Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

Lanier, and thank you, members of the public projects committee.

Before I delve into the details of the presentation, I certainly want to thank the team members who made it possible.

First, I want to thank Brendan Moore and our operations department.

Beginning about 90 days ago, they began organizing throughout 19 city departments a list of the general fund projects that need to be considered as part of this project.

There was an extraordinary amount of work and detail that went into it.

So you see 15 minutes of work today.

One thing you will notice is that water and sewer is not included.

This is general fund capital projects.

The vast majority of our water and sewer projects are part of our 10-year capital plan that's paid for through a bond issue, and we feel like those are better suited for discussions in August and September when we're looking at our operating budgets.

One is there's a heavy investment into public safety, which should be no surprise because that's where we know our most important responsibility lies.

Number two is that there's limited large scale investments as part of this recommendation.

There is a more of a concentrated focus on the fundamentals of what we do every single day, and you will see that highlighted.

Number two is the uncertainty of SSUT and how that will play out in years ahead.

So we want to make certain that every recommendation that we present to you encompasses those realities that we as a city are facing.

So let me jump into the presentation, and as you've heard me say time and time again, the answers money.

What's the question?

The first thing I want to point you to is on the far right hand side.

From 2015 to 2020, the average general fund surplus was 4.7 million dollars.

So in context, when you look at our surpluses from 21, the city is doing very well.

So if you look at 21, 12.1 million surplus, 22, 7.6, 23, 20.9, 24, 14.6, and this year 12 million fifty-three thousand.

Note that and you saw this as part of our RSA presentation or Ms.

Standridge's RSA presentation on March 24th.

Uh we allocated $5 million into the public safety fund for the conversion of into RSA on October 1st, 2026.

So in reality, our surplus was 17 million, but 5 million of that as part of the closeout on the audit.

We had transferred into the public safety fund.

But overall, very good numbers for our general fund transfer.

You will hear a little bit more about this uh when uh Mr.

Hand and Ms.

Standridge uh reviewed the annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal 25.

The budget that I'm recommending to you allocates 3.7 million dollars towards public safety.

That's in addition to the five million dollar transfer that I just highlighted earlier.

Again, the investment in the public safety, the commitment to ensuring that our firefighters and police officers enjoy the retirement system of Alabama and make that conversion as we've promised.

2.6 million is going into quality of life, 7.6 million into infrastructure, and 875,000 in city facility asset management.

So let's start with public safety.

Let me also note these are just highlights.

As I was beginning my presentation, Ms.

Standards passed out a couple of pieces of paper to you.

One is categorized by funding source.

The other one is categorized by operational category.

They balance the same, it's just two different ways of looking at it.

So if you have any questions on that, please let me know.

Let's start with public safety.

We're allocating 1.4 million for TPD vehicles.

Four years ago, we began a take-home vehicle program for our patrol officers.

This program has been incredibly successful.

And so this will generate how many new vehicles, Director or Chief?

25.

25 new vehicles within the patrol division.

And the average cost for patrol?

65,000 for a patrol vehicle.

We're recommending $632,005 in personal protective equipment upgrades for Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue.

Chief Delp could not be here today, but Director Blankley and Chief Delk have been working on improving the type of protective equipment.

Chief Delk has been out in the stations listening to his firefighters.

We've seen demonstrations of how this type of upgrades would enhance their performance, something we certainly believe in, and something we'll be we look forward to going into more detail with the city council.

We are recommending $400,000 in an E 911 disaster recovery center.

The city currently uses the E 911 facility in Northport for both support of E 911 operations and as a backup for the city's data and computer systems.

And so it's closer to city run operations.

We think the time has come for us to go ahead and construct and build this as a backup and redundant system for the city of Tuscaloosa.

We're recommending that we relocate the Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue Administration to the East Police Precinct.

About three years ago, Tuscaloosa Police Department went to a stratified policing model, which basically redid how we deployed our assets in the field, making the precincts really a less viable option.

Our precincts have very little use.

I know that Director Blankley and Chief Delk have also been working on this.

We think this would be a great location to put our fire administration.

This site at 25th Avenue East and University Boulevard already has great investments in place between Fire Station 4, you've got the Alberta School of Performing Arts.

Not only do we have 26 police officers who are CIT trained, we also have four social workers between Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue and the Tuscaloosa Police Department.

We believe it's time to put all those assets in one place.

We would like them in one place under one roof, multi multi-department, and we believe the gateway provides the best opportunity to do that.

The cost to refit the gateway would be a quarter of a million dollars.

There will also be operational savings for the city of Tuscaloosa.

Right now, the gateway remains open, has several hundred thousand dollars worth of annual operating cost.

Some of those costs would actually be diminished because the gateway would no longer serve its current purpose.

It has been a great asset in Alberta, but I think it's time for the 2.0, and we think this would be a great resource asset within the Alberta community.

And it also will continue as something Mr.

Tiner and I have talked about.

You will see a lot of law enforcement and Tuscaloosa fire and rescue in that area, continuing to be in that area.

But in this case, instead of a police precinct, it'll be a public safety resource center.

We're recommending $325,000 for downtown lighting improvements.

This has been something that's been talked about by the Tuscaloosa Downtown Merchants Associations, our downtown businesses, constituents, and Mike Gardner and his team have outlined a pretty comprehensive recommendation of how we can upgrade our downtown lighting to continue to make people feel safe and secure.

This would be the first time that we have done a direct allocation just for or recommended a direct allocation for the central city.

We're recommending that we add another $100,000 to citywide street lightning.

We have been light light, did I say lightning lighting?

Citywide street lighting.

We have been funding this for many, many years.

We would just like to go ahead and allocate another $100,000.

We you as council members, me as mayor, we get street lighting requests all the time.

We just want to continue to fill up that particular fund.

We're recommending $125,000 in city hall security improvements.

So switching to quality of life.

This would add $121 parking spaces and three bus parking spaces.

You can see on the illustration in front of you where that parking would exist.

We would want to go to bids sometime in late 2026 with construction beginning in early 2027.

One of the things I would like to do if the council sees fit in moving forward with this recommendation is have a larger discussion about do we see that as pre-public parking?

Do we see this as a partnership with the private sector where it's a hybrid of free public parking, but also a potential of a partnership with the private sector for paid parking at certain times, or should it be a full paid parking lot along with the other spaces in those areas?

This will be you know to me, I think it's it's really time in our downtown to have this discussion.

Um, and I look forward to having that with the city council if it sees fit with allocating the dollars.

Certainly the savings center is an impetus to this, but also just the growth of downtown.

I can assure you that this the city considering this has the full support of our downtown merchants.

I'm recommending a little over or nearly 1.5 million for Freeman Park pool improvements.

Um this is a park that is owned well owned by the city but operated and maintained by Para.

Um Mr.

Eatman and I about a year ago toured both the pool.

I can assure you that the picture that you see of the pool in here does not reflect what the pool looks like today.

Um the grounds in and around Freeman Park Pool are do not meet the standard that we have set with Burrell Odom Park, Calton Park, Snow Hend Park, JC Park, the riverfront, and other parks that uh we have been able to construct through Elevate.

We are recommending using the leftover proceeds from the Benjamin Barnes Branch YMCA, that's the 2022A, and 361,834, which I believe are the leftover proceeds from the Borel Odom Park.

So these are these are leftover funds from District 1, District 2 projects that we would like to see reinvested into Freeman Park and pool improvements.

This is a heavily used park, and the swimming pool is a heavily used swimming pool, and we really believe that this project needs to move forward.

We're recommending $119,000 for continued investments into the Metro Animal Shelter.

I know Mr.

Tiner serves on that board, and so this is a request that came from uh both Mr.

Tyner and Mr.

Woodson, who also serves on the Metro Animal Shelter Board.

Our hope is that these dollars will be matched by our partners in Northport and the county.

We're recommending $100,000 in clearing services.

We this year for the first time we used this with the Queen City Park, and we saw a tremendous benefit.

I think many people have been pleased.

And we've also utilized this on parts of the Western Riverwalk.

This is a really good service.

They do an extraordinary job.

We've been very impressed, and I'm sure in the work sessions, Mr.

Thompson can give you a more detailed overview of our impressions of it.

We're recommending 90,000 from the River District Fund for the continued replacement of the River Walt Bridge Railings.

Right now we currently have 85,000 budgeted.

Mr.

Thompson and his team and the contractors have really done a good job.

We've had a lot of positive feedback.

We have two more bridges left on the southern river walk that need to be replaced, a long bridge and a short bridge closer as you get towards the river market.

You will see the note that our share of that's one-third, and it would be contingent upon the city of Northport and Tuscaloosa County funding the other portions of that.

I have a list of those requests, and we certainly can share them with you today or during the work session.

Parra also requested $87,000 for old colony equipment.

Again, I can provide you that list, and we certainly will be providing that list during the work session.

Again, that would be contingent upon the funding of our partners as well.

So lastly, let me go into infrastructure.

We're recommending four million dollars in citywide paving.

Currently, we have 9.8 million in paving that uh you approved as a city council.

So that contract is underway.

We're recommending another four million in paving.

Let me just say, as a caveat, every time we close out a contract and we have leftover funding, we certainly would love to see more and more dollars put into paving.

You just never can pave enough roads.

The other caveat to this as you recall last month, we pledged our fiscal 27 state gas tax revenue as part of that 9.8 million.

So we we do not have any additional gas tax revenue coming up in fiscal 27 to pledge to the 4 million.

It's already been pledged to the 9.8 current contract.

We're recommending an additional $2.5 million for the Julia Tutweiler Access Road.

As you recall, we have received an A trip grant for this project, and we currently have $2.2 million budgeted in the general fund RFFI.

We're recommending another half million dollars to go towards neighborhood drainage projects.

We currently have $3.7 million that's budgeted in that line item with most of it pledged to certain projects.

We're recommending $300,000 of continued fiber operate fiber optic network upgrades and expansion across the city.

We currently have $317,000 budgeted.

Into the last category of asset management, we're recommending $875,000 from the general fund RFFI.

This would be for city hall generator and fire pump removal, TPD generator replacement, and upgrades at the ESD facility.

So we hit you with the highlights again.

Let me just note that not every project was in the PowerPoint slide.

All the projects are listed in the handouts that Ms.

Standards provided you, so you might want to take a look and dive through that.

We want to begin a robust discussion with you on these projects and hopefully secure council approval either in late May or early June so we could get these projects moving and rolling.

We've request we are requesting three uh capital projects council work sessions on May 5th, May 12th, and May 19th.

Our goal is to work with the council in organizing those in such a way that we can specify on what you would like to discuss.

Um, and so we look forward to that opportunity.

Um again, Mr.

Lanier.

I want to thank the council for giving us this opportunity to present it and thank our team members who did the bulk of the work to get us to this point.

I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Well, I think we're gonna need to form this first, and then I'll get with you with Ms.

Standrich on schedule and how we work to it.

Sounds good.

All right.

All right, thank you, sir.

Didn't it number two might approval railway use permit for custom irrigation service?

This right-of-way use request is that that's the address, and South Shore is a new subdivision that was built on the east side of Rice Mine Road directly across from Pinnacle Park.

If y'all are familiar with that, it's down south of the towns of the North River.

Um the request here is to connect a uh private storm pipe uh to one of our public structures so that it can drain some uh some underground and surface water that's captured behind a a lot.

Um there's the project location just on the east side there, close close to Lake Tuscaloosa.

Uh, and that is the structure that they want to connect to.

You can see the two homes uh that are under construction, and uh the piping will run you know between the lots and and connect to the storm sewer.

Um you know, and again I remind y'all the purpose of these right-of-way use permits is so that we establish ownership and maintenance responsibilities.

This is not public infrastructure, so 10 years from now, we don't want our public works team to go out there and repair repair this plastic pipe.

It is it is the owner's responsibility to take care of maintain that, which would be handled by the homeowners association in this neighborhood.

Um HOA would be responsible.

I think that's the way it's gonna work here.

You know, it splits between two properties.

Um they have an hoa and all that, yes, sir.

Okay, uh that is that is a diagram that we received that just shows uh you know what they're doing, uh a drain across the back of several parcels uh connecting and then going between the two lots that I showed you under construction and tying to our storm drain.

You have any other thoughts about us doing that?

No, sir.

Um this is a good opportunity.

A lot of times I think these happen without our knowledge.

So the fact that the developer brought this to our attention and and has gone through this process, in my opinion, is is the way this ought to work.

If not, if we didn't know it was there, then it would be a question maybe as to why it was there in the future.

I do recommend it, yes, sir.

Motion to a vote.

All in favor, motion pass.

Zoom item number three.

Brian, you got the next fourth push on time if you want to go ahead and run through it all over the group.

Um okay.

The first one is um a minor public works contract with common sales and service for a generator repair at Clemens Road Mr.

Pump Station.

Uh the amount is 12,656 and 59 cents.

Um that's a map of where Clements Road Mr.

Pump Station is the water booster pump station that pushes water out to the eastern corridor to Mercedes on the interstate, but there was a uh electrical system failure on that generator that we need to repair.

Where's it coming from?

It's coming from the uh Ed Love Capital Repairs and Supplies Operational Budget.

On the favor the next item is um for uh herbicide treatment at the lagoons for the uh Fletcher West water resource recovery facility.

Um that total is $9,065.

So we spray we get this contractor spray herbicide twice a year to make sure large saplings aren't grown in the embankment helps protect the the lagoon down.

That's this is funded out of the wharf or the uh Fletcher resource recovery facility supplies operational budget.

Second all in favor, uh motion passed.

uh Fletcher was water resource recovery facility um that total is nine thousand sixty five dollars so we spray we get this contractor spray herbicide twice a year to make sure large saplings aren't grown in the embankment helps protect the the the lagoon dam that's this is funded out of the wharf for the uh fletcher resource recovery facility supplies operational budget most second all in favor uh motion passed uh the next one is for uh professional service contract with TMB or Thornton MESO and Billiman of for sampling and analysis of our filter meet at the love water treatment plants so we have 12 filter um chambers or uh spots and we need to they'll what they'll do is they'll take samples from each of those spots and check the the uh filter material to make sure it's not rounded off to make sure it's still filtering right so that uh cost for them is 17,12720 cents that's funded from our um ed love uh operational budget in general what kind of lifetime do we get out of these filters that was a good question you know the answer I don't know the answer so we're supposed the filter meeting is recommended to be replaced every 10 years and the last few years the last couple of 10 years that we've replaced it the media's actually been in pretty decent shape so instead of just replacing it when it's routinely recommended to be replaced we're we're checking at this time to save money so if we can extend a life up so that's just the difference in this oh second all in favor aye motion pass uh this is the same company uh that we're asking for another professional services contract with we we did this earlier in the year uh this is for um right now uh for lift stations two and 33 we use a vocal for our uh intermediate wastewater treatment so we'll dose to treat the wastewater at these lift stations um and we want to switch to TMB so we're gonna do this is a trial we're gonna do with them we did this also at 40 and 41 we've liked the results of the trial but this is kind of the step so we can dial in their recipe for uh the intermediate wastewater treatment uh the total here is twelve thousand seven hundred and five dollars this for a 40 day trial so if this is we anticipate coming back with a um another contract to fill out the remainder of the fiscal year and you say we're already using it for we want yeah yes sir has it been pretty successful yes sir we did a trial there too and it was successful so we followed through with a a longer term contract there so it's kind of mimicking that same uh approach second all in favor thanks number seven approval 2025 municipal water production prevention report summary of the fledglow yes sir this is um a report that we do annually and it's essentially like the report card for the water and wastewater system or for the water treatment plant and the wastewater I'm sorry for the wastewater treatment plant and the collection system so all things related to wastewater in our system and so uh we have to uh come to council for it to be assigned off our approval so this year we've reduced our score by a hundred points which is really fabulous we're excited about that um and so our score this year is 140 out of a uh total that you can get of 783 points um and so there's two main pieces that that is due to so the first component of it um where we reduced significantly was for the age of the plant and so um our age of the plant has essentially started over because of the capital investments that we've made in it and so it's considered zero years old because of the processes that have been upgraded in the last year um and then uh one of the other places where we had major improvements in was the bypass and overflows and so um the way that that works with bypassing and overflow is that if you have an overflow out in the system and you can make like a permanent repair to it um as opposed to like a wet weather issue so if you can make a permanent repair to it then it comes off as one of your SSOs that you get scored against so because we've been able to make numerous um capital improvement repairs to lift stations and at the plant it's also helped with that score as well and so these numbers are are drastically reduced due to the capital improvements that we've been doing with our 10 year capital improvements plan this is the report that was circulated this weekend or just yes sir it did look good it was one category out of those seven or eight that went the other direction what was that sludge yeah um sludge yes no well the sludge one was one that we had to correct a few years back and we were scoring it wrong so that one we we had corrected for the last three or four years.

So that was that piece.

But for this year, that the change that you're talking about was for influent loading and flows.

So that's going to be the loading, like the DOD loading, and that that is it's related to the chemistry and the biology of the water.

BOD biological oxygen demand.

Okay.

And so this is direct that's directly related to the aeration basin project that we were doing.

And so now that that project is complete, that that number should go down again.

And so that project was complete, I believe, in December.

Last fall.

Last fall.

Yeah, so that was that's what a lot of that was for the FY25.

So these are based on a not FY uh calendar year 25, they're based on a calendar year.

Thank you.

So we're being asked to approve accept the report, correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

All in favor, vote passed.

Thanks, Chairman.

Approval landscape uh maintenance agreement with L dot here.

Good afternoon, Council.

So this is our annual maintenance agreement with Aldot uh for the right-of-ways at Aldot owns, but we maintain throughout the city.

Primarily you're looking at 69 South 15th Street, Skyland and McFarland.

Uh and so we have the majority of those as they go through town, but we also pick up some smaller areas, and so this is just them reimbursing us for uh maintaining the rival.

Getting one in background, which would be but not to be clear that the reimbursement is we nearly a million and they reimburses 61,000.

61,200 is our reimbursement.

And on a very salary reimbursement, we'll take it a little bit.

So the conservative conservative conservatively, yeah, we're just under a million dollars.

Uh I know that Mr.

Mags is also working on something to try to get reimbursed for some of the work that his crews do as well.

Yeah, but um to be able to maintain our standard, it takes more time than L Dot puts into it.

Al Dod is only on state highways, they they normally only do two cuttings a year.

And yeah, that's just for us, uh, just would not be acceptable with the major corridors.

So that's why we take on the additional cost of having crews that maintain Scal and 15th Street and other major state highways.

And so also if you look at it, it's a lot of the gateways into the city.

Uh last year we actually went through, amended our contract with them, and we picked up the uh 15th street under the I-359 overpass.

That was an area we were constantly getting calls about, and so now the city crews are maintaining that as well.

But that includes equipment cost as well as personnel.

That's right.

Motion.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Sir, so this is replacement of two units at the T Dot property.

Uh one is inside the main building and the other is inside the shop.

And this is funded from our fiscal year 2026 uh account for improvements.

We had allocated 250,000 for HVAC improvements at city facilities.

I'm sorry, Tim.

Yes.

We're just increasing about 45.

Well, it's not this isn't increase.

This is a replacement of two units uh at the T dot property.

We have I was just as far as the account goes, we had allocated out of for fiscal year 26 250,000 of improvements.

We're utilizing that 250,000 for these two unit replacements.

Okay.

Second.

All in favor.

Thank you.

This request is for purchase of a parcel next to the Linton's barbershop project.

The owner, Dr.

John Vickers uh expressed uh desire to sell this property.

It is uh beneficial for us given its proximity to the building.

Uh it's approximately eight feet from the edge of our building to where that parcel begins, which is outlined in blue on the screen there.

We have conducted an appraisal of the property, and the $5,000 amount is the appraised value.

Is it beneficial to us?

So the close proximity to the to the building.

I get the proximity.

So our our ease in operating the facility, maintaining the facility, we're gonna have to enter that property.

We've also been asked by Albion Power for an easement to that property because our underground line is within 10 feet of that property.

So we would either need to purchase the property, which is what we're asking to do, or get an easement from Dr.

Vickers.

Either are options, but given its proximity and the fact that we're going to need to get onto that property to maintain the new lighting that is in that area.

We would request to purchase that, and we have that within our Linton's barbershop budget, so that's where this funding would come from.

It's is it the blue one?

Yes, sir.

What's outlined in blue?

Yes, sir.

Our property is outlined in red, and this is purchase of that you see outlined in blue.

Tim, I'm gonna make the most of it.

I want to say thank you for and your staff for the work out there.

I was out there um last week.

Thing looks great.

Excited to see what it's gonna be when it's finished up and people can get out of this.

I want to appreciate it and say thank you for your work out there.

Yes, sir.

All in favor?

Thanks, Tim.

Any other member committee members have questions up the fruit?