In 30 seconds
- The ABMA watershed flood-mitigation project moved from planning into an 18-month design phase, with construction now estimated at $12 million after $3 million already spent on the plan.
- Helena Harbor's John Edwards told council the water system runs on old, stuck valves that could cost about $200,000 each to fix, and that the city keeps no maintenance records.
- The county's police dispatch takeover, which Mayor Pro Tem Etherly says would cut about $250,000 from the city payroll, slipped to the September 2 agenda because the county's written agreement isn't ready.
- Council adopted the AMP conflict-of-interest ordinance and the honorary-street-naming ordinance (setting a $500 non-refundable fee), both 6-0, and approved a 60-day pause of the three-day trash pickup schedule, also 6-0.
- St. Columbia and Etherly gave conflicting city payroll counts, 113 versus 103 employees, during a dispute over further staff cuts.
Recap
Watershed flood project moves into design
The ABMA watershed project has finished its planning phase, after about $3 million spent on the plan . Construction is now estimated at $12 million, down from an original $100 million estimate for the full project . Iconic Engineering said the design phase will take roughly 18 months, targeting completion by the end of December 2026, with construction estimated at $7.8 million and a detention basin built to handle a 100-year flood event .
Helena Harbor warns on the water system
Helena Harbor's John Edwards said the city has secured $24 million in Arkansas Natural Resources Commission loan proceeds and $2.5 million in grants in recent years, and is seeking $5 million more from Congress . He said the water plants' pneumatic valves are old and stuck, and that fixing them could cost about $200,000 per plant . He said the city has had roughly eight water managers in the past 10 years, keeps no records of past maintenance work, and cited a July 2024 census estimate of 14,661 people for Phillips County, down from over 40,000 in 1970; he warned that if the city doesn't fix its own water problems, the state will step in . Mid-meeting, Etherly read a text reporting the Helena booster station was down, cutting off water or pressure to the west tank, including the hospital .
County dispatch takeover delayed to September 2
The county needs more time to prepare a written agreement for the police dispatch handoff, so council moved the item to its September 2 meeting . The quorum court would still have to approve the same agreement at its own meeting on September 9 before it takes effect .
Two ordinances adopted, festival and boardwalk grant approved
Council adopted the AMP conflict-of-interest ordinance, 6-0 with an emergency clause, letting the Advertising and Promotion Commission pay up to $5,500 a year to commissioner Will Staley's husband for design work, an issue flagged in the city's audit . It also adopted the long-tabled honorary-street-naming ordinance, 6-0, setting the application fee at $500, non-refundable, and striking section 7 . Separately, council approved the Legendary Blues Festival permit for August 30, 6-0 , and a resolution backing the Advertising and Promotion Commission's application for a matching state grant to refurbish the 1992 river-park boardwalk, also 6-0 .
Trash pickup paused 60 days
Council approved a 60-day pause of the three-day trash pickup schedule, 6-0, returning to the four-day schedule while the city works through equipment and staffing failures . Etherly said the sanitation fleet is down to two residential trucks, one front-end loader, and one boom truck, with the boom truck sometimes not starting in the heat . Councilman Messina asked who is responsible for maintaining the trucks, and Etherly acknowledged the city lacks structure for tracking it .
Landfill truck purchase flagged, payroll count disputed
Etherly flagged a pending landfill purchase of an articulated dump truck for about $400,000, versus a typical price of $600,000 to $700,000, with monthly payments around $6,000; no vote was taken . St. Columbia said legislative auditors recommended the city cut staff and put current headcount at 113, down from about 120; Etherly said his own count from HR was 103 as of the prior Friday . Etherly called the dispatch handoff the single largest available payroll cut, about $250,000, and declined to name individual employees for cuts in open session, citing executive-session rules . The meeting ended after Etherly objected to St. Columbia naming his aide during the discussion; St. Columbia then completed the motion to adjourn .
Transcript
Auto-generated from the meeting video's captions and lightly cleaned for readability — wording is kept as spoken, not corrected, except that caption-garbled names of city officials are normalized against the roster. Speaker names follow the attribution work in our governance record; a ° marks a name our reviewers have not yet verified. Every timestamp plays the city's video from that moment. Watch the full meeting ↗
3:10
All present Our Father who art in heaven, be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day for daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us God into temptation. Deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and glory forever. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
4:03
Roll call Roll call (attendance) — all 6 members present.
4:21
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly All are present. Uh the first item on the agenda for tonight uh regular meeting August 19, 2025 is the treasurer's report and one has been placed before you. The treasurer has not arrived at this time. So we can move on to our old business section of the uh agenda. And what I want to do is item number two. I want to make that item number one. We have some visitors from out of town. And that will be an update on the watershed project. So all who are going to address the water shed project, you're welcome to come forward to the podium and make your presentation. Good evening.
5:11
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° Seems like it was just uh yesterday we were here. I guess it's been almost two years we were here uh getting the uh your approval for us to move ahead with the watershed project. We are in the uh we completed the planning. The planning uh uh was signed off by the chief uh Chief Cosby before he left office in November of last year. That plan is on on our website. You can go on there if you hadn't seen it. You can go on there and see the plan. So now we're moving into the design phase. Completed the planning. Now we're going into the design phase. put our RSP out and we have the uh the uh engineers uh firms here with us tonight to present to y'all. They'll be coming down and start working on the design phase. The design phase, they'll tell you basically when they step up here about about how long it's going to take for us to design. Uh and then we'll get to construction. So, uh I'm Frank Bon. I'm the executive director of the Arkansas Black Men Association. Kevin Hunt is a special projects and he'll, you know, if y'all have some questions, he'll be able to answer them. Also, our engineering firm is with Iconic uh representative here. And then we also have that's going to be on during the long lake is Emanuel with ABEES. And like I say, we're we're moving ahead. We did have a pause there for three or four months with change administration, but we're moving forward with this project. Okay. Y'all have any questions for me?
6:49
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° Mr. B, for the sake of the video and for the audience that's listening, uh, we're familiar with your presentation, but you jump right in as if a listening audience knows what what you're talking about. Could you expound a little bit of what the project is? You want this? Okay. Well, the WHED project is a flood and drainage project that we introduced and and and put the application in back in 20 uh 2022. The funding was awarded in September of 2022. And in that plan, I mean, in our uh agreement with uh NRCS, we are to uh do flood mitigation here in uh the city of Helena and then out in some of the outskirts are of of Helena uh on up to toward Elaine. So, this is a it started out with us as a $100 million project. Uh $7 million I mean uh it's actually $12 million for construction when we once we get to construction. So, we had we paid the uh to have the plan drawn up right at about $3 million and we completed the plan. So, this is flood mitigation for this community where I think
8:04
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° Oh, and the the watershed website is uh aba watershed
8:10
Unidentified projects.com project.com. and you can find Helen should be project four and project five.
8:21
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° Yes,
8:22
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° you can click on there and you'll see the uh EA plan at that time.
8:30
Unidentified He said A
8:35
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° let him come up here in a minute. He can
8:41
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° and Iconic actually did the the planning uh portion. So they'll come up and they'll they'll talk. But I mean that's what the waters project is. Flood mitigation here in the city and then also on the outskirts of the city. And we started in 2022 and and it'll go on I think there's I hopefully we'll be in construction in uh a couple of years anyway. Okay.
9:12
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° Yes sir. I just wanted you to explain it to to the audience so people understand.
9:15
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° And I and I'll say this, the the good thing about the plan that y'all approve as we go into finishing up with the starting on the design and going to construction uh for the citizens of this city and this county and probably about four more years, they won't be dealing with a lot of this water flooding and those areas that y'all the plan that y'all approve. So that's kudos to ABMA, but also for you all to vote on that plan. in about four more years. There's some people that say it's not flooding my area anymore. So, just wanted to share that. I know four four years will come up real fast, but four years about four years, somebody say it's not flooding in my area anymore.
9:53
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° And so, you'll start seeing the the engineers coming around the trucks and stuff. We're going to do an outreach outreach plan to kind of familiarize, make sure that they let y'all know which area they going to be in. We'll put something in the paper, social media, and all that kind of stuff cuz you don't want them out there and you don't know who's out there in your yard or or in the area. So, we're we're working on that with the engineering firms also.
10:20
Dwan Carter° Uh I want to come up.
10:27
Dwan Carter° Come. Okay. Good evening everybody. My name is Dwan Carter. I'm with Iconic Engineering. Iconic Consulting Engineering Group out of uh Dallas. So, um I'm out of the Little Rock office. I'm the vice president of operations there. Um Iconic is one of the engineering groups that's uh responsible for the Helena West Helena storm water project. Um we have been awarded uh design as of 30 June. Uh so we started our design process 30 June and we have roughly 18 months uh to finish our design portion is what we're targeting. So by the end of December 2026 is when we expect to have our design complete which would be uh effectively giving you guys the documents to be ready to move into advertisement and hopefully award of your construction project. Um your construction projects we understand um is targeted about 7.8 million is for for our portion. We are responsible for the lit creek and big creek watershed areas and our design is um effectively to handle the the flooding. I mean that's that's the simple way to say it but you'll you'll see um widening of ditches. You will probably see a culvert cover culverts that need to be replaced. Um, and ultimately there will be a detention basin part of this solution that we will locate in the area and the design features are to handle a 100year flood event. Okay, that's that's what our design intent is intended to do. Uh right now we we expect the area to be affected along Plaza Avenue and also along Highway uh 242 and and along Plaza that's between 10th Street and Fourth Street and along Highway 242 we're targeting between Plaza and Baldwin. Uh that's that's what we're looking at. Um the uh construction cycle we're told is it to expect to be 2 years. So I think that's what uh Mr. Hunt was referring to with four years. We're effectively having two years of design and expected two years of construction. And the life cycle for our portion of the project is expected to be a 50-year service life of of the project. Um I did bring along um it it sounded like uh there was reference to our uh public outreach. I did bring along our representative that will be working hand inand with your city for any public outreach needs. Um this is um our p our public engagement official. So uh she will be involved the entire time through the process. So just wanted uh to bring her along so she could meet everyone here. And I am uh I'm available for any questions if you have any. Will your company be working with the United States Corps of Engineers?
13:32
Dwan Carter° So the NRCS I understand is the responsible I believe this project was funded through um it's a PL 83566 which is through uh the NRCS. I'm not directly aware of um any direct relationship with the US Army Corps of Engineers. And that's an interesting question. I just recently retired from the Army Corps of Engineers. So I'm not aware that there will be a direct relationship. Is that something?
14:01
Unidentified Okay.
14:04
Unidentified Your knowledge?
14:05
Dwan Carter° Not to my knowledge. Again,
14:06
Unidentified are you familiar with the pumping stations that we have in North Helma?
14:12
Unidentified No, sir. That's all the questions I have. Thank you. Thank you.
14:29
Emmanuel Tu° Good evening everyone.
14:31
Unidentified Good evening.
14:32
Emmanuel Tu It's a pleasure for me to be here. My name is Emmanuel Tu and I'm the owner and president of ABS Engineering. We are based in Memphis, Tennessee. That's where we have our headquarter and I started ABS engineering 10 years ago and yeah one question which was raised what does ABS stand for? So ABS stand for African Business Expert Solutions and I'm originally from Rwanda, East Africa. H I've been in the US now for almost 20 years. I got a chance to meet with uh Mr. Dan before the meeting and we were chatting. I told him that I went to school in South Dakota, Rapid City and then from South Dakota moved to Memphis. So I've traveled the world quite a bit. H I studied engineer without borders in Rwanda when I was there and we're mainly focusing on smallcale project to affect the life of the community like drainage project, solar energy project and my heart is to see the community doing well. So I was very pleased when we got selected to be part of this program and to be the engineer for this community for some of the drainage project because I've been affected you know personally with flooding and you know sometimes when we couldn't cross some river because it's flooded and we don't have bridges. So I became an engineer so that can have an impact in the communities. So being in this room, seeing everybody here, I'm very excited for the impact that the project we are going to be working on that it's going to have on the communities that is in that lives here. And for us who are in Memphis, we are heavily involved with a lot of drainage project for the city of Memphis. We are currently working we are one of the main engineer working for the city of Memphis on many drainage project across the Mississippi River. Uh I started the company as a one-man firm in 2015. Now we have 20 employees. Uh we have eight professional engineers very qualified. Some of them were working for the US Army Corp of Engineer. We have another office in Nashville and the other things which excite me the most. This is our first project in Arkansas. So we are becoming a regional a regional company and I'm very excited to be part of this community. I got here maybe 30 40 minutes before the meeting so that I can start getting to know the community. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for welcoming us and I'm looking forward to getting to know the community and have an impact in the community through our project. So thank you so much.
17:26
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° Thank you. Any questions? cards just past questions.
17:36
Unidentified Okay.
17:39
Emmanuel Tu° And I will get you all the information, but I just want to first.
17:44
Emmanuel Tu° Yeah. As you know, our schedule is the same as iconic just mentioned. You know, we plan to do the design within 18 to 24 months. We hope we can get it done before then, but you know, we'll be communicating with the community. We get to know each other. You will see our engineer coming in. You we have our survey crew coming doing the survey. And if you I was asking the mayor, you know, we'd like to hear more about the area where it's flooded. In Memphis, we have a system where when you have flooding, you know, they call the city hall and they register those area. But I heard like, you know, the community here, everybody knows where it flooded. So, so I guess as we talk we get to know exactly and make sure our design addressing exactly the flooding issue ex that the community is facing any questions and do you have any further presentation?
18:43
Unidentified Thank you.
18:44
Emmanuel Tu° No.
18:45
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° All righty. Well, we thank you. Thank you for coming down and making your presentation. We look forward to working with you. Thank you.
18:51
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° All right. I'll be talking to on a daily basis if I have to talk to somebody about this project. Well, this Whose car is this?
19:02
Dwan Carter° That's my car.
19:03
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° So, I'll be in contact with you if I need to know something about the project.
19:09
Dwan Carter° Sure.
19:12
Dwan Carter I'm located in Little Rock, but but I I'll be one of the principles on this project. So if you have questions specifically about that project, I I can help answer technical questions as pro as far as a progress on on
19:26
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° any Go ahead, Joe.
19:28
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) Will you be working with any of the local engineers?
19:31
Dwan Carter° So we're we're in the process. You say local define local for me. You mean here in Helena, West Helena?
19:39
Dwan Carter° I don't know the answer to that yet. So we are we recently got awarded this project here the end of June. We're we're putting our team together to to stay on schedule. The surveying um activity has to start right away. We're actually uh using a company out of the Little Rock area to help us with that. But as we proceed, we we're open to suggestions on some of our
20:02
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° engineers standing right behind you by the door. You may not met him.
20:10
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° He does a lot of work for us.
20:12
Dwan Carter° Okay. and
20:13
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° he may help you, you know.
20:15
Dwan Carter° Yeah. So, sir, we're open to suggestions on any of that if you have people you'd like already.
20:19
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° And I just want to remind y'all the this you all have two projects. This project he's project five, but it may cover the area that you may it just depends on where you have concerns at. It may be his or it may be his. So, that's why I said we gonna get you his information as well. Once you look at the map, you'll be able to say, "Okay, this is project four because they both are on the on the uh website and this project five. So project five would be iconic and project four would be abs."
20:46
Unidentified Are there certain days of the out of the month that you're here in town on this project?
20:51
Dwan Carter° We haven't established that schedule yet, but we're we're going to be here frequently. We don't we don't know the frequency yet. We expect that our surveying group will be here within the next two weeks. That group will be on the ground within the next two week. Yes. Yes. The surveying group. Uh will you be employing local uh employees as well? We like to employ some people.
21:16
Dwan Carter° No, I understand that question.
21:17
Unidentified Goes on.
21:18
Dwan Carter° I understand that question. I I agree. We will we we are certainly open to employing local folks as long as we can.
21:26
Unidentified Graders, dirt haulers.
21:28
Dwan Carter° Understood.
21:31
Unidentified That that's it. But that's in the con.
21:34
Dwan Carter° Okay. I was what I was going to say is that that may be in the construction Yeah. phase, but in the design phase,
21:41
Dwan Carter° you know, we we have we're we're already on the clock. Okay. So, we're we're putting our team together as we go. The surveyors are in line. We're looking for our hydraulics and hydrarology modelers. Those are probably going to come from a team of engineers that are out of central Arkansas, frankly. Go ahead. One of the reasons I mentioned the local health in case because of this bridge project uh there's a future movement in it and then some of the uh development of our bridge.
22:11
Unidentified Mhm.
22:12
Dwan Carter° And uh you know we don't want to have to go back and do work twice when we're drainage and things of that nature. Why I mentioned that and that's why I mentioned the core of engineers. taking a lot of work locally for us too.
22:28
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° Yeah. And unfort that piece is not in this neither one of those plans
22:33
Frank Bateman (ABMA Executive Director)° like I'm not sure what area is in but it's it wasn't it's not a part of those two plans that we had those projects project four and project five.
22:44
Unidentified Thank you.
22:46
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° Thank you again. Thank you. All right. All right.
22:55
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° Okay.
22:57
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly The next item on the agenda will go back to uh old business item number one, the proposal for the county to take over police dispatch. Uh at the last meeting there was approval given by this body to proceed on the uh project and the county needs additional time to get their written agreement together because there will be a written agreement that has to be approved before this could go into effect. And so I spoke with the county attorney. Uh what they would like us to do is move this over to the the next meeting which is set for September the 2nd. they'll have an agreement ready to be presented to the body on that particular evening and then they'll want the quorum court to also approve that and they meet seven days later September the 9th and so both bodies will have to approve it before it goes into effect but there's nothing to present because the agreement is not ready yet. So, we're just going to move that to uh
23:57
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° going to move that to the September 2nd agenda.
24:00
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey° September 2nd meeting,
24:01
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° right?
24:09
Unidentified Got what? I'm sorry. Say again.
24:14
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly Okay. Next item on the agenda is U. John Edwards, who's here to give an update, a discussion on the water sewer projects that the city is currently engaged in. Yes, sir.
24:35
John Edwards° Thank you, sir. All right. See if that works. Yes, sir.
25:00
John Edwards° Good evening.
25:03
John Edwards My name is John Edwards and I'm the general counsel and economic development director for Helena Harbor. And before I get into my formal remarks tonight, I first want to take a moment of personal privilege to uh u have a moment to recognize uh the life of Norma Robinson, uh the wife of Patrick Robinson, former uh treasurer here in Phillips County and current um Philips County Quorum Court member who who died this week. Uh we're a small community and when someone passes it it's something that impacts all of us and I'm on behalf of the board of directors of Helena Harbor we're certainly thinking about their family.
25:52
John Edwards° I am I am here tonight to talk about something that is so fundamental. It's so basic. It's it's so pervasive in every aspect of our life and it's water. If you want to talk about the history of water and how fundamental it is, we can go to the book of John the second chapter where Jesus turned the water into wine. That wine would not have existed if it hadn't been for the water. You cannot get away from the water. And I can tell you members of this council, there there's a day that I hope I can be here to talk about something besides water, but until that day comes, I'm going to stick with a topic that I think is is is vital to the very future of of this community. I've kind of made a little title for my talk tonight. It's called uh there is good news at the door, but we just only if we open it. We have to open the door. Some of the good news is is that in the last couple of years, the city of Helena, West Helena, working with many partners, has secured $24 million and loan proceeds from the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. city has secured $2.5 million in a combination of grant from the DRRA and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. We've knocked at the door of getting $5 million from the US Congress. That has yet to happen, but we're still knocking on that door. Now, the reason that I bring this up is that this is a critical step for our future. We we we have what I call a good baseline amount of money to start with on the water, but it's not nearly enough. This rehabilitation project for our city will take many more dollars than what we currently have on hand. But the dollars that we have on hand will be enough to get us out of a very very critical dangerous situation. So that's that's the good news. to make this good news a reality. This is where uh the leadership of this council, this is where whoever is going to be the mayor, this is where our city attorney will play a big role in making sure that this loan proceeds from the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission that they can be dispersed and and and the we call it ANRC, but ANRC is just not going to give, you know, hand out a check. There's certain procedures they have to go through and the city attorney be working with bond council and there will be ordinance passed by this body and then the money can start being doled out. But it's as you heard from the folks with the watershed project. Once you start doing money out for engineering, engineering takes time. Engineering does not happen overnight. And because we're dealing with a water project, the engineering has to be approved by the Arkansas Department of Health. This takes time. It takes coordination. While we're doing all of this and members of the council, I I I want everyone to be mindful that we have consent decrees in this city to deal with. We have consent decrees with our water systems. And when I use the term and and so some of the people uh who are listening in, even though Helena West Helena is one city, the the permitting is like it was before. The the the Helena plant has a permit from the health department. The West Helena water plant has a permit with the health department. The sewer treatment plants have the permits with AEDQ. So we talk about systems that's why but they all are under consent decrees and this is very critical for us to not forget and and and when I'm on this topic I want to I want to say this. It's very important you know I uh I was there with the city attorney. I believe it was last June of 2024 in Little Rock when we had the hearing with the Arkansas Department of Health and the city is supposed to give quarterly reports for what it's done with the water system. Those reports are very important, you know, updates what steps have been taken to get out of this trouble. It's very very important to me as a as a practice tip when and I've looked at some of the reports. When those reports are turned in, I don't know about y'all, but going forward, we need to have a name, a date, someone's who's responsible and accountable by name for that report. you know, some of the reports I've seen just have the there's no s I want to know who's, you know, submitting the report and making sure that those people are are accountable. Now, in the packet I've given you, because I don't want to make any assumptions about what people know or what people don't know, but August of 2023 was a very important time for this city. First of all, this report that you have in front of you which was prepared by the uh rural Arkansas rural water association was dated August the 4th. It was prepared by Chris Harris and it's an overview of the conditions of the Helena West Helena water systems and I think it's a very good reference point. It's not exhaustive. It's nine pages long, but there's some information in there that I think is important for you as members of the council to know and to understand. This is the August 4th report. Just a few days after this report was issued, Governor Sarah Sanders came to Helena. She was here. Helena Harbor was having an event where we were celebrating some expansions of some local businesses. And after that meeting was over, we had another meeting with city officials to talk about water. And I was privileged along with my chairman, Bishop Leroy Carter, to be in that meeting. And I'll never forget uh one thing that Governor Sanders said. She said, "I can't guarantee you everything, but if there was ever a day to ask for help, this is that day." And from where I stand with someone who's had a background in dealing with water issues and wastewater issues for most of my career, the the governor and her staff, her entire administration, I think they have worked very diligently to support us in the request that the city has made. Uh, a lot of people overlook the fact that not only is the governor uh responsible for what goes on at the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission as the the the governor of our state, she also is a member as a governor on the Delta Regional Authority and she has a lot of influence on how funding goes with that. And so she and her administration have worked very hard to help us, but it's going to take work at our level. And the reason that I included this report tonight, and remember this report was dated August the 4th of 2023, a little over two years ago now. There's a section in here where it talks about the valves in the West Helena water treatment plant and the same can apply to the Helena water treatment plant. The West Helena plant was built around 1965. The the Helena plant was built around 1969. They were both really good plants for the day and time that they were built. But right now, we're in a situation, these valves that that regulate how things work within the plant to treat the water. They cut flows on, they cut flows off. These pneumatic valves, they're old and they're stuck. And you've got people having to go down there like Will Stoddard and others literally taking hammers, banging on valves to get them to open. And the word that they used when when this report was written was that we could have a catastrophic event if these vows froze up. Now, I can't sit here tonight and tell you exactly how much money to the tea it would cost to get these valves replaced, but I just want everyone in the council to realize that if you told me it was $200,000 for each plant, I wouldn't be shocked. But I'm just uh uh Mr. One thing I just wanted everyone to know is that this is something that we just really need to keep our eye on and be ready to to to work on swiftly in case something happens. Um we the city has had a history many times an unfortunate history of having to do a lot of emergency bidding. That's a very costly way to live. If we can get more into a maintenance mode where we're not constantly dealing with emergencies, you have more time for competition. You have more time to think about it. You have more time to to do what you need to do. But I just want this council to know that we could very well end up in an emergency situation with these vows. And someone may be coming back to this council saying that, you know, we we have to deal with these valves. And the thing about these valves in a water treatment plant, if if if they freeze up, the water can't be treated. I mean, it can shut a system down. So, um, we're not there tonight. and there's a path out, but it's very critical that that you know, y'all as uh members of this council, you know, be be aware and that's why I've I've provided this report that was done uh by Arkansas Rural Water and and and this leads up to one of my main points. We have we have so much support from the state. We have support from our federal officials. Um, I mean, as we speak right now, you know, Senator Boseman worked very hard last year. We almost got it across the goal line to get $5 million to go towards the water. Last second, that money got stripped. We're we're trying again this year. Um, we we've got federal support, we got our state support, we got all kinds of people rooting for us, but we've got the people in this room. We've got to make this happen. and and leadership is the key. Action's the key. Some of our viewers at home may not realize that over the last 10 years, and um I may be off by what I'm about to say by a little bit, but not much. In the last 10 years, we've probably had eight water managers in this city. That is hard for somebody to get their hands wrapped around when you're when you're trading. You've got a man right now, S. Rose. I think he's demonstrated a lot of ability. I think he needs a lot of support uh from everybody in the city. And with that support though comes accountability. And I know this council uh we we've got to hold people accountable. Uh we have to treat people well, but we have to hold them accountable. But if we can keep a team longer than a year or two and and they're doing their job well, I think it will it will pay strong dividends for us in the future. And Mr. Ely, you and I have talked about a chain of command issue some in the last few weeks. You know, everybody has to have a clear idea who they're working for, who they're responsible to in in fixing things and not just in the water department, but but everywhere. But we're here tonight and I'm here tonight to talk about water. Uh it just makes things easier for everyone if you know who is accountable. And if we don't do that, I'm afraid we're going to lose out on some valuable time because we still have the opportunity. We still have the opportunity to fix this problem. But if we don't, if we don't, and I'm going to give my opinion, attorney, I'm going to give my opinion, but my opinion is that if we don't take care of this problem ourselves, someone is going to take care of it for us, and we're probably not going to like some of the things they do. But I can't blame them if this day comes. We can avoid this. And the way we avoid it is to follow the consent decrees, work through those problems, spend this money wisely, have financial transparency. I think that at every city council meeting going forward, there ought to be at least a few moments set aside to talk about water. And even if there's not any kind of big kind of update, you know, there there there ought to be some dialogue with y'all and the people responsible for the water system about what's going on. It's the only way we're ever we're ever going to fix this, you know. And I have a I have a saying is that the mayor has to drive the train and the city council has to help. You you can't run things by committee, you know, things operations. I mean, you can, but it generally doesn't work out. I I keep going back to clear lines of communication and we're probably never going to have another chance again where we have so many people that are lined up from the state, from the federal government, from our friends at Arkansas Rural Water. I know we've got uh Community Unlimited that's that's been helping. We've got a lot of support to solve this problem, but we've got to do it. Um, if I will close with this. If we don't see some significant action by this fall, meaning we can't get these loans closed, we can't start getting the engineering out. We can't get the approvals from the health department so we can actually start making some line replacement. We may be setting ourselves up for real hard the next few years. But if we do get these things fixed, I mean the the the sky's is the limit. I I wrote a column in the hell in the world recently where I talked about how important this issue is to me. It's important to our board at Helena Harbor and the reason why it's so important. There's many many many reasons, but I'm I'm I'm just going to share two as I close. Most of the economic development prospects that we have lost in the last few years, we've either lost them because of a water supply issue, meaning delivery, or we've lost them because of a wastewater issue, a sewer issue. We're never going to grow the way we need to if we don't get these problems resolved for the city. And one of the things when I came to Helena Harbor, I told our board of directors that it it, you know, we have to worry about what happens within the confines of our industrial site, but if we don't start providing help to this city, none of us are going to make it. The other thing I want to say is that um it was a little over a year ago, about a year ago, I attended an event with um the Walton Family Foundation. They had some people in town. They had new staff members. They were introducing folks around. We were all down at Delta Dirt. And for the record, we were not drinking. At least I wasn't. Um, and we they were the Waltons were telling us some of their activities and the room was filled with a lot of the leaders of the nonprofits of Phillips County and it was a very diverse crowd. Most everybody in that group was younger than me, which I always consider Mr. Ely a good sign. Um they were filled with energy and it came time for questions and comments from those of us locally and um fellow named Abe Hudson was the moderator and when he opened it up for questions I hadn't really planned on saying anything that day but after about a few seconds passed and no one said anything then I I just had to say something about water. And what I said was this, and I waved my hand around the group and I said, "You've got all of these wonderful people in this room that are doing good work for the folks here in Phillips County. And if we don't fix this water, most of these people won't be here in 10 years. And neither will the people they're serving today. the good work these people are doing on the watershed project. Many of these folks that are currently living in some of these areas, if we don't fix this water issue, a lot of those folks are not going to be here in in in 10 years. But this is a solvable problem, but we have to solve it. There's there's always time to talk, but there's also a time for action. And and we're at that time right now. So, uh, sir, I will stop right now and take any questions anyone may have.
46:49
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly Mr. St. Columbia, if I can jump in front of you, um, I I need to respond to some of the comments that have been made and I can't tell you how appropriate your your address is because while you've been talking, you see me and Mr. Valley over here discussing, we're getting text messages about water being out here in town and it looks like the Helenale booster station may be having some issue. Don't know what it is. literally it's just coming across right now. And so, um, I'll tell you as the council and citizens, the very first thing I did, um, after I got appointed to fill in this this spot was I met with Mr. Rose over at Water and I made one request. Tell me where we are on getting our loan closed with water. We need to know everything that we can find out right now and we need it immediately so that we can move forward. Uh we have some consent orders in the city. One's at the landfill, but most importantly, one is with water. And I told him, we have one mission, and it's to start checking boxes on that consent order. We have to get this stuff done. And if you talk to me, you would probably hear the same sentiments echoed by Mr. Edwards. For me, if you have talked to me privately, you've heard me say these same things. Um we talk sometimes on a regular basis about water and there there's no doubt that we have to fix our water system. It has needs attention focus and we talked about Mr. Elvis coming and addressing the council the council and the citizens. This is the thing that has to be front and center in this community and it cannot be treated the way it has been treated in the past as something where when the water comes on everything is okay and we look away and go in a different direction. It requires our attention on a weekly basis. I've met every week for hours with Mr. Rose uh Ken Wy who's here uh called me one Friday and said can you talk to me? I said absolutely. I stopped doing what I was doing to go over to his office. Uh we've had meetings between Mr. Rose, Mr. Wand, Miss Mills. We've all almost on a weekly basis for the last month. And so, uh it is our front and center issue that we're trying to address. And we have a lot of work ahead of us. It's not something that we can solve in a few weeks, a few months, and even the money that we have won't fix all the problems. And we're talking millions and millions of dollars. And we just need people to understand that. I've had people complaining about the rates. can they go down now? And I'm like, um, no. The rates are where they are because they are what is needed to fix the water system. And so I would want people to know that as of now, we are focused on water. We talk about it on a weekly basis. Uh, everything from closing the loan to staff. Do we have a team that can get the work done? Uh I I've used his football analogy where I told him, you know, uh if we want to go to the Super Bowl, we need to build a playoff roster. And so I've asked Mr. Rose, I need you to assess your team. Can your team get us to the playoffs? And if they can't, then we have to do what we have to do to put together a team that can that can win games. And so that's what we're focused on right now. And certainly, I thank you for coming. And Mr. St. Columbia, you you may ask your question.
50:06
Councilman Joe St. Columbia And you talk about the valves. I I recall many a year ago uh visiting with one of the many uh directors we had for our water company. And you're right, we had too many.
50:21
Unidentified Mhm.
50:22
Councilman Joe St. Columbia° Uh but I I recall, John, that we replaced some of those valves in the Helena uh uh department down there. I I recall uh talking about it and and the council approving uh uh replacing some of them. So I want when you mentioned that they have not been replaced that they're old.
50:46
John Edwards° Well, I think they're we you can go back and check. That's a very good question, but I think you're going to find a lot of issues in both plants in with valves in both.
50:55
Unidentified I'm not familiar with Helena, but I I am more familiar with the
50:58
Unidentified Hel I would say. And I would say in some respects the West Helena plant is in a in some respects is in more fragile Yeah.
51:08
Unidentified condition than the H. But the Helena plant's got its challenges.
51:12
John Edwards° Some of that I recall. Well, one of I think one of the things that we can all learn going forward is that I bet if you tried to um go through and and do an inventory or a check of when something was done, we couldn't do it because we don't keep good records.
51:29
Unidentified Yeah. and and and one of the things our friends at Arkansas Rural Water can do for us is that there are a lot of databases out there and services out there that we can input. People can input what they do um on equipment
51:45
Unidentified and that way you know what your maintenance schedule is, you know, and you can kind of predict what the service life will be. And uh it it gets away from us. I mean it it you we talk about well that wasn't very long ago. Then when you go back and look at it you're talking about something happened 10 years ago
52:05
Unidentified and you talk about these water lines in Helena are worse shape than West Island.
52:11
Unidentified Well they're all in bad shape and and and and and they're not going to get you know they're not going to get any better. It's like um I mean it's it's just the longer we wait to start to resolving the problems the harder it's going to get.
52:24
John Edwards° Yeah. And uh and I would also add uh Mr. Etherly that that I looked at the census data the other day for Phillips County and while they do a census every 10 years, they do estimates on an annual basis, typically publish them on July the 1. And the July the 1st of 2024 census estimate for Phillips County was 14,661 people. Uh we were over 40,000 people in 1970. The every time there's a major outage, every time there's a major problem, it's just another reason for someone else to leave. And when someone else leaves, it makes it that much harder for everyone else who's left behind to pay the cost. So it it this is very incumbent upon all of us and and uh Mr. Etherly, I certainly appreciate your comments tonight because I think that's right where we we have to be.
53:32
Unidentified This is one issue I am a little concerned about. So listening to you, you said two things that really gave me a reason to have even more concern than I did before. You said we need to delineate, and I'm paraphrasing, who the person will be in place that will prepare the paperwork.
53:57
Unidentified It sounds to me like that's a very fundamental issue. the paperwork is not even being filled out or
54:04
Unidentified well it's it's it so reports are being sent in at least from what I've seen
54:11
John Edwards° but no there's someone doing it my my point was when I send something in I sign it my name's on it I sign it I date it um some of the reports that have been submitted and they're not bad reports but you know I don't know who who did them I mean say might have that that's more like a practice tip. We just need to put our names on what we do. Now, the reports have started being submitted. There have been some challenges in the past on getting some reports, but that's very the critical thing is the reports have to be submitted quarterly to the health department and but in my opinion, we need to have um you know, someone sign it, date it so we know who's submitting that report. In my career as an attorney, I've never had a very good luck with anything. If I get a piece of paper that no one's name is on it, but they're saying this is, you know, that's to me like a dodge, like plausible deniability, like, oh, I didn't do this. Do then anytime I see anything's got white out on it, my red flag goes off. So, that's just a practice pointer. It's being the reports are being done. They may not all of them hadn't been done on time, but I have seen some of the reports, but I just want them to be my suggestion is that they be signed and dated.
55:31
Unidentified Appreciate the fact that you're you're um being nice about that, but at the end of the day, I think that overall as a city, you know, and we've had this conversation around this table a lot of times, it's a management, administrative It's a flow. It's an organizational situation. I think that, you know, we need to focus on who is that person going to be. I mean, formally,
56:02
Unidentified yeah,
56:21
Unidentified is my point.
56:23
John Edwards° Well, I I do think some of the most recent things are being taken seriously, but there has to be a better, you know, paperwork gets sent, letters get sent, no one responds to them. You don't even know who has the letters. I mean, that's got to be corrected. But that goes back to the chain of command and knowing exactly who to hold accountable. And that's that's part of what, you know, like I said, the mayor has to drive the train. Uh my opinion, y'all have to do like what you're doing right now. You have to ask the questions. You have to make sure that the money is being spent properly. Um we've got a tremendous asset right here in this room with with Ken Win. Um, I mean, the fact that we've got an engineer and his team that they they know this system because they've worked on it so long and then you can just walk around the block and and talk to them, you know, and uh that's a to me that's that's a a real blessing particularly in the situation that that we're in right now because uh as uh Mr. Ewood just said, you know, now we've got another booster station out. So, um, but it's it's a leadership issue. That's the bottom line. This is all leadership 101. And we've got to we've got to do better. But we're never going to get this chance again. We're never going to get and if we and if we do well with the 26 million that we've been given, I think more money will come. If we don't do well, I don't think anyone will deal with us. And I just want to say for the record, I do appreciate the governor. Um, I really do.
58:11
Unidentified Well, thank you. Well,
58:13
John Edwards° I appreciate the chance to get to, you know, that's one thing I appreciate about my board. Uh, they my entire board, they realize how vital what happens here is to we're all in this together. And people forget that sometimes, but we don't. If if this city does not do well, Helena Harbor does not do well, no one else does well. And the key for this city doing well is getting this water situation fixed.
58:40
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) And Miss Miss Miller, I I'll tell you, I I've been here for about five and a half weeks now, and it feels like a lifetime, but I can't tell you the number of reports that I've read that said we notified you of something on X date, and there was no response. And so it is it has been a systemic problem with our department and one that just trying to find who has the skill set, who are the people, what does the protocol need to be. Some of these things are just basic things that we're we're trying to get done now u because they haven't been done on a regular basis. And so that's accurate. There's nothing inaccurate about what you said. Well, Mayor Etherly, do you think that we need to possibly set aside a meeting and come up with I know that, you know, you're ve very active on the ground, but do we need to come up with a flowchart? Do we need to come up with some plans? I'm a person I do better with structure and organization. If I can see something in writing, if I can see how it's going to work, I mean, is that something we need to do? I mean, it sounds like we've got some good bones in there. Apparently, Mr. Rose is, you know, doing as much as he can, I guess. I mean, what what do we need to do practically? I think that's my question. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to address that here because I want to be respectful to all the people who who who who work here. Um, I'll answer that question privately is what I would say in my capacity as the mayor pro Tim. I'll answer that question to you privately. I don't want to address that here. But there are some things that we need to that we can do that we have to do better and and we are day by day addressing those things as they come to us. But to be honest, some of this stuff every time, every week is a new week. And we're we're dealing with old problems and it's not like they weren't there, but they weren't addressed. And those old problems sometimes crop up and and now it's here and now you got to deal with it. I I want to say to the people who are listening, and I'll come to you in just a second, Mr. Ms. I I got a text message from Mr. Rose while I was sitting here. He says, "The Helenale booster station is down. uh customers on the west tank including the hospital are exper experiencing no pressure or no water at all and the crew is working to get the pump station running now. So that's the status that I have at this point. That's the status that I have at this point. So
1:01:14
Unidentified my question is do we have proper people working at the water company to do what you said needs to be done? That's number one. But number two, I'm glad we have somebody like Mr. Wland to lead us in the right direction. But if we don't have the proper people to fix what we need to fix, it's just going to go on and on and on.
1:01:39
Unidentified Well, and my answer to that would be I think everybody that we have probably needs more training.
1:01:48
John Edwards° That's the answer. Uh, and you you very well may need uh I keep going back to a clear chain of command. Uh, as Mr. Etherly said, um, you've got to have a team effort, particularly at a time like this. And uh uh while I'm aware of some of the people in the water department, I'm not aware enough to everybody in the water department uh where I could I feel like I could adequately answer that question. But I can say if if everybody is not dedicated to that job and they're not dedicated to uh going the same direction to fix our problems, then then I see that as a problem. And I and I've said this before and I'll say it again. You have to treat people well. You need and water professionals, you're going to have to pay them, particularly once they get licensed, but you have to hold them accountable. And I think the piece we've been missing around here is we just don't hold people accountable. You know, someone screws something up. Well, well, you know, okay. I mean that that that um that's just not going to cut it where where we are.
1:03:06
Unidentified Well, when I was trying to get uh to tell to mention to you are we going to have to send some people off to school for this training?
1:03:17
John Edwards° We need a lot of people to be um trained and they're going to have to have time to go to classes and take tests. And I I think part of the challenge that we've had here because of the limitations of the of the size of the crews we have and and all the breaks and problems that happen with the lines, you're not really always in the best frame of mind to take a test. And we we've got to help our folks have a better, you know, opportunity to do well on these tests in in in my opinion. And I this is where I think that um and I'm not I I've briefly talked to Mr. Etherly about this, but we have had some discussions about could uh some of the folks at Arkansas Rural Water, you know, help step in from time to time while we were um getting some of our people trained. But and I'm reminded as I say that though, Attorney Valley, um when we met had that meeting with the governor, you brought up the fact that uh it would be nice if our people had better opportunities to be trained, some of the challenges they had about overnight stay and all that and rural water. We had a class here and a lot of our own people didn't even come to it. And and that has got to change. You want to talk about accountability, you want to talk about leadership, you know, at the that your request you made to the governor, governor worked with the rural water people. They held a class here. And even when you had the class in this town, not everyone would come. That's a problem. We we can do better in that.
1:05:18
Unidentified This that is that is a problem.
1:05:20
Unidentified That's a problem.
1:05:22
Unidentified Well,
1:05:23
John Edwards° Yeah. Well, Mr. Etherly and members of the council, thank y'all very much for having me here tonight. And uh you know I'm just a phone call away because um this is very important to the to the Helena Harbor Board. Um and while most of my remarks tonight have been focused on the water, uh there may be a time we come back to talk about the wastewater because that's a very important issue too and it's it's coming up. But tonight's about the water. But thank y'all very much.
1:05:56
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Thank you Mr. Edwards. Thank you. I was about to say that please don't scare them and talk about wastewater. U that's another issue that we're going to have to tackle. And uh at the same time we have some guests here. So I'm going to go down to our new business. We have Mr. Raymond Sams in the back who's uh here to present his legendary blues festival permit. And that should be in your package. You should have one at your desk. Mr. Simes, would you come forward? Hello everyone.
1:07:09
Unidentified Hello.
1:07:11
Raymond Simes I'm Raymond Simes of Force 3 Radio Network. I'm also the promoter of the Legendary Blues Festival and I'm here today. I would like for the council to once again give permission for us to have our 13th annual Legendary Blues Festival on August the 30th and that's Saturday starting at 2 p.m. The 13th annual Legendary Blues Festival this year is going to feature Pokey Bear, Big Yayo, Angel Fay Russell, JC Mckela, Big Bodacious, and several other entertainers. This lineup is probably one of the strongest lineups we've had uh for our festival. I'm going to need basically the same thing I asked for basically the same thing and that's to to block several streets so the festival can can go without problems and that's going to be basically cherry is the same thing. Um Missouri the security that we generally use has been in the past the Philips County Sheriff's Department. I plan to use them again. The West Helena Police Department is always there um doing the things anything we need for them to do. They're going to walk through anything we need. They're available. Uh hopefully I get an opportunity to speak again with the new chief in reference to a few things I like to talk to him about. The festival this year is very inexpensive, very inexpensive. Uh it's only $25 in advance and um of course about 30 at the door and um that's going to cover most of what we have. The trash is something we're going to take care of. I have last year uh 2024 during our festival, we actually had no lighting on Cherry Street. I I still don't understand what happened with that. I think I made a call to the mayor the day of, but I can imagine a lot of times the day of, should I say the night of it's hard to get something done. But um in 2024 in August, I mean there was no street lights street lights on Cherry Street during the time of our festival. Now one good thing about the festival, we do a lot of advertising outside of our market and attempt to bring people into Helena and it has happened. Most of the advertisement that I'm doing currently and not most but some is in the in Memphis. Uh you have a lot of people in Memphis that can come south on 61 and they will. We're not that far away. Do a lot of advertising in Little Rock, Jonesboro, Arkansas and in Clarkdale, Mississippi. No billboards, but advertising is also done on force three radio. So that's basically it for me. Uh I know if you guys have any questions, we we know that tourism, we know about all that. Thousands of people always follow the blues. Uh the one we have here is number 13, but they come to all the festivals that we have in this city and all of it is great for Helena and Philips County.
1:10:23
Raymond Simes° I've concluded. Any questions?
1:10:26
Unidentified I I don't see any paperwork on any of this.
1:10:31
Unidentified What's this? Is it in this packet?
1:10:32
Unidentified Yes. Yes.
1:10:33
Unidentified I missed somehow.
1:10:35
Unidentified Mr. S,
1:10:36
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) I move that we approve.
1:10:37
Unidentified Yes, sir.
1:10:38
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° Uh his proposal if it's okay.
1:10:41
Councilwoman Maxine Miller (Ward 1) Like to second.
1:10:42
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Motion by S. Columbia to to approve the permit. Uh second by Miss Miller. Is there any discussion?
1:10:48
Unidentified Just just a couple. You you also want to include for Phillips too, don't you? Over on the other end because you say Cherry Missouri. Yes. Okay. Yes.
1:10:56
Unidentified And then make sure that you request for those barrels because I know sometimes they don't get those out as well.
1:11:01
Unidentified Ideally. Yes.
1:11:02
Unidentified Yes sir. And then the other thing um a lot of people don't know that those poles that are there on Cherry like between Missouri and Phillips that are on the street those are run by Delta Culture Center.
1:11:15
Unidentified Oh
1:11:16
Unidentified yeah. So contact them because a lot of they don't they don't turn those on.
1:11:20
Unidentified That's fair.
1:11:27
Unidentified the big pole and are you
1:11:29
Unidentified right some of the Yes.
1:11:31
Unidentified Okay.
1:11:32
Unidentified But those
1:11:33
Unidentified it was very little lighting. It was really terrible
1:11:37
Unidentified for an event like that. The first time I experienced that. Now it's not all
1:11:40
Unidentified thwalk pole. That's that's DCC.
1:11:42
Unidentified Okay.
1:11:43
Unidentified Yeah. And they don't always cut those off. So you probably have to ask.
1:11:47
Unidentified Thank you, sir.
1:11:50
Roll call Roll-call vote — Joe St. Columbia: yes; Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Adrian Messina: yes; Maxine Miller: yes.
1:12:04
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Right. Permit is approved. Thank you, Miss Simes.
1:12:07
Unidentified Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
1:12:09
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Uh, next on the agenda, we have Miss Helen Halbert. She's going to come and make a presentation for boardwalk application. You may have the floor. Good evening everyone.
1:12:33
Unidentified Good evening.
1:12:34
Helen Halbert° I am Helen Halbert and I'm the executive director of the Helena Advertising and Promotion Commission and I appreciate the opportunity to come and uh take a few minutes of your time tonight at this meeting uh to tell you a little bit about a project that the AMP commission's working on. We are interested in doing some uh improvements, some refurbishment to the boardwalk out there at our river park. Uh and just to give a little bit of background, a few months ago, a couple of our commissioners had gone out there and they noticed that we had some boards that were a little past needing to be replaced. And so we took it upon ourselves to just do a little bit of minor repair. And as we went through the process, we realized that that boardwalk was built and dedicated in 1992. So for 33 years, it has stood strong. You know, we've had lots of folks out there taking pictures and bird watching and and really getting connected with the river. Um, but it's time for a little extra love to it. And there are a few safety concerns that we've noted and we so we decided to kind of come up with a wish list of things that we could do to improve it. So, in order to do that, we'd like to leverage some of the money that we have in um in our budget and apply for a matching grant from the Arkansas Office of Outdoor Recreation to do this. And we held a public meeting last Thursday. Um we had some folks show up and there was good feedback from that, some suggestions that we took into account. Um, but part of the process for applying for the grant is I will need you all to uh approve a resolution which I provided a copy for you of one that I drafted. Um, and the application deadline is later this it's at the end of this month. So that's why I needed to come tonight and um hope that you would take this up. And so if any of you have questions, I will be glad to try and answer them for you.
1:14:31
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) Questions? It's a big attraction and I know what you're talking about and I'm I'd like to make a motion that we approve resolution number seven
1:14:41
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° uh that they might apply for matching grants.
1:14:45
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller (Ward 1) I like to second that
1:14:46
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) motion by saying Columbia, second by Mr. Kyle Miller. Is there any discussion?
1:14:51
Roll call Roll-call vote — Maxine Miller: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Adrian Messina: yes; Joe St. Columbia: yes.
1:15:05
Unidentified Thank y'all so very much and I will keep you in the loop when we get the plan fully developed and I'll keep you a breast of how we do with the application if we get funded for it. Um hopefully that'll come to pass. Hopefully we'll know something at least before the end of the year. So I'll keep you posted.
1:15:21
Unidentified Yes sir.
1:15:26
Unidentified um well, that's what we're going to do.
1:15:28
Unidentified For instance, um and and I had a presentation that I made at the public meeting. I just didn't in the interest of time tonight. I didn't bring it to your attention, but I took some photos. There are some places where uh over time the pavement has washed away from where the boardwalk meets and it's developed a pretty significant hole there and we've covered it with a piece of metal, but really some ground work needs to be done there to make that a smooth transition and to make it more accessible to folks that want to use the boardwalk. Um there are also needs to be some enclosures around there because there sort of some drop offs there that could potentially be dangerous. So, we want to see that. And in the process of doing that, we're talking about maybe adding some gateway um you know, to make it a bigger impact when you go in. The signage has all gotten really worn out. There's a lot of signage along it about birding and and various things. Uh we're going to update all the signage on it and maybe out at the end at the observation deck include one of those um binocular stands, you know, so people could go and watch the river traffic and and whatever. So, oh, and one other thing we were talking about replacing the stair. There's a stairwell that stairwell that goes down from the side that you can access the ground level down there. And that needs to be reworked. It's getting a little soft, but we talked about the possibility of adding a kayak dock so that when the water does come up, people that are interested in kayaking through that area uh would have a place to park their kayak. So, just some kind of fun things. Um, I think it'll be a a welcome change and we've gotten a lot of good feedback on social media, people asking about it and talking about it. So, appreciate your support.
1:17:05
Unidentified Your grant will be getting uh in making improvements to the boardwalk wall.
1:17:10
Unidentified Yes, we're not starting over. We're just making it better. We're going to we're going to fix the boards that we just quit working on. You know, we want to make sure that it's all good and sound. Um, replace decking where it's needed and then just add a few little things to make it a better experience. Good luck to you.
1:17:26
Unidentified Thank you.
1:17:27
Unidentified Thank you for your time, sir. Miss
1:17:29
Unidentified Albert, would you hang around for the the presentation of the conflict ordinance? It's next on the agenda.
1:17:35
Unidentified Oh, okay.
1:17:36
Unidentified In case there's any questions. Uh next item on the agenda is the uh there's an AMP conflict ordinance and as you're all aware
1:17:50
Unidentified six
1:17:51
Unidentified number six conflict ordinances uh the city has contra conflict ordinance but for each individual person whether it's a each individual person must have a ordinance approved for do business with the city here we're talking specifically about Will Staley and his wife is on the AM MP and that's there that was an issue that was in the audit cuz um but the conflict ordinance is authorizing AMP to do up to $5,500 a year with Will Staley. That's what this ordinance is about. This ordinance number 6 2025. Uh we can entertain a motion to suspend the rules placed on third and final read and reading the title only. But
1:18:32
Unidentified I think so. I think it's in your packet.
1:18:38
Unidentified It's in your packet.
1:18:41
Unidentified And this is something that the audit requires us to do on an annual basis. We have done it in the past when we've done a a higher dollar amount with him, but he's done design work for us. And um because he's married to a commissioner, we have to keep it on the up and up.
1:18:57
Unidentified We used to do single approval at AM and they have to do double approval. So, we have to do it there and here at this table. And this is one of the items that uh appeared in the audit. And so this is to make sure we don't get cited um in the audit.
1:19:12
Unidentified Number six.
1:19:13
Unidentified Six.
1:19:16
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) Okay. I move that we can approve ordinance number six of reading title. Suspend the rules as huh? Suspend the rules. Suspend. Yeah.
1:19:25
Unidentified Okay. Uh
1:19:27
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2) second.
1:19:40
Roll call Roll-call vote — Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Adrian Messina: yes; Joe St. Columbia: yes.
1:19:48
Unidentified An ordinance to wave conflict in regarding a vendor or contract with related to a specific city employee or commission member repealing ordinance a part of ordinances in conflict with declining emergency and for other related purposes. As stated, as stated before, this is about Will Staley.
1:20:04
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Is there a motion to adopt?
1:20:06
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) Move.
1:20:08
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller (Ward 1) Second.
1:20:09
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Motion by St. Columbia to adopt. Second by Mr. Kyle Miller. Any discussion? Madam Cler, would you call the RO?
1:20:15
Roll call Roll-call vote — Adrian Messina: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Joe St. Columbia: yes.
1:20:26
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Uh, there's an emergency clause. Is there a motion to adopt?
1:20:30
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) So move.
1:20:32
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Is there a second?
1:20:37
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Motion by St. Columbia to uh adopt the emergency call. Second by Miss Davis. Madam cler, would you call the role?
1:20:44
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey Dr. Miller,
1:20:45
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller (Ward 1) yes.
1:20:47
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey yes. Mr. Etherly, yes. Miss Davis.
1:20:51
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey Mr. Messina. Yes. Six. Yes.
1:20:55
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Thank you, Miss Oh, I'm going to go back up to the old business and item number four, honorary street naming ordinance. This is one that we've taken up um a couple times, but um hasn't been fully dealt with one way or another. So, in your packet, you'll have the u the honorary street naming ordinance.
1:21:17
Unidentified Um if I may, Mr.
1:21:19
City Attorney Andre Valley Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor uh previously what has happened the version that you have here was approved by the planning commission the planning commission again addressed it uh at this month's meeting and uh they stand by the previous this version that was adopted as a street naming ordinance uh the procedure is a street naming ordinance presented to the uh city planning commission and it g it gives the approval criteria Uh in reveling portion in part three it says the potential honore must have a demonstrable and significant positive impact on the community or contribute to the cultural, economic, educational, intellectual, political or scientific vitality of the community or have some extraordinary contribution in the service of humanity and it must be a natural person. Uh the city council uh shall consider the honorary street dedication in a city council meeting and the decision to adopt honorary uh street name based on the criteria section shall be effectuated through adoption of ordinance. Uh the signage in particular is a separate signs that the planning commission suggested that separate signs have a distinct color and the color they suggested was black and gold letters like in Memphis and other other areas and that the sign clearly says honorary. Currently we have signs that are green and white just like our regular signs. Uh the restrictions uh in this ordinance that they approved is said only a segment uh of street between one and three contiguous blocks may be proposed for honorary street dedications. Uh in the case of walkways or trails or bike paths, the designation shall apply to the entire length of the way. Uh they should only be valid for 10 years period and it says all previous honorary street dedications are declared to expire 10 years. uh signs can be removed at the point necessary by the city and there are fees that are in this the fees that are in this uh the one fee that the city council paused on was the amount in paragraph six section six were the cost it says all costs of the uh reasonable associated with the fabrication installation of maintenance on street signs are borne by the applicant and the department of public works would evaluate the cost of signage and labor associated with equipment for honorary street dedication sign and it says in addition to these cost uh as determined by the department of public works the applicant shall remit a fee application fee and that's still blank cuz city council never decided what the application fee would be some suggested 500 some says 250 others suggested 100 uh in boldly said this said application fee is non-refundable then it goes through the process also And it says in pertinent part that at least 750 qualified people have to sign a petition uh for there be honest for it to even be considered. Uh but and also it says application fee that there's an application fee of at least $100 for administrative review. And finally it says additional cost is that the pistons have shall have deposited the funds for the cost assignments for the works prior to placement and appointment seat of the funds in full the signage uh created installed by department works in accordance with the ordinance. It says these costs are in addition to the application fee. So those were the the main factors that were within it but it's it's much longer than that. Um, but it's for you all's consideration. It's been uh was it was it's been table since the Smith administration.
1:25:13
Unidentified I think when you increase it 105,
1:25:17
Unidentified that's just my opinion.
1:25:18
Unidentified You talking about the application fees
1:25:21
Unidentified and then you got you got Yeah. on page three or five and then four or five you got would be the same fees.
1:25:33
Unidentified Those are two different fees.
1:25:35
Unidentified The suggestion previously was in paragraph three. The non-refundable fee is $100.
1:25:39
Unidentified We need some money. What?
1:25:42
Unidentified Yeah. The non-refundable fee was $100 suggested previously and the portion that you said in paragraph seven on page four or five that's in section five that was $500 but the council balked at that and tabled it at that point but y'all had discussion previously
1:25:58
Unidentified application fee
1:26:00
Unidentified uh I'll ask more
1:26:05
Unidentified well I mean
1:26:06
Unidentified orion is uh cost and six. And
1:26:16
Unidentified and then at the top of page four,
1:26:20
Unidentified those are two different fees, right?
1:26:24
Unidentified Yes.
1:26:25
Unidentified Okay.
1:26:28
Unidentified for doing application.
1:26:29
Unidentified That's the $100 or what?
1:26:31
Unidentified Right. Yeah.
1:26:32
Unidentified And the other portion was the the entirety of the fees. So it's one I think they're inclusive the way the way that that was anticipated.
1:26:40
Unidentified Okay. And then and then with that there's also the costly actual sign itself. Yes. Which could be
1:26:47
Unidentified So what happens if I know I'm thinking negative but but what happens in the event that let's say they get to all this and they then public works they say well the sign is going to cost I'm just going to give a arbitrary number $1,000 and they can't come up with the money. What happens? They just
1:27:07
Unidentified they lose $100. Good. Okay.
1:27:19
Unidentified That was a number that was the planning commit because they wanted someone to say this is a significant someone. Yeah. You got the 750 people in the community saying we want the street name. That's that's a lot of people. That's just Yeah.
1:27:33
Unidentified Yeah.
1:27:34
Unidentified It should be tough. I mean, you naming a a a street after somebody,
1:27:39
Unidentified right?
1:27:40
Unidentified Right.
1:27:50
Unidentified we can further
1:27:51
Unidentified I say set the numbers and let's move on.
1:27:55
Unidentified I say I say C. I say C 500 like we discussed before.
1:28:01
Unidentified And then you've got the cost of the actual sign which that that could be whatever it is. and then the $100 non-refundable.
1:28:08
Unidentified So, so in seeding the 100 the application fee as part is non-refundable and then the total fee is 500 for the application.
1:28:16
Unidentified Yeah, that's my opinion but that good.
1:28:20
Unidentified No, the 100 is non-refundable.
1:28:22
Unidentified That's Yeah, that would be your just basic application
1:28:25
Unidentified is nonreundable too.
1:28:31
Unidentified Okay. It's not like we lost whatever we had to go through processing suggesting that we just
1:28:38
Unidentified Mr. Ethan suggested we we strike the section 7 and just have a $500 uh non-refundable fee.
1:28:46
Unidentified Yeah. So a total of 600 non-refundable. Is that what he's saying?
1:28:51
Unidentified No, it's total of 500. He was saying that just for for abusive sakes, take number seven out and just leave number the the $500 non-refundable feed.
1:29:00
Unidentified Okay. is what he's saying. Instead of being inclusive, just
1:29:04
Unidentified $500 is non-refundable.
1:29:05
Unidentified Non-refundable $500
1:29:08
Unidentified and remove section seven
1:29:10
Unidentified of y'all understand that
1:29:14
Unidentified number seven from section five.
1:29:16
Unidentified Seven. Okay.
1:29:21
Unidentified Are y'all good?
1:29:24
Unidentified Number seven.
1:29:25
Unidentified What would this be?
1:29:27
Unidentified 725.
1:29:28
Unidentified Yeah.
1:29:31
Unidentified seven.
1:29:32
Unidentified number seven.
1:29:35
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Is there a motion to adopt ordinance number seven by placing it on his third and final reading? Reading the title only.
1:29:43
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Motion by Miss Davis, second by Mr. St. Columbia. Any discussion? Madam Cler, would you call the role?
1:29:53
Roll call Roll-call vote — Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Maxine Miller: yes.
1:30:01
Unidentified Order. Do we need to
1:30:03
City Attorney Andre Valley° Order number 7, 2025, an ordinance to establish the process for honoring the name of a street andor honoring the rename of streets in the city hall to provide an approval criteria application fee requirement related that to otherwise provide and with respect that too. There still needs to be a motion to adopt. Uh Mr. I I was just going to say do we need to say you know with the suggest with the with the um the edits with
1:30:26
Unidentified but at this portion that's what you
1:30:28
Unidentified Yes sir
1:30:29
Unidentified with the edits.
1:30:30
Unidentified Is that your motion?
1:30:31
Unidentified Yes sir.
1:30:33
Unidentified Yes sir.
1:30:36
Unidentified Gotcha. Okay.
1:30:39
Unidentified Yes sir. Please.
1:30:40
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Motion by Mr. Kyle Miller to adopt ordinance number seven with the changes stated here in the record. Is there a second? Second by Mr. S. Columbia. Uh, any discussion? Madame clerk, would you call the role, please?
1:30:52
Roll call Roll-call vote — Joe St. Columbia: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Adrian Messina: yes.
1:31:00
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3)° Ordinance passes?
1:31:02
Unidentified No.
1:31:03
Unidentified All right.
1:31:05
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Next item on the agenda is the 60-day pause of the 3-day trash pickup ordinance. Uh, I want to say back in June, this body adopted an ordinance uh, changing the trash pickup schedule from four days to three days. That was supposed to go into effect on July the 1st. We published schedules, provided notice, did all those things. And ever since that's happened, uh, nothing has happened. Um, there's been equipment failure, there's been people failure, uh, and the like. Um, I was the only person who didn't vote for this ordinance. And I think in addition to all of those things, I think there was some thought that I might change my mind and and back up on it. Uh, but what has happened on the ground is in the past few weeks has been an employees, one injured, couldn't work, having to cover his route. We only have we don't have all of our fleet of trucks working. We had some trucks over in Memphis. And so we are way too fragile right now
1:32:15
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) because if anything goes wrong on any given day, the three-day route is is out the window. It just it's not going to happen. And so until we're able to execute, u what I'm asking you to do is adopt a 60-day pause. Uh we got a flood of calls last week from people complaining because some people tried to get on a new three-day schedule, but then the truck doesn't come and then there's all there's something that's happened every single week. So what I'm asking you to do, and I think this is a management issue as well. I I didn't I didn't kind of like it from a management standpoint, but I think it's a management issue and depending on who permanently occupies this seat, they may decide they want to do a three-day or some other uh some other rendition of trash pickup. So, what I'm asking you to do is just implement a 60-day pause where we go back to the 4-day schedule. That's the one everybody knows and that we've done for years. Uh and we put that in place for 60 days. we see what happens and if if nothing happens I'll be back in 60 days saying keep it in place. If something happens then uh you know somebody may want to change it or keep it or whatever. But but
1:33:21
Unidentified I guess my question is how b how binding is that ordinance because
1:33:25
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller (Ward 1) I asked several of my colleagues and nobody remembers voting for it. I mean
1:33:31
Unidentified nobody remembers v voting for it. I I take your word if you said that we did but I know I wouldn't I didn't I don't remember voting for it.
1:33:39
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Yeah. I'm I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Everybody voted for it except for me. I was the only person who who voted against it.
1:33:43
Unidentified What happened was it it was presented as a cost-saving overtime saving measure and you all were discussing it doing uh overtime presentation.
1:33:53
Unidentified I guess it was just a misunderstanding.
1:33:56
Unidentified No, I did not. And see, everybody in sanitation knew that. And so,
1:33:59
Unidentified no, I remember I remember you saying I remember you not vote for it because you I remember that. But
1:34:05
Unidentified yeah,
1:34:06
Unidentified I don't I don't remember voting for it. I'm I'm not saying
1:34:09
Unidentified I'm not in favor. I'm not in favor. So So
1:34:11
Unidentified what what you're all asking for is a 60-day moratorum.
1:34:14
Unidentified Yes, sir.
1:34:15
Unidentified Yeah. What What's the What's the legal um process for rescending? I mean rescend.
1:34:20
City Attorney Andre Valley° I mean, we could do ordinance to repeal it, but
1:34:22
Unidentified you also tonight you can vote for
1:34:25
Unidentified moratorum just
1:34:26
Unidentified Yes, sir.
1:34:27
Unidentified I mean, we're not repealing it, but we're not going to enforce it for that at least today. Okay.
1:34:31
Unidentified And I say that because I I do understand some of the things that have happened. I get a call early in the morning saying this guy's hurt. He can't we we got to take another driver and put on his route and you got two people and then this week that this truck's not working and so we need to you know
1:34:46
Unidentified juggle trucks and so
1:34:48
Unidentified any so fragile if any of those things happen threeday routers because you're trying to compress everything into shorten period of time. Um
1:34:57
Unidentified it was safe but it was also giving them a day or two to work on the trucks or service the trucks. It was more than just,
1:35:04
Unidentified right?
1:35:05
Unidentified Well, yes. And that's why I said it's a management issue as well, right?
1:35:09
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) And so from a management standpoint, that may be the way somebody wants to manage the department. May not be the way I would like to manage the department, right? But so it it it had, you know, some some inklings of both things. And so uh but it just it it hasn't worked at this point. We do have we got two residential trucks. We got one front end loader. We got one boom truck that are running right now. We got a boom truck that may be back in the next week or so. We got a front end loader that may be back in the next week or so. We got the truck with the arm that some days uh particularly in the heat, they tell me it just won't go. And then they use trying to cover three routes using those two trucks. And so there's some things on the ground that are happening that are not, you know, conducive to to a three-day route as well.
1:35:55
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) And so I I'm asking you to pause it. If the council decides you want to repeal it, you can do that at any time in the 60 days or you can wait until the 60 days passes, however it goes. Okay?
1:36:06
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3)° If you want to keep if the next person wants to keep it in place, whomever that may be, they may ask you to do so. From a management perspective, they may think it's a good idea. I I know. Okay. But
1:36:16
Unidentified that's kind of where we are right now.
1:36:18
Unidentified So,
1:36:19
Unidentified so you just need to vote for We need to know
1:36:22
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) the moratorium 60-day morator. If you're inclined to do so, uh, we'll entertain a motion to have a 60-day pause of the 3-day trash pickup.
1:36:30
Councilwoman Maxine Miller (Ward 1) So, move.
1:36:31
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Motion by Miss Miller. Second by Mr. St. Columbia. Uh, Madam Clerk, would you call the RO?
1:36:38
Roll call Roll-call vote — Monica Davis: yes; Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Adrian Messina: yes.
1:36:58
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° I'd like to know who is in charge of the maintenance on these trucks where they're stationed.
1:37:04
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2) Who's in charge of the maintenance?
1:37:06
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° Maintenance. I bet there's no maintenance pulled on any of this equipment like it should be.
1:37:10
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Well, we have two mechanics. Let me let me put it that way. We have two mechanics. And Mr. Messina. Um, that'll be one of those issues that I vaguely spoken of and I I don't want to I don't want to address people in that manner here in this forum, but but uh we have two mechanics.
1:37:28
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° Well, do they have a form that they fill out every week that they check off they did this this and this change oil and whatever it's supposed to do that we receive or we can find or look at.
1:37:41
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) We don't have a lot of structure, Mr. Man, to a lot of things we do around here. I know.
1:37:46
Unidentified Okay. So, I I'll leave it at that. And And if you want to address,
1:37:50
Unidentified are
1:38:02
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Mr. Messina, what I'm trying to not do is address personnel issues in this forum. And that's why I keep telling you I'll talk to you about it privately if you like. But you're raising you're raising some I understand it's procedural but we only got two people right and so I'm trying to to to not go to certain places and
1:38:24
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° the mechanics aren't the ones driving the trucks are they
1:38:27
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) well the mechanics aren't driving the trucks but the mechanics uh in my mind would be the people who are responsible for the maintenance. And I'm not saying anybody has done I don't want see this is what I'm trying to I'm not saying anybody has done anything wrong but I may be saying something else that I'm not going to say into this microphone right now. Okay. So I'll talk to you about it privately.
1:38:48
Unidentified I got you.
1:38:49
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Yes. Five weeks is what I said. Mr. Msine I've been here for five weeks. All right. Feels like a lifetime but it's been five weeks.
1:38:55
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° Well you doing a good job.
1:38:57
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Thank you sir. Uh, next item on the agenda uh is not for any action and this is the last item that appears on your printed agenda. There's a landfill proposal to purchase uh some equipment. It's for an articulated dump truck. I emailed it to you. It uh it's probably well you may have copies at your at your at your table, but it's not for you to take any action on it. I wanted to put it on your radar. uh both our water and our landfill are operating under consent orders right now. And so uh they have some things that they need to address, some boxes that they have to check at the landfill. And so at this point in time, that's uh what they have submitted to me. I want you guys to see it so that you can take a look at it. I'm not asking you to take any action on it right now because um it's a purchase and I want to be able to talk to Miss Ramsey and Mr. Turner, before we actually come to you and say, "Hey, we think we're able and ready to make this purchase, but I do want you to have it on your radar because of that consent order. At some point, we're going to have to address some things with the landfill. So, just take a look at it, have it in the back of your mind. I don't know when it's going to come to you, but uh I'll talk with them first. We'll make sure that uh we're financially able or at least that we have a plan before we bring it to you."
1:40:19
Unidentified What's the price on this? It's uh $400 and something thousand.
1:40:24
Unidentified Half million.
1:40:25
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Almost half million. The articulated dump trucks typically run about six to700,000. They found one for $400,000. I think the payment on that is going to be about $6,000 per month. But the flip side of it is they're having to move dirt in a different way. I'll have the landfill manager come here and address you. And there's some some juggling issues in terms of money that can take place. We've been just there in the past.
1:40:51
Unidentified We've been rented.
1:40:52
Unidentified We've been renting. I was sitting here looking at the numbers. Yeah.
1:40:55
Unidentified So from January to 23rd to 2450,000 roughly. Then from
1:41:01
Unidentified September 24th to April 25 of this year, almost 80,000 and then another 15,000 we could have spent from April to June of this year. So
1:41:14
Unidentified we've been spending a lot of money.
1:41:15
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) But Mr. But Mr. Messina, what I'm telling you at this table is I did not come prepared to give you numbers on how we can do this. I just wanted you to have it on your radar and in the coming weeks I'll get with Miss Ramsey and Mr. Turner. We'll assess where we are and then when we feel like we're ready to make that proposal, then we'll we'll do it.
1:41:34
Councilman Adrian Messina (Ward 2)° Well, I just want to know how much it's going to cost. That's all I want to know.
1:41:37
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Yes, sir. It's it's $400,000. It's about $6,000 per month. And so, but the consent order is what what's in the in the rearview mirror is is it's is there
1:41:49
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) and and it's it's following us. And so, we have to do what we have to do to to get that landfill back in compliance.
1:41:55
Unidentified I got you.
1:41:56
Unidentified Yes, sir.
1:41:57
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3)° And when when the landfill manager comes, I think he should remind you all of the history. I think some of the history has been forgotten. Forgotten. Uh when we think about that when the landfill started in 2023, there was no equipment operate and so you've had this crescendo of events that has happened that has caused this landfield to be in the current situation
1:42:22
Unidentified and that's not laying blame on anyone. I'm just trying to remind everyone of the facts.
1:42:26
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° Other thing before we close out, I know m Mr. Messina that you're ready to make your motion at every meeting like Mr. that was said that we do need to address the water issue, but we also at every meeting need to address finance. Uh when when everyone to my left testified uh at the uh legislative audit, they intensely ask questions about what is your plan, what did you know, what are you doing? And so I think the one thing that I've said I've said at Nauseium is that we can't engage in def deficit spending. Uh, I think that we need to be looking at the plan for how we're going to address issues and that's something that that you want to think about at each meeting. you know, legislative audit that we've heard recently, we were they they recommended us cutting back on a number of employees.
1:43:22
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) And I asked uh uh you know, we look at some of the cities our size, you know, and get information from other cities that are our size. How many employees do they have? How are they doing with their garbage pickup? the services that they render to the city and all. Back uh some time ago, we had about 120 employees. We got we're on a payroll right now about 113 employees. We've only reduced our number of employees by seven uh in the last few months. We we need to start looking and that's why I want to know what what are our plans to we've got to have some money and we're paying too many people and there's a lot of jobs out here. I know uh we we back some time ago we had all these executives uh jobs paying enormous amounts of money. We need to reduce all that. What are your plans to getting some of that reduced and and cutting out some of these jobs and reducing it down to where we can handle and pay some of our bills?
1:44:31
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Well, my count, Mr. St. Columbia, as of last Friday was 103 employees.
1:44:37
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° How many?
1:44:39
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) As of as of last Friday, uh that's based on the information that was provided to me by HR. So to the extent that yours is different, that's that's not the count that I have, but it's 103.
1:44:51
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° Now, well, wait a minute. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question.
1:44:55
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) The the biggest cut, the biggest reduction that we can make, I've already presented to you, which is the dispatch proposal. That is a quarter that No, listen to me. I'm saying I didn't say only. That is the largest money move that you can make in terms of payroll in one swipe. That is a quarter of a million dollar payroll reduction. There is no other payroll reduction that you can make in one move that reduces your payroll by that amount of money. That's the one that's in front of you right now. It reduces the number of employees. It reduces your
1:45:35
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° to executive secretaries and all that.
1:45:39
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Well, you Mr. Columbia, those things are out of order because now you're addressing people. You're not addressing departments. You're addressing people. And if you're going to address people, you have to go into executive session and you have to notify those people so that they can be here. So what we're not going to do is talk about individual people because it would be improvis
1:46:02
Unidentified individual jobs and individual people.
1:46:05
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) No sir, those people are not here. They haven't been notified to be here. Did you Did you Did you watch the hearing at legislative audit?
1:46:13
Unidentified What's your question?
1:46:14
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Did you watch the hearing at legislative audit? Did you watch it?
1:46:18
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) I testified at legislative audit. They asked this question. My response to them was, I know things that we can do, but out of respect for the people who are on the list of employees, I will not say those things here because those employees should not hear me talking about their jobs over here in Little. I said that in the record in in Lorac here. I would say the same thing. If those people are not here and we're not in an executive session to discuss individuals, I'm not going to discuss individuals. What I gave you is the biggest proposal that you can take on as a body, and that's the one to reduce the dispatches.
1:46:59
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° I got a feeling we're not going to have an appointment by the governor uh at all. I'll be honest with you. I don't like to
1:47:06
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3)° Well, we may not. that's going to happen.
1:47:08
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) We may not have an appointment. We may or may not have an appointment. Mr. St. Columb,
1:47:12
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° wait until the next election.
1:47:14
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Well, well, that's not that that that Mr. St. Columbia is not true because there are things that this body can do. There are things that this body can do with or without an appointment from the governor. I did not I have not waited on the governor's office to meet with the people about water. I have not waited on the governor's office to pro to provide you a proposal to reduce your payroll by a quarter of a million dollars. I have not waited on the governor's office to do some other things that you may or may not be aware of in terms of reducing spending. So, I have not waited on the governor's office. Our payroll is is we're trying to keep it down. You have a proposal to help do that. Um the question is, is this body going to adopt it or not? but it is in front of you and when the agreement comes you'll have a chance to vote up or down on that proposal and that will reduce your payroll by a quarter of a million dollars. That's the biggest move one move you can make. There are no quarter of a million dollar moves in in the budget anyway may
1:48:15
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° of employees and our payroll because we need a little we need to cut it slash
1:48:20
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° that's all I'm going to say
1:48:22
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) and I understand St. Columbia. I I I was looking at the employees in the payroll. I I I keep saying this.
1:48:29
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° You're sitting in that chair, Don. So, you know,
1:48:32
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) Mr. St. Columbia, when I was sitting in that chair,
1:48:34
Unidentified Yeah.
1:48:35
City Attorney Andre Valley° I brought you all of the payroll information. When I sat in that chair, I didn't have to move over here to do it. I've been looking at it for months, Mr. S. Columbia. I've been looking at it for months. And so, nothing has changed from my perspective. Okay. Here's one thing that I want to caution the body about. When you're making cuts, I think you need to do it in the most neutral manner as possible. Part of the issue that it sounds like and and Mr. Etherly has been deferring some of your questions, Mr. St. Columbia, but as city attorney, one of the things I want to caution everybody run over this is not pointed to Mr. St. Columbia. We have to be neutral. The way you're asking Mr. Ethan questions is about specific people as if you're targeting. Let's get rid of this person. Let's get
1:49:20
Unidentified anybody's name.
1:49:22
City Attorney Andre Valley° You said what about the executive secretaries etc. But the thing I'm those if you let me finish if you would allow me to finish.
1:49:29
City Attorney Andre Valley The thing I was saying is you need to look at neutral ways of cutting cost because the the the the issue that may present itself is that someone may perceive that the body is going particular after them for whatever reason. And we have to be neutral in our approach. Of course the city needs to save money. Of course, the city needs to look at issues of financing in every every way possible, but the city should be neutral in it in looking at how you're going to cut costs and what you're going to how what you're going to do. And that's what I want to keep at the forefront of the body's mind.
1:50:10
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2)° Not to mention the fact you called out the only employee who helps me. You want me to have no help at all. I move we
1:50:18
Councilman Joe St. Columbia (Ward 2) adjourn
1:50:20
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) motion by St. Columb second by Miller.
1:50:24
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly (Ward 3) All in favor say I.
How this page was made: built from the city's own meeting video (YouTube ↗) and its posted meeting packet (Drive folder ↗). Dollar figures are quoted from the documents; nothing here is paraphrased from memory. Corrections: cheekforhelena@gmail.com.