's the parish buyout.

But we need to get this detention pond where we have another flood, they're gonna lose their homes and I'm gonna get anything from it.

Because the next time, to my understanding, they're not giving you no more insurance after we have another flood, right?

FEMA saying a lot of the like if people came in, if you elected to stay, you might not get flood insurance anymore.

Right?

So that means if you don't have flood insurance and we sitting here arguing with the parish, that we can cause them with the parish.

No, what I'm saying, are we ensure that the parish is gonna come?

I've never saw a parish at the city council meeting.

Well, but we gotta invite them.

So we we can't just say because they never gonna come or whatever.

We need to answer these questions so that we are known to go forward with the detention pond, because they're gonna do the detention pond.

They're asking for our help.

So that may not be the case.

Yeah, but so our 38,000 is gonna stop them?

Well, I I don't know.

They, you know, originally they wanted us to take this over the detention pond over, and we negotiated with them and told them no, they're going after a grant, they've got the grant, they're designing it, they're willing to go put it out for a bit and build it.

I mean, I'm not saying they would just walk away from it because they believe it's a good project for the area, and we've had a lot of issues there.

Uh, but to say that if we don't participate, I mean it's possible they could say well, it doesn't mean anything to the city, it doesn't mean anything to them.

Well, I'm not saying not to participate, I'm saying that we could at least ask more questions, have the parents come here and answer the question.

I think that's a Bible request.

Okay.

Okay.

So can we when we trying to do this?

Next meeting.

Okay.

I would say next meeting.

I make a motion to invite we'll invite somebody from the so we have second.

You got something y'all gonna defer yes to the next okay.

So we're gonna do I make a motion that we defer until the next regular city council meeting.

June third.

June third to have uh representative from the parish and gravity drainage come and explain to us item number 29.

Second.

Second by Mr.

Visional.

All those in favor, please vote.

I mean any questions or comments.

Question, comments.

Please vote.

Number 30, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Lake Charles, amending resolution number 31323 to authorize the city of Lake Charles to modify the location and scope of R SIP, LDI City of Lake Charles, L C R Railroad Avenue, revital 0088 in order to transfer funding to the gospel community center to construct a primary community resilience hub in accordance with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's national objectives for the use of funds at CDBG DR grant DR program.

Mr.

Mayor?

Yes.

Good evening again, Councilman.

This is one of the uh the disaster recovery RCIP grants that we had.

This uh the original application was for this money to be allocated to Railroad Avenue.

And uh prior to coming in, that that project was canceled uh for for whatever reason, and now it's time to uh get uh the state a final uh determination what to do with those funds.

Uh now I want to make a correction.

This is not to build another resiliency uh center.

That that's right now there's two primary resiliences hubs that's that's coming up that the city is gonna own in perpetuity to help with recovery.

One is the sports complex, the next one is the next item on the agenda.

This one is to build uh rebuild the recreation center.

If you pull this up, we the um the Gosport, that project had three four million dollars, uh, between four and three and a half million dollars because some of the funds have is being proposed to be to fill gaps for some of the other projects that are going through.

Uh but what we did was already just this past year, uh and this year this summer we're opening up.

We put a brand new pool out there at Gospel Recreation Center.

Uh and currently we have uh a new splash pad uh that's being designed and about to go out to bid because the previous splash pad that was out there was old and antiquated, and they don't make parts for it anymore.

Plus, it's located away from the pool area, so we're relocating it right next to the pool area so you have some consistency there.

But the gym, but the building, the current gospel recreation center that's there was built in the 1940s.

So, you know, uh that's we don't we're concerned about putting new wine and old wine skins.

Uh it's not overly functional.

It's it's a tight building, it doesn't it it doesn't function for what it does.

The um the HVAC, the central air unit is old, it's outdated, costs a lot of money to operate for our pool.

There's no shower area, and so it gives us an opportunity to do several things.

Uh and I I'll work with the um, I'll talk to you a little bit about the design of the recreation center itself and then what it affects we think it's gonna have in the community.

If you look uh the the current building would be at the bottom, but we want to build a new building at the top of it, and that building is gonna be facing Shatter Street.

And if you look at the renderings to to the pictures on the right, you can see what that picture would look like.

That building would look like it'd be a new uh modern building for gospel recreation.

Uh the the we would take the pretty the playground that's currently on the on the the corner and move it right by the splash pad.

So that whole area you'd have the pool, the splash pad, and the playground.

You have seating areas, there's a restroom there, and that whole area would be fenced in so that the only way to access into that area would be through the building.

Where the existing building is now is at the bottom, and we would propose to take that out.

And that was already a proposal to put a putting green, but we want to put in a 18-hole putt-put course because we think that's gonna provide more interactivity for the recreation center.

What we're trying to do is make the recreate recreation centers now the centers of the communities where the community gathers.

It also has walking paths, um, uh new parking lot at the at the at the top part, but with the building facing out to Shaddock Street, it makes it more functional.

And if you go to the next slide, uh the inside of the building would would stay true.

You'd have the uh the gym that you have so that you will still it will still function as a sports recreation facility, but it's also uh a place where you can have large gatherings, uh meeting rooms.

I think we had talked about putting in a uh a kitchen in that area, and you would actually have the showers and everything would be facing out toward the uh the pool area.

And up the uh and because we've been talking with the state about its Grow Healthy Louisiana program, it has a uh uh elevated uh walking track upstairs too.

So it should fit a whole lot more needs than what we've done here.

Now the reason if you can go back to the first slide, the reason why this fits so well is because the the with the pool in area now we anticipate a lot of energy there, but around that area, because of the storms and because of this investment, there's a lot of open lots now, and we think that's a a great opportunity for some infield development.

Uh the fifth floor of the community development department, we've been talking about incentivizing uh development through our home program, uh maybe using C BDG funds to help uh to to incentivize uh private builders to go in and build homes for home ownership and get uh start revitalizing the community.

And it makes sense because in these areas we already have roads, sewer, water, electricity, so that infrastructure is there.

Most of those properties we have some control over, so we can actually make the margins work for these people and build housing, resilient housing, most of this area outside the 500-year floodplain, so it makes sense to put that kind of investment in.

Uh the choice neighborhood.

You know, we we we're building roads and infrastructure in there, putting in parks, putting in mixed income housing, and and stabilizing those communities, and we think there's a chance to do that here, especially with its proximity to the to the downtown to ITN area and to the uh school districts that can serve it, because uh eventually, and we think that eventually uh if if if uh if when one St.

Louis Catholic high school moves, and if Hamilton Christian uh does not stay a high school, you will only have one high school uh north of I-210, and that would be Washington, Marion.

So it makes sense that you have schools in that area that we can get this type of investment and development in.

So I I think it's low-hanging fruit.

We did talk to the state about it because the state had indicated that uh that uh that that these the projects were in place and we pitched that to them, and they thought it was a great idea, so they sub they they said they would support it, but obviously we can't submit that to the state without an ordinance.

So I'm asking for your support on that.

So there's any questions.

No, we we presented we presented it to the state.

We haven't submitted it formally because they said to come back get an ordinance.

That's how you are changing from resilient, you taking the resiliency hub all.

Yeah, we don't need that to be a resiliency hub because we state.

So this original project was a project that um was for the street.

Am I right?

You mean the monies?

The money for the street.

Yeah.

For Railroad Avenue project.

Railroad Avenue, yeah.

Uh so the state is allowing us to do a new project now, create a re recreation center.

That well, the reason why they're doing that is because that the the Railroad Avenue project was canceled.

Okay, so we canceled the railroad avenue project and we didn't cancel it allowing us to create we canceled it.

Yeah, yes.

Okay, we canceled the railroad with the railroad avenue project.

That was canceled before I got in office, but it's my understanding that that's the state is allowing us to this is a new project, it's not a modification of an old project.

This is a new project.

So the state allows us to take GBC money and do new projects.

It's no, they they said under this circumstance because of this circumstance.

Yeah, they saw the investment that we had done and the and the opportunity for redevelopment in the low and moderate income community, so they they said that they would consider that.

I don't I don't disagree with that, but I'm just saying the state do allow us to do new projects.

According to what you written here, yeah.

I I would say this one, this one in particular because the uh the head of the Office of Community Development came in, we pitched it, and she said that that's something that they would consider, but we need to get an ordinance or to modify the ordinance that was already in place.

So go ahead.

Go ahead.

If if it's not an if it's a new project, what are we modifying?

Uh we'll what the ordinance, the first ordinance that was in place.

Apparently that was the ordinance already for Railroad Avenue.

So that would be that would require a move, and then because we're not doing a a street uh or whatever streetscape was in that, we're asking them to modify it so that we can build a recreation center.

But this is saying the city of Lake Charles to modify the location and scope.

Right.

So we're not modifying the location and scope, we're doing a whole nother project.

Well, yeah, I I think the location, I think the location has to be to in a low and moderate income committee.

Yeah, I agree with you.

So that's the modification.

But the scope is not a street anymore, not as a recreation center.

So that's what I'm saying.

So if if I'm understanding Mr.

Fundale right, let me let me just ask this question and use your attorney's case.

If I modify something, that's taking something that I already have, reshaping it to do something else.

That's exactly right.

If I have a project that was scheduled to be a streetscape, and now I'm doing a building, that's a new project.

That's not modifying that streetscape.

Yeah, and I I don't know about how this I mean that's the wording here, but I don't know exactly how the state is is they they just said that those because those funds were the project that those funds were dedicated to was canceled, that this could go toward a recreation center under these circumstances.

Okay, so let me just ask you this.

When we send the application in, because you did say the application had been sent in.

When we send it in, we sending it in as a rec center.

Yes.

We had it has not been sent in.

No, we have not sent in.

We the the application has to have an ordinance.

I mean absolutely they just gave general, hey.

This is nothing riding nowhere.

So it's still in the discussion mode, right?

But no, Mr.

Finder, we we've been talking with the state pretty much since I've been in office about all of these projects.

I mean, and and uh let me back up a little bit because what's what the way these the way these funds, these particular disaster recovery funds are they're grant from the federal government to the state of Louisiana.

So the federal government is the grantor, the state is the grantee, and the city is a subrecipient, which means the city, the state is entrusting the the funds to the city, and we're responsible for the those funds.

We need to understand clearly how this process worked.

Now, the thing of it is is so the state uh that that project was was um squashed before you took office and it's been there and it never came before the council.

You you got to talking with the state and already decide where you wanted to go with it, then you're coming back to the council to say, let me go with this.

Well, when we first got in, the state told us that if any project was not viable, take the money and put it to another project, another existing project.

But we was under the assumption, Mr.

Craig.

We told them, Look, we think.

Well, we talked to them about this particular project, and they said once we told them what we wanted to do and why the in-field development and the potential for that investment to in the community, they said, Well, that's something that they would consider and take on the advisement, but they want to they wanted an ordinance first before they do it.

Mr.

Marks, if I uh if I could, if we if I offered you could possibly amend the ordinance to say location and nature of RCIP, if that would make the council more comfortable.

Well, I think in terms of scope and set up.

I think the problem is we've been told on many occasions that OCD is not taking any new projects.

So the question is, when did this new project get accepted?

Because if the application hadn't been sent in, we sent it in a new project, but we being told that they're not accepting new projects.

They they told us flat and clear, they're not taking any new projects that these funds have to be reallocated.

But when they came in and met with us, we told them, look, we can there's other places we can put this, but we thought that we that this would be better serving the community if we could put that somewhere around that would do that kind of service.

So that's and I understand that, Mary, but I I'm just getting lost on we're not accepting any new projects.

Right.

Yet we haven't sent this application in.

But we finna send it in as a new project.

So if they're not taking new projects, how are we gonna get this in?

Or is this grandfathered under something else?

No, I I I I I would say this I say for me, I I think I was very passionate about telling them how important these funds are, and if they're invested in the right places, that they would do well.

Uh, this is funds that otherwise you would have uh the city's responsible for us, so they're deferring to us because we're the sub-recipient.

So eventually we're gonna make this work.

They said they know that parks and recreation centers do not generate funds, they're usually just for quality of life, and they understand that in order to do things with the low and moderate income, you need to meet national objectives because of the infield opportunities there right around this park, that's eight empty lots.

That elimin that's that feat meets the objective of eliminating blight, uh uh stopping decay in the community and getting reinvestment back.

So once we pitch that to them, they say, you know what, we'll consider we'll consider that one, but come back to us with an ordinance for for it.

Okay, let me ask you this.

Is when did the deadline hit for no new projects?

When did OCD say, hey, we've exceeded that deadline, no more new projects.

What was that date?

Well, I'll defer to Mark Mark knows.

That was initially from the very beginning.

Once we submit it, the you know, we had deadlines to meet.

There would be no more, you know, new applications afterwards.

Okay, but has that deadline changed?

No.

So right now, that deadline was when.

Well, I don't remember exactly when, but I mean you're probably talking now about two and a half years ago.

Okay, so can we have that?

Can I have that deadline with whatever that is?

Can I have that information about when that deadline was?

I can provide it to you.

Okay.

Did it allow this because there was impediments with the original project?

Is that is that what happened here?

But based upon that, I understand what the mayor is saying.

The other project failed, we're moving the money.

Yeah.

What what I have a problem with, or what I'm not understanding, is we've been told countless number of times, no new projects.

So I'm thinking that we had already sent these projects in.

So that's why we were we were covered.

But now that I'm hearing we have no application in, so we send in a new project, unless we got something in writing from OCD that's saying, hey, y'all didn't do it in time, but we're gonna let y'all go past that deadline.

That's what I'm trying to find out.

Because if not, we're gambling on this.

Because if we send it in a new project and they say, hey, we're not taking in no new projects according to what y'all are saying, we spinning our wheels here.

We may need to find another area.

But they've told them they can send it in, so they know they can have the new project.

But they said no, they said they talked to them verbally.

They know they can have it.

The state has okay them to send in the new project.

That's the the the state has okay.

Okay to have a modified application.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's it's not a new application, it's a modifying.

No, it's not modified.

It's not well, no, no.

Well, it's not, it's it's modifying the application.

So it may be semantics, it's modifying the application, but that is resulting in the type of project and the specific location of the project.

That's not what this say.

This say modify the location and scope.

So they're modifying it's it's a change of project.

It's not a modification.

Well, they're saying the scope of the project, so they're yeah.

We're we're talking semantics here.

No, we're not talking semantics because this ordinance is written by us.

This is not OCD writing this.

I understand that.

So what I want to know is OCD gonna say, hey, this project is a new project, we can't accept it because we're being told that they can't accept no new projects.

Well, they're saying they're modifying the scope of the project so that they're they're telling us or this ordinance that yes, you're there is a project and you're modifying the scope of that project.

And I don't know that it sounds like maybe the reason or what Ms.

Stu says is that there the railroad project for whatever is not viable.

I agree.

And so then you move on to the road.

Are you saying that we need to move it to another road?

No, no, I'm saying what I'm asking is I would understand all of this if the application had been sent in.

We have yet to send an application, is what we find out tonight.

Mr.

Mark, I'll I would say if I could make just a quick comment.

And I think Mr.

Stutz said if modified gives you all heartburn, we could say no.

We could say change.

No, no, modify that don't give me the problem.

Okay, but let me just finish.

And I'll happen to be in a meeting with the head of OCD with the mayor.

And they originally said from what Mark has shared with us that we could not add any more new projects.

Okay.

And that conversations with the head of OCD, we walked through this, pitched the gospel, they informed them what we did with the pool and other uh stuff that we have done at Gosport.

She felt it was a good viable project, and she said, get an ordinance.

Now she come well, they come back and say you can't do it, but they led us to believe in that meeting.

If we get an ordinance, they would approve it.

And that's all we can do.

And and and I I I understand that perfectly.

Yes, sir.

But all I'm saying is, if this is a new project, which it is, because it's we're not modifying the streetscape and saying, hey, we're changing it from a streetscape to sidewalks.

That would be a modification.

We're going from a streetscape to building a new building that is it in my opinion and that's OCD.

Unless we can get some clarification from OCD of what a new uh project is and I'm only asking that is because we haven't sent the application that's why I'm suggesting if it if y'all want change modify the change so you're changing the location and the scope you're not modifying you're changing it completely.

But even if we do that mr mr cardone even if we change the wording okay we still know that the application has not been sent in well so if the application hasn't been sent in the I obviously you talked to them about the conversation was about a resiliency center because that's why you got it in here.

No no that the conversation with OCD ethno why what well why would you just throw resiliency center in the in the thing if if you look at the wording of 31 and 32 I think whoever put this in they just use the same wording it was always a recreation center.

As a clerical mistake adding a whole word called resiliency no no way you're saying is that that the there's two projects that are adjacent to each other and the agenda's in here construct a primary community resiliency hub and you're saying it's in this and you never talk to OC so we was going to approve something that you never even discussed I don't have the agenda in front of me but you say the first item has the same ordinary I clarified at the very beginning that this is I mean we can approve this and then OC come back and say no it's still got to be a resiliency or no now we need to that we need to we need to remove that from the ordinary that's what I'm saying that's why I said at the very beginning that this that this is not a primary resiliency hub it's going to be built to resilience standards but the there's only two primary resiliency hubs that we're proposing the only reason why this one came up is because and I don't know how OCD uh makes the determination but it may have been that because this particular project was canceled and maybe they felt they had that kind of flexibility.

I don't know this project was never a resiliency hub I'm not I'm not I'm not saying it's a resiliency hub I agree with what you're saying mayor about the wording we can correct the wording correct that yeah my my or my whether it's a new project or not yes yeah because my my thing is a application I was led to believe maybe it's my misunderstanding or not that all these projects we done applications were sent in and they were approved.

That's what I was under the assumption now I'm finding out tonight there has never been an application sent in about this but we've been told that you can't send in no new applications.

Now we're sending in a new application I would just like some sort of clarification that OCD is going to accept this.

Not just word of mouth like we asked before because we might have to do another project.

I have a quite did did we did we submit an application for Railroad Avenue?

Yeah that was it that was a very application so there is an application for Railroad Avenue.

Right.

It can't be done so we are changing it modifying the the the grant request is being modified so we do have a grant request and oh the OCD is not going to take any action regarding that until they get ordinance from us until they have an ordinance right now you feel good that they're probably gonna accept it but they may choose to reject it which means then we're gonna have to submit and that's why I'm asking about we're gonna have to modify it again and and if I'm talking to the head OCD I'm gonna presume that she's talking from her authority but she she she understood what we were trying to do and why she understood the pool and the investment that was already put down she thought it was a great opportunity to instead of using the hunt of 1940s building to go ahead and get this place fixed up and they understood mid what we're doing in mid-city and everything else.

So this is I agree with you mayor a hundred percent all I want clarity on new project I want clarity on new project because if we can submit some new projects then that put us in a whole different ball game and that may be a matter of time you just shared with me please well we we were just um talking about the ordinance you know that they were is as long as you you know to to add something you had to to that list that original list we had 14 projects and I think it's five or six of them came off for various reasons that you'd have to submit another you know an ordinance to get and I get that and we have to correct this word and that's by submitting an ordinance it makes sure that you check with the council that the council agreed with it that's why she required the ordinance if it didn't require an ordinance you that that the council you then you wouldn't be asking the council for a a vote on it.

So by by implication, it's saying that she's saying, okay, I agree.

Now make sure the council agreed with it too.

Give me an ordinance.

That's a true statement.

That's okay.

Yeah.

And I'm and all I'm saying is we can change.

Go ahead.

We could have a new project, and and we're not told that information.

I'm agreeing with you, Mayor.

We can correct the wording, and we can uh submit the ordinance.

I just want to know being that we have never sent in an application because I am positive we were told that applications had been sent in on all of these projects, and now we're hearing nothing has been sent in.

So we put ourselves in the position of a new project, which we are being told they're not accepting any new projects.

I don't know.

Well, can we just ask to get some clarity on it?

In writing?

I I think and the way I've I've seen with OCD is that they're telling us get us this out, get us this in.

They they like I said before, they're looking at the whole I understand what you're saying, Mayor.

But for six months, I've been hearing OCD tell us this.

OCD say we need to get this in.

We're willing to get it in.

I don't see what's the problem with getting we're still at an impasse because now we're back to we can't get anything from OCD.

That's what it seems like.

Go ahead, Mr.

Harvey.

I have a question.

Um point of clarification.

Um Mr.

Tizno, you made a comment and maybe I misunderstood, but you said that there's no true deadlines for any of the projects.

No, I didn't I didn't say that.

Oh, you didn't say that.

No true deadline.

No, I I asked Mr.

Mr.

I asked if what is the deadline if we got new projects, what is the deadline?

But we know there's no I'm I'm sorry, in that respects, yeah, you're right.

Well, I don't know about you know there being a deadline.

Okay.

And then go ahead.

There's no deadlines on only the one.

I only know of one deadline, and that was the one from the original.

And I I mean, I can get that for you guys, you know, in the morning, but from the original when we had to submit everything to OCD.

What was the original deadline that was remember?

But I mean, you're talking about two years ago, no, you know that was only 14 projects.

That's right.

Yeah.

So if it was more than two years ago, it was the previous administration.

Well, but that don't change the deadline.

It don't that the deadline.

No, no, I that's that's true.

Only reason I'm asking.

And I'm not trying to first of all, let me just for the sake of staying on on task.

I'm for this project.

I think it's a great project.

I think it was a great recommendation.

As I've told the administration before, there's a lot of people who in the audience tonight, a lot of people who are gonna listen to this.

Like we do need to be able to convey to the constituents why we're not moving forward with the railroad avenue project.

I'm for this project.

I want to make sure I'm clear with that.

I think it's a great project.

It's gonna be a great asset to District A.

But we do need to communicate with the constituents because we did go on a trail telling people what we were going to do with the railroad avenue revitalization.

That's for the record.

When you said there's the deadlines, the reason why that sparked interest with me is it would be because of other things that we've initiated, not trying to go back in the past.

But I was always told that we had to get things done because of a deadline.

But now I'm hearing there's no deadline.

It's the first time I'm hearing this tonight.

So that's why I'm I'm asking for clarity because if we never had any deadline, you said all the projects, right?

That was submitted within this grant.

Yeah, in respect to deadlines, we had a deadline before for all applications.

So when he asked about a new deadline, I'm just saying I don't I don't know of a new deadline.

And just for clarity, what Mark is saying, we had original date with the original projects.

I understand that.

But in the last couple of months, we were told that we can't submit any new projects.

And here we come tonight, and in my opinion, we're submitting a new project.

So I am asking if we can submit new projects, what is the deadline?

It has to be a deadline now for the new projects, and if if if it's not, then it's not.

But I'm still hung up on the fact that we were told you can't submit any new projects.

And to me, this is a new project.

No matter how we word it, when it goes to OCD, they're gonna see we had money allocated for a streetscape, and now we're building a building.

All right, so the what they what they are allowing us to do again is to submit a modified application.

I understand what you know what you're talking about in terms of what it seems like to you.

That's what they allow, you know, allowing it.

And that's all I want is clarity from OCD.

So we don't keep having these discussions.

Mr.

Mark, if I could ask you a question.

The the railroad streetscape project, we're to say we're not doing.

Was it part of the original?

Yes.

Yes, it's it's on that list.

It was what was submitted.

It was it was it was a part of the original project.

If what that there's a there has been an application submitted.

Was it really okay?

That's what I'm saying.

Has it been changed once already and then changed again?

It was on the original.

No, it was it was it on these four.

Has this list been changed since it was taken off?

Is it possible that Railroad Avenue was taken off?

Just maybe reduce, yeah.

Um well, yeah, it's part I don't know what he has.

I can't see it, but that's in the back of the book.

Yeah.

It should uh the original 14.

It should be there.

And Railroad Avenue is not on either either list.

So I'm assuming that that was I know that Railroad was on the original application.

So it was removed for some reason.

I think I think I think if you look at number eight on that list, this this is not this.

I don't think this is the original list, because this actually has gospel done.

Well, that's another question.

And it shows it as a resiliency hub.

Again, I think that needs that could be modified.

I don't I don't have a problem with the wording.

Like Mrs.

Mr.

Uh Stoots, what are those words that you say we can put in there, recenter and something else you said.

You could change it to I would suggest modify the location and nature of because that's you're changing it to a different project.

Scope is if that's what y'all want to change that fine pound with it about.

I think I think the important thing is that we're modifying a previously submitted application.

Now, a question may be from particular councilman is why couldn't we have modified it to have a different project?

Since in your district, or I'm just I just want to go in my district, I don't think I have a process with that particular district.

Oh no, I know but that wouldn't be.

I want to know at one point of this.

For me, all this is Harvey's.

So if Harvey fine with it, why are we arguing about something that Harvey's fine with it?

Because we're the city council of the city.

Everybody voted.

Yes.

So we're voting again, yeah.

If Harvey wants it.

Yeah.

No, we vote if the council won't.

If the council wants it, yeah.

So that's what we call so we can get to a vote.

We discussion.

We gotta finish discussion first.

I gotta go see my daddy, y'all.

Okay, well if if you're ready, if you're ready to to you can well I gotta see my pops.

Okay.

Honestly, you can't.

I mean, I mean, if you want to, we can call the question.

You can ask to call the question, and if you get a second, we can that ends discussion.

I'm not sure you may or may not want to do this on that option.

You can call a question.

If you want to call the question, if you're ready to vote, and if you get a second, and we if it's modifying it, to my understanding, it was already there, right?

Well, it's in the area, it was in the same way.

No, but it was the railroad avenue.

That's correct.

They're modifying it because they already had submitted the railroad avenue.

If you redo it, now it's a new project.

They saying modifying because it was already filed for railroad, it wasn't approved, so they're keeping it in Harvey District.

But it wasn't filed.

It's a modified application.

It's modifying application.

Application that changed, it's just modifying it.

We're not modifying it.

The project is being modified, not the application.

Not the application.

Well, no, application being modified, or the project is too, but but it but we're it's not a brand new, it's not a brand new request.

I mean, it's not a brand new request.

It is a brand new request.

It is a brand new request.

If you gotta fill in the application, if you gotta send in another application, it's a brand new request.

I I and I think the language that they're saying is that the the city, whatever project they had in there, they want to ordinance where the city is asking, can you modify this?

Can you modify it to put this in this location for this particular purpose?

Here's the thing.

I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know how to how the OCD deals whether it is a new project or not.

This is the ordinance that they requested.

And I'm not, I don't have I'm gonna say it again.

I don't have a problem with the ordinance.

What I want clarity on, I want people to stop telling me things and come back later and changing it.

We've been told you cannot do new projects.

You cannot do this, you cannot do this.

Oh, we talked to OCD, they told us this, and we still have yet to get anything on paper that would eliminate all of this arguing, all of this talking.

We have yet to get anything on paper.

We have got nothing on paper.

So what was what the answer was the way to get it?

What would you want to answer to before we can move forward?

No, no, we can go on and vote on this.

That's what I'm saying.

But I'm not gonna let nobody rush me into doing something because of whatever the reason is.

And I'm not saying you personally, but that's how long it's been since the beginning of this term.

And we have yet to get paperwork from OCD.

Mr.

Morris, what what OCD sent us in recently, I think we shared that with the council, was that they were authorizing the total $58 million grant.

This is whatever this is doing, they're saying send them an ordinance if we want to modify because Railroad Avenue is no longer viable project, has been canceled.

If we want to move it to that, send them an ordinance where the city is saying modify it.

Now, the head of OCD said that that she thinks it's a great project and she thinks it's going to go through, but they're going to do all of this stuff at one time because they've authorized the $58 million.

Now they want us to make progress and give them the final projects.

Mayor, all I'm asking for is for clarity on whether this is a new project, whether OCD has some documentation they can give us to say, hey, we're going to go forward with that.

I I don't have no problem with this ordinance.

I just want when we send this ordinance out, I want the council to receive something.

Because we've been in limbo for a long time now.

We've been going on y'all's word.

What y'all tell us, hey, y'all talk to them, they say this is gonna do this, we went along with it.

And now it's getting to the nuts and bolts to where it has to be documentation to support this.

Mr.

Morris, this is a this is a recommendation.

I mean, y'all can accept it or reject it.

At that point, I what if you accept it?

I send it to OCD, we'll get whatever answer they're gonna give us.

If you reject it, then that that money has to go somewhere.

I don't know.

Okay, I'm gonna take my my vote is to vote for it like it is.

So if y'all are ready to vote, if y'all are ready to rush and vote, let's vote.

Oh, no, I want to remove it's not a primary residual.

We need to remove that.

It's a recreation center.

I want to remove that language.

Do you want to make a motion to amend the the word uh primary out of out of the ordinary?

You can probably I think you can take it uh you can say it's gonna be built uh to a resiliency standard, which I think we have to do anyway.

Yeah, that's required of any kind of building.

I just say remove anything about reserve because it's it's not.

It's not that.

How about if you just say uh to construct a recreation center in accordance with the United States Department of Housing Urban Development's national objectives for the use of funds because they could determine whether they use the funds?

I'll make a motion to amend it that.

And this this same stuff is gonna be sent in on application, correct?

The exact wording is gonna be sent in.

That's between the ordinances going to have a ordinance goes the exact ordinary.

But I'm saying it's gonna be the same wording that we voting on here.

Yes.

That's correct.

That's what's going to.

So what what is the ordinance gonna say?

Instead of saying community center to construct a primary community resilience hub, the proposed amendment is to constru it to change to say to construct a recreation facility in accordance with the United States Department of Housing.

So Mr.

Harvey, you are this what you want to do?

Absolutely.

Yes, I'm I'm letting that be clear.

I mean, I said that from the beginning.

Like I'm I'm for the project.

We we're having a lot of discussion.

I just want to say this, so we can move forward to vote out of respect to Mr.

Billboard and his father.

Listen, we can eliminate a lot of this frustration that's happening tonight if we go back to what I said about six months ago.

There should be no reason that we, as the governing body of the city of Lake Charles, cannot have direct conversations with OCD.

We can't, according to what the administration is saying, we can't talk to them.

We can't receive anything official doc any official documentation.

There needs to be a direct line instead of the he say she say, because as the governing body, if we're being here to cast a vote tonight, what I'm hearing from all the councilmen, and I'll sit back and listen intentionally is frustration off of he say she say.

We need a direct line to be able to communicate with OCD to be able to tell us what we can and cannot do.

Because if I'm if I'm listening to everybody correctly tonight, is this was said before, this was not said before.

Just give us something on paper or let us be able to talk to them directly.

That way, everybody's fact checking we transparent, and we not having this tonight on one particular object.

I'll move forward that we go ahead and vote.

But I as a district aid representative, I'm in full support of this project.

Can we please move forward?

Well, I like to vote on the amendment.

Did I get a second on my motion to change that language?

Second.

Okay.

Yeah, we vote on the amendment.

Please vote for the amendment and vote as amended.

It's six.

On the amendment.

Was it Mr.

Vigenau or Mr.

Vill didn't vote on the right voted?

No.

Yeah, it voted no.

It voted no.

Showed six in favor, one against.

On the amendment, I thought it was no but who voted against.

No, it was Mr.

Viesner.

Mr.

Visa, we voted again.

Okay, I'm sorry.

So the amendment carries.

Please vote on the amendment.

We're voting on the amendment.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

It's still six to one.

Six to one.

Now vote as amended.

Six to one.

Number thirty-one, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Lake Charles amending resolution number three thirteen-23 to authorize the city of Lake Charles to modify the location and scope of RCIP LDI City of Lake Charles, Lake Charles Second Harvest 0084, and further authorizing the purchase of a vacant lot, parcel number 00751405 from a Maclehart of Mary Roman Catholic Church to construct and own a primary community resiliency hub in accordance with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's national objectives for the use of funds from the CDBG DR program.

Any questions or comments?

This is a change again, right?

Yes.

Another change.

Another change, just like that.

Well, I'm not gonna take a I'm not gonna get long.

Oh, wait, excuse me, excuse me.

The mayor wanted to make a representation.

Okay.

My bad.

I'm sorry.

This is another RSIP uh uh project and this time this one was actually uh originally authorized for second harvest to build a uh to build a facility off of uh Legion Street.

Uh uh Second Harvest uh did not meet the qualifications to receive these funds and that was disqualified.

So we did request of OCD to do one thing differently.

Instead of having uh sub a recipient or somebody recipient that these funds stay in control of the city.

And the reason why we did that was because we wanted to uh put up another resiliency hub that the city owns in perpetuity.

If you know most of these projects, the way that the projects were set up, they were set up where this the city would provide the grant monies for projects that would be built, and then once the the HUD closed their books on this, those facilities would go over to whoever was uh awarded those those projects.

Because of what happened with with with uh second harvest, instead of going out and find another sub-recipient, we did request that this they have do not have a subrecipient and that the city itself does this one for the most important reasons that we wanted a second primary resiliency hub.

Uh, if you look at agenda item number 31, and and this goes back to the just imagine plan.

In the just imagine plan, we hired um uh UDA to come in and come up with a 50-year resiliency plan.

On the next page, it talks about uh one of the catalytic projects was community resiliency hubs.

And these are places that are supposed to be hardened structures that can withstand 140 mile an hour hurricanes and go into areas where you can stage recovery because as you know, uh we we suffered in Hurricane Rita in 2005, and that was supposed to be the once-in-a-fet time storm in 2020.

We had Hurricanes Laura and Delta, and uh obviously we realized that we have to build resilient communities because even though we can't control these storms, we can't control our recovery if we strategically put resilient uh resiliency hubs in places that can help supply support and help people recover in these storms.

Strategically, those are supposed to be put near uh high access areas.

I tend to ten those types of areas because those when you have to have these kind of storms, it's not hard to access those.

The National Guard, everybody else comes in and access those places.

We had one that uh SWA Center for Health Services wound up being uh uh recovery center because the MLK Center was down, Allen August Center was down, all these areas are down, and we found that this the uh the area that we that this in the in when the just imagine plan talked about was uh in most vulnerable area because it had a lot of high rental areas.

And what happened was we found that when these storms hit, the landlords who own these properties, if their homes are devastated and they've got renters, they have to make a quality decision.

Do I take care of the place where I lay my head or do I take care of somebody else's place?

And most and given the devastation that we experienced, a lot of them decided we're gonna take this money and put it where I need to take care of my family.

As a result of that, we had a lot of people that were displaced and never came back because wherever they went, life had to continue on.

They couldn't even afford to come back.

As we began recovering, and I and I was part of the recovery in my law practice because we represent a lot of businesses.

As those businesses were coming back and recovering, they ran into a situation where they didn't have enough workers because all the workers had left.

Most of the workers had left, and that hampered the recovery.

So strategically, the idea now is to place community resilience hubs throughout the city in strategic places on major thoroughfares for major staging and nearer communities to so that the uh the locals can get uh recovery.

So the opportunity presented itself, and in the next well, in that page and the in that plan they had uh the gosport area because that was the most vulnerable area and and it was easily accessible because it's right near I-10, and they they picked a 4.7 acre tract of land that was next to SWLA Center for Health Services for several reasons.

One is because the uh that center was was uh a recovery center, not only for hurricane recovery, but because we're in the middle of a pandemic, it was a health center, and they had telehealth and all these other resources that were available.

Uh it was the proximity to the I-10 made it easy to to supply because 18 wheels were coming in, people staging.

And they also said that because the um because the because of the way that that uh SWLA operates, they had administrative staff that dealt with federal funds and could and had the administration that could handle these types of things.

One of the things that we wanted to do is make sure that we could put up resiliency hubs in places, but in Blue Skies, have those operate so those places can be self-sustaining, so they we don't have to start pulling money from the general funds to take care of those.

And there's a lot of nonprofits, a lot of people that do a lot of things in the communities.

They cannot afford brick and mortar, but they're looking for places to house their programs.

So and we've been talking with people like the YMCA, uh, like I said before, the the uh Grow Louisiana, and a lot of other nonprofits about doing these things.

So it just made sense that this location made sense.

So we went and looked at it and saw that the uh that SW SWLA had already been talking to Immaculate across the street that owns the property, that's the former uh Cherry Street Elementary School.

They've always had a partnership because where SWLA is currently uh that used to be the old Washington High School football stadium, and they all split those the school board apparently split those properties with them.

So when they saw what was the staging was being done, and they heard that they wanted to try to do something that would would uh help the community recover without affecting their health care, then they said that well, we'll work with you on trying to get you this property.

Now, currently SWLA, even though they were devastated and they they really took care of the community, they're not in the process of rebuilding.

The building to you to the left of that screen is gone, and they're building they're currently rebuilding a 26 million dollar state of the art health care facility there.

Uh they they they the the five the 4.7 acres uh and in 2003 they had gotten an appraisal uh and that appraisal uh was shared with the with uh the owner McLaharty McLehart understood the mission and decided to uh price the property well below the appraised value.

23 million, you said 2003, 23.

2023, that's right.

2023 to uh to so that that process has always been in place, but we looked at it as an opportunity to put this uh to fulfill the just imagine plan and uh partner with SWLA if that's but that would be something the council would have to.

But the the primary thing is to build a resiliency a resiliency, it's a grant that has to be used anyway.

Build a resilience, a community resiliency hub that the city owns in perpetuity.

It's never going to anybody else, and we'll always have that there in that area.

And in the meantime, we start looking at the other areas to start putting other resiliency hubs to make sure that we can recover in any event, not just hurricanes, freezes, floods, uh any type of things.

Those can those can help our communities come back better.

So this is a proposal that was made, it was based upon the just imagine plan.

It's something that we uh uh the again.

We talked to OC OCD about that, and they thought that was a good project.

They agreed with us not to have a uh uh an awardee, so we don't have anybody else to deal with this.

It would be this would be there's two of these projects that would be the cities forever.

The uh the the sports complex as a resiliency hub, uh this as a resiliency hub, one on this side of uh by the I-10 area, that on the other side.

Uh in the the previous place at Legion where Legion Street is, we've been already talking with Chenault because Chennault and Suela have uh facilities that are that are set up to be uh recovery places, and you already have the National Guard stage there.

We're also looking at places like uh War 3 Recreation, other places on 210 route, and then start bringing those kind of facilities into the neighborhoods.

So it's it's a this is part of an ongoing effort that this administration is undertaking to strategically place these these buildings in a place that can help give us recovery no matter what we're facing.

Okay, Mr.

Weatherfeld.

It's uh and what Southwest is building is gonna be built to be it's gonna be strengthened and it's gonna sustain.

Yes.

140 I don't know that it'd be one foot, but it's gonna sustain a very high impact hurricane, and so people will be going there to get their health care.

So it is a good location in that respect.

Yeah you got supplies coming out of there they building a resiliency hub already a 40 million dollar resiliency no they're no they're building they're building the health center resilience is not gonna it's not gonna withstand the hurricane then if it don't withstand the hurricane then they won't be operating no it's it's not a resiliency hub because the city doesn't control it hub for us but I'm sure they're not just gonna build a building is not going to be code because by law by law by new law all new structures has to be built to say resiliency.

If you're using state money so if that's the truth if they building the million dollar thing then they already but that's office building a million dollar it's it's not 26 million 26 million it's not it's not a hub it's gonna be a medical private that's their private what happened during but he just said that they they gonna support the community already what what happened what happened during the here's what happened this is what happened during the hurricane their their their building on the left was totally devastated they had moved all their their health care into the middle part of the building and as as they were staging community recovery they found that the patients it interfered with their ability to see their patients hip of everything else so it compromised their ability to deliver health care in an area that needed health care so that's why they were already talking about putting something separate there that they could uh help stage those recoveries because they understood the value because most of the municipal facilities were not working so and that and as part of the the as part of the the uh just imagine process it just made sense you got health care you you got uh you've got uh staging recovery you got proximity to the interstate and you're in a very very vulnerable community I I don't have a problem with SWAL a running this resiliency hub that the city gonna own but this is area B this money was assigned to area B and we taking it from area B and moving it to area Area A also has another resiliency hub that you just downgraded when the Hope Center sent in for their application they were required to be and today are required to be a resiliency center.

Well and can I say just the the only problem with that is that under the RCP the Hope Center the Teen Center Starks Nest when the when HUD closes out their books the city won't have those as resiliency hubs anymore.

But this particular facility would be the city's resiliency hub for own the resiliency center that we build in downtown in area A yes yeah we will that would that will downtown yeah so area A has one right and but the funds are coming out of district B that don't have a resiliency center now you just gave Mr.

Harvey out of respect for who he it's it was already in this district I'm asking you to give me I'm asking the council to give me the same respect this was money that was being spent in district B so Mr Fundale just that's a a common misconception when it comes to these federal funds even our regular entitlement money you you nothing is ever designated for a particular district what happens if a if projects if if if a project is required that was different just for area A that was different no what I'm saying is if if a project has to be in an area where that's considered low to moderate income which is this all of these projects are like this is not that the project is being put there because it's district is because that is an an area that you know is eligible to have it in.

Yes so there's no such thing as somebody saying low to moderate income Mr.

Tommy have low to moderate income Mr.

Craig has low to moderate income they don't have resiliency centers not yet you know so why we put another one here now and SWLA the city gonna own it so the city can put it where it won't and if SWLA wants to run it they can run it from anywhere just just I just want to stress that it's not per dist we never do anything because but but with the council I I'm respecting their district where money was was whether the government did it right you know we we try to respect each other's district.

But but I I think what he's saying, Mr.

Fundell, it's not the money is not assigned to a district, it follows a project.

So if that project moves, the money goes with it.

It's not it's not to a district.

Yes, but I'm just saying that that that that project was in district B.

Okay.

Just like this project was in it, and that's all I'm saying.

The original project is what you're talking about.

Then the council has that choice.

Well, but but the council didn't make this decision.

The administration moved the project.

But but we know now, right now, we know that that project could be put anywhere.

Yes, that's that's correct.

And the project originated in district B.

Right?

And that's what are you talking about?

It was originally and I got a question about second harvest.

It was disqualified by the state, second harvest.

You said the project was disqualified.

The state disqualified second office.

The federal requirements were that that you could not be involved in a uh in a in a federal action.

That was a bankruptcy, a couple of bankruptcies that came into play that disqualified them from receiving these particular federal funds.

So did the state said, listen, you cannot.

Second harvest cannot do this.

They are disqualified.

Federal government said it.

The state through the federal government said that that they agreed that the federal that um second harvest was disqualified as a recipient of these funds, and then told the city that we could use those funds, and we did not have to find somebody else to award them to.

So just for clarification on what Ms.

Fundell's saying, we have documentation showing where OCD says um second harvest is disqualified.

Uh where's Mark?

Because Mark Mark's handling all this stuff, you know.

Mark, do we have documentation showing where the state said that Second Harvest was disqualified from receiving those funds for their project?

No, we they wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't provide anything like that.

Well, how do we know that the state disqualified them?

Well, I can tell you they told they they they sent us information that you can go forward without a uh awarding the monies to somebody else.

They can tell us we can go forward, but you said that second harvest was disqualified.

So that means we send in a project in my interpretation, and the state said, look, second office is disqualified.

We cannot give them the money.

That's that's all of mine.

Okay.

So originally, just want to go back, just uh clarity.

In the beginning, Second Harvest was up here in District A in the up in the Rhine Street, you know, right up here.

Yes.

The the owner decided not to, but he changed his mind about selling the property.

So we were it was uh you know, the uh second harvest people were had negotiated with a property off of right off of Legion Street on by 210.

We never actually submitted an application for that for that location.

It just it never even got that far because it you know they they struggled trying to you know come to an agreement to purchase the property.

Yes, but that that mark I understand what you're saying, but the project at the end of the day was in district B.

The history is the history, but the project was in district B.

Right.

And all I'm saying is they got an uh I I all I'm saying is I'm against this prime because it's district D.

I'm not requesting that you put it in district B.

It could go any unqualified area, but we don't need all the resiliency hubs in one area.

And let me let me say that.

That's two, that's two resiliency hubs that the city has absolute control over.

That would be the second one.

And wherever we go after that, I'd like the city to have complete complete control over them because all of this money is going out to all these different places in three to five years, the city's not gonna have these facilities.

We can the city will have control, whether it's in area A, B, C, B, F, or G.

Mr.

Fonda.

The city still would have control.

And with all due respect, I'm I really am not looking at this from a district to district standpoint.

It really is.

We are my people I get closely through.

If you don't mind, I'm sorry.

All I'm saying is that strategically, yes, strategically, when these storms come in, they're not looking at a district, they're hitting the entirety of the state of the city.

Uh you have if you have a hub here that can service this area.

If you have a hub here that can service this area, that is still in the LMI, that services that area.

We purchased the property on Broad Street.

We can put that there.

I mean, we I want to put these resiliency hubs near places where they can stage and get supplies out to people in their in their most need.

That's why that's why they invest in government.

So I'm not looking at it from a district standpoint.

I'm looking at it as how do we as one late Charles recover the next time this is?

I'm looking at it from okay.

You through?

I'm through.

Okay.

I'm looking at it from District B had money for a resiliency hub.

I represent District B.

And in order for my low to moderate income, they either gotta walk through the civic center or cross two bridges to get to SWLA if they don't have cars.

It's a it and for now, they have two resiliency centers.

They have Greater St.

Mary and downtown already taking care of that area.

So if we're gonna wait on anybody, let's wait and give second uh uh uh North Lake Charles in addition, give my people a chance to have one right now.

You see what I'm saying?

I mean, you're saying that you're gonna find the money but this money was allocated for district B.

You know, it's fine.

And I'm saying give us another I'm just making I'm just making a recommendation.

Mr.

Mayor, can you ask a question?

And the the Purple Heart money was originated from where?

That was from uh by Chenau.

The that that place I know, but where'd the funds come?

FEMA as FEMA funds majority payment insurance.

Okay.

Does FIBA have any opposition?

Just just throwing this out there to turn Purple Heart into a gym and also qualify as a resiliency center.

It's a brand new building, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Can we build it and be the resiliency center for that district?

Yeah, and that's seven to nine seven to nine million dollars that's available for purple heart.

I mean, I I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you.

There are there are seven districts.

But okay, you go to the city.

No, I get it, but but you take it so um so you got 30 million dollars at uh give me some money from somewhere.

You're taking money out of my district.

Well, I agree.

I agree, but we're about to build a new building.

That's all I'm saying.

We can I have in regards to you.