In 30 seconds
- The city's total known debt across all funds is $4,446,874.66; it has paid down $561,018.71 since July 1 and expects to be under $4 million by January.
- Council started an 18-month payment plan for the city's LOPFI (police and fire pension) debt, with 17 payments left; about half the total debt is federal taxes and LOPFI.
- Council adopted Ordinance No. 8 of 2025, requiring a free permit for large open burns; it does not apply to normal residential yard burning.
- Council approved $30,825.27 to fix two more water bypass pumps and $3,750 for another week of contract garbage hauling, but made no purchase decision on a new sanitation truck (bids ranged $212,000 to $300,000).
- Gov. Sanders appointed Joseph Whitfield mayor, sworn in the next day; with a permanent mayor in place, the city's water-system loan can now close.
Recap
New Mayor Appointed, Sworn In Next Day
Gov. Sanders appointed Joseph Whitfield to fill the remaining 14 and a half months of the mayor's term. Whitfield was not yet sworn in when this meeting was held; that happened the next day, October 8. Councilman Don Etherly, who had chaired meetings as acting mayor since the vacancy, ran this meeting.
Sanitation Truck: Bids Reviewed, No Purchase Yet
The city's rear-load sanitation truck was declared a total loss after being rear-ended about three weeks earlier. A River City Hydraulics representative presented a new truck priced near $212,000, with a 45-to-50-day delivery and a 5-year warranty. Other bids were $223,000 and $234,000 from Arkansas Municipal Equipment and $300,000 from Scruggs. Insurance is expected to cover only about half the cost, so the city will finance the rest. The council made no purchase decision at this meeting. It approved $3,750 for one more week of contract garbage hauling instead, 6-0 on a motion by Councilwoman Davis.
Open-Burning Ordinance Adopted
Council adopted Ordinance No. 8 of 2025, which requires a free permit before large open burns. It is modeled on a Rogers, Arkansas ordinance and does not apply to normal residential yard burning. The ordinance passed its third and final reading, was adopted, and its emergency clause was adopted, each by a 6-0 vote.
Bypass Pump Repair Approved
Council approved a $30,825.27 repair from Luckett Pump and Well Service to take two more water bypass pumps out of service, 6-0 on a motion by Dr. Miller. Acting Mayor Etherly said the city has lost seven figures on bypass pump rentals over the past several years.
City Debt: $4.4 Million Total, LOPFI Payment Plan Underway
The treasurer's report puts the city's total known claims at $4,446,874.66 across all funds. Etherly said the city had originally estimated about $4 million in debt but found the real figure was closer to $5 million once the review was complete; $561,018.71 has been paid down since July 1. For the last two pay periods, the city met payroll and paid payroll taxes at the same time. About half the debt is federal taxes and LOPFI, the police and fire pension fund; the city started an 18-month LOPFI payment plan, with 17 payments left, and LOPFI is holding the city's state turnback money until the debt is paid off. The city has cut about $200,000 off its federal tax debt and projects being under $4 million by January. Gross city income is about $9 million a year. Etherly, reflecting on his 90 days as acting mayor, said some of his past criticism of the administration was made "from a perspective of ignorance."
Water-System Loan Can Now Close
Etherly said the water-system loan could not close earlier because it required a permanent mayoral appointment, which happened this week. With that appointment in place, the city can move to start fixing its water system.
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 ↗
2:30
All present and forgive us our trespasses as we tres against us temptation us amend States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible for all.
3:11
Roll call Roll call (attendance) — present: Maxine Miller, Dr. Kyle Miller, Adrian Messina, Joe St. Columbia, Monica Davis. Absent: Don Etherly.
3:31
Councilman Don Etherly Okay, we have a quorum. And let me address the obvious. U since we last met, uh the governor's office has appointed Mr. Joseph Whitfield uh to complete the 14 and a half months that are remaining on the current mayor's term. Uh Mr. Whitfield will not be sworn in until tomorrow. And so uh he won't officially become mayor Whitfield until tomorrow. And so this meeting will this is our regularly scheduled meeting for the month of October. And so we have a number of items that need to be addressed. So we'll go ahead and take those up. And the first item that's on your agenda is approval of the minutes. If you'd all like to take a moment to take a look at those and when you're ready, I will entertain a motion to approve those. You have minutes from three different meetings, August 19th, September 2nd, and September 24th.
4:29
Councilman Joe St. Columbia° Yeah. motion to adopt all of them at one time or
4:54
Councilman Don Etherly° however the body wants to proceed. If you want to do them all at once, we can do them all at once. If you want to do them separately, we can do them separately. Motion that we approve all minutes of August the 19th, September the 2nd, September 24th as presented. Second
5:11
Councilman Don Etherly motion by St. Columbia to approve the minutes as presented for August 19th, September 2nd and September September 24th. Second by Messina. Is there any discussion? Madam clerk, would you call the role?
5:22
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey Miss Viller.
5:23
Councilwoman Maxine Miller Yes.
5:24
Councilman Don Etherly Yes.
5:25
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey° Mr. Ba. Who?
5:28
Unidentified You. Mr. Was
5:31
Unidentified yes.
5:32
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey Dr. Miller, yes. Mr. St. Columbia, Mr. Davis, yes. Six, yes.
5:36
Councilman Don Etherly All right. Motion passes. Those minutes are adopted. We have a guest here tonight, and he's not here to make a presentation, but here to answer questions if you have any. And so, if you'll indulge me, I'm going to skip to the new business on the uh on the agenda, and that's going to be the sanitation truck proposals. Um, as you may recall, we had a sanitation truck that was rear ended about three weeks ago and it was uh it's a total loss. Uh, we have operated without it and we need to address that issue. You have some proposals in your packet. You have some from Arkansas Municipal Equipment from River City Hydraulics and the representative is here from River City Hydraulics and you have some one from Scrugs. Now I'm I'm I'm sorry. I want you to take a look at those. And my suggestion has been and will be that whatever we purchase, we make it one of those uh rear end loader trucks. Uh we have awful trouble out of those automated trucks. And that was what was damaged, the automated truck. We do have one rear end loader and one automated truck that are operational right now. Um the automated truck is basically sometimes operational, sometimes not. Uh you did approve the use of a contractor to assist us in picking in picking up garbage. We've exhausted that. Um but uh and and again some of you I think everybody was here. Mr. St. Columbia might not have been here at the last meeting uh when you approved and Mr. Mr. Miller, we're going to uh ask for file a claim for loss of use on the on the funds that we've expended for the rental fees to try to recoup those um based because it comes out of the accident. We wouldn't have not we would not have had to use the contractor without it. So, we're going to ask that those be returned at as of today. And Mr. Ramsey, you can correct me. We have not the appraisal has been completed, but it has not been presented to us as a city. So, we don't know how much we're going to get from the the truck that was this total loss.
7:54
Unidentified I wouldn't make I wouldn't make a decision until such time as we get the you know how much money we're actually going to have to lay out for a new truck.
8:06
Unidentified But, um
8:09
Unidentified Yes, sir. And and
8:10
Unidentified how soon will we know when we get
8:13
Councilman Don Etherly° We've been on an any day basis. Friday, he hopes.
8:18
Councilman Don Etherly° Uh, Miss Ramsey spoke to him, he hopes to have it to us by Friday.
8:22
Unidentified Yes.
8:23
Councilman Don Etherly° Um, but what I do want you to do is since you have a representative here, if you have any questions about his proposals,
8:29
Councilman Don Etherly go ahead and ask him, and I told him you probably wanted to know about warranties and all of that kind of stuff. And so, if you could come come forward and just introduce yourself and and that way you won't make him have a blank trip. And I know you guys are going to want to ask these questions anyway. So,
8:43
Councilman Don Etherly° yes, sir. Go ahead and and introduce.
8:44
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics)° First of all, thank you all for having me. I'm Ryan Flight with River City Hydraulics. Um we've told y'all many trash trucks in the past and also done repairs and thirds. We're out of business, Tennessee. Um we did present a quote to the council on the new truck to replace that one that was wrecked. Um it is a freight liner rear load truck with dual tippers on the back. As of right now, I have the chassis available at Hile where we build the garbage trucks in Alabama. And we're looking at about a 45 to 50 day turnaround once that order is placed to get you replaced.
9:16
Unidentified 45 days.
9:17
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) Yes, they're 45 to 50 days. It'll be back to us and ready to work.
9:22
Unidentified The these are his two proposals, by the way, if you're looking for them in your packet.
9:26
Unidentified These two here.
9:27
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics)° Yes. Yes, sir. They are the most the most inexpensive that we have. Uh they do have the the largest um and
9:36
Unidentified this is without the the money we're going to have to
9:40
Unidentified Right. Right. Right. Right. This is just their cost.
9:43
Unidentified Do you have any idea how much money we're going to get for the other? You have any idea?
9:49
Councilman Don Etherly My understanding is that it won't be it won't cover the full cost, but it might be in the neighborhood of around 100,000
9:57
Councilman Don Etherly about half of about half as much. Yes. Yes, sir. So, we'll be financing about half of it. The the issue is and and and Mr. St. Columbia, you're familiar with this. We we spent an eternity renting things instead of buying things.
10:11
Unidentified Yeah.
10:12
Unidentified And when we look back in the rearview mirror, we've wasted tons and tons of money on rentals.
10:16
Unidentified Oh, yeah.
10:17
Unidentified And so, it's kind of I would say one of our priorities should be to to to not continue to to to pay money, but to go ahead and make this because we got to do it anyway to go ahead and make this investment. However, we don't know what the final numbers are going to be. So, so, uh, I wanted you to get the proposals as soon as possible so that you can start evaluating. My my suggestion, you know, look, I'm I'm not I'm not an expensive person at all, is that we go with one of the more inexpensive
10:45
Unidentified figure about half half of what one of the new ones going to cost.
10:50
Unidentified Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
10:51
Unidentified Approximately closely. And
10:53
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) and since he's here, what what type of warranty would we get on a purchase from from your company? So, we have many options on the body itself is generally a two-year warranty. Covers all major body components. Um, hydraulics, pumps, everything like that. On your chassis, I'll have to check on this certain chassis for sure. They generally come with a two-year as well, and you can purchase up to a 5year warranty. Just And I can send you guys all that warranty information if you'd like to look that over before making your decision.
11:20
Unidentified I noticed a difference in the two proposals about $4,000.
11:24
Unidentified Yes, sir. Basically, why is that different?
11:27
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) So, one of them is a brand new truck would be a brand new truck. Uh, the other one is a two-year-old truck, so it is a used truck.
11:34
Unidentified So, for 4,000 more, we get a brand new truck.
11:38
Unidentified Yes, sir.
11:39
Unidentified Uh,
11:55
Unidentified You say the the new one is bigger.
11:57
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) The The new one is not. It's a 20 yard. The used one would be a 25 yard. So, it's a little bit longer truck. Um you're basically going to have two axles in the back instead of one. Yes, sir. Adding that extra five yards.
12:10
Unidentified So, it's got more tires on the ground.
12:12
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) More tires on the ground and bigger load capacity. Yeah. which we kind of figured for you guys and where the dump is, you're usually working fine with the single axle, the 20 yard. So that's why I went ahead and prepared one for you on a new one that's going to have warranty and all that cuz we can't put the warranty on the used
12:30
Unidentified have a full warranty.
12:31
Unidentified Yes, sir.
12:33
Unidentified Little smaller. Yes.
12:34
Unidentified And uh Okay. And how about now? You say the chassis is two years.
12:41
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) It's a general generally two years. I can check on this certain truck. They may have filled it with five up to five years. And I can get that information for you, but it's generally a two two year two-year body and uh chassis
12:54
Unidentified financing this truck.
12:58
Unidentified You can't do it more than five.
12:59
Unidentified You can't go more than five years.
13:01
Unidentified Can't do it more than five.
13:02
Unidentified Five year maximum.
13:03
Unidentified Fiveyear maximum.
13:06
Unidentified Okay. So, we get a fiveyear warranty. We got a fiveyear payout on it. That's
13:12
Unidentified you're covered through the life of Yeah. of
13:14
Unidentified the most logical way of handling.
13:16
Unidentified Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Will.
13:17
Unidentified Okay.
13:19
Councilman Don Etherly° Question about the warranty. Would your warranty require that that you do all the repairs or how would that work?
13:25
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) Well, basically it say on something on the body side went down. You call us, let us know what it is. We file it for warranty. If it's something that's easily easily to replace, we can get you that part and have your guys replace it or we can send somebody down to do the work.
13:42
Unidentified Where is your Where's your office?
13:44
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) Memphis. Memphis, Tennessee.
13:46
Unidentified An hour.
13:47
Unidentified Drive.
13:48
Unidentified Yes, sir. Problem.
13:50
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) Right. Right on. We're right on Shelby Drive by the airport.
13:52
Unidentified Okay.
13:53
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) Yeah. Yes, sir. So, very quick to get down here. Like I said, we've we've worked with the city for a long time. uh part service, selling trucks. So, we've never had any any problem servicing you guys.
14:05
Unidentified Yeah. Well, I I think that's where we need to go. We need to go with a new truck. It's a little smaller than the big one, but it'll have a 5year warranty on it, you say?
14:14
Unidentified Yes, sir.
14:15
Unidentified we can get up to that. Yeah. And I'll make I'll check on that before we get to that part to make sure you're covered under all that. Yes, sir.
14:22
Unidentified And you said we could get it here on the streets within 40 45 days.
14:26
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) It's right. They told me 50 to 55 days. Generally, it's been coming in about a week ahead of schedule, but yes, before the end of the year, certainly.
14:35
Unidentified Okay,
14:37
Unidentified that's all the questions I have.
14:39
Unidentified Okay,
14:40
Unidentified so for bidding purposes, most of these trucks are pretty much custom builds.
14:44
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) They are. They are. Yeah, they the chassis sitting on the ground bare. So, as you see on the sheet there, what I laid out, that's the options that are built onto the truck. Yes, sir.
14:54
City Attorney Andre Valley° And to follow up with Mr. eth question. The of course he and I are both lawyers. We we were asking the question because many of Mr. Hazards get in trouble when with warranties because if M plasma fixes uh the problem then many times that violates the warranty.
15:10
Unidentified Correct.
15:12
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) correct and that's when you would y'all would have all my contact information. If something goes wrong, call me. I can check on that warranty. Like I said, if it's minor stuff, they're not going to they're not going to, you know, require us to come down to do it. If it's something real, you know, if a lot they back into something or somebody hits them and a light goes out, you can replace the light.
15:31
Unidentified You could theoretically do some repairs on
15:33
Unidentified You could. Yes, sir. if it's minor
15:35
Unidentified minor repair
15:36
Unidentified just to get the truck back up
15:38
Unidentified and uh get it done quickly
15:40
Unidentified right
15:41
Unidentified back street
15:42
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics) cuz we don't want if it's a minor repair we don't want you to have to bring that truck to Memphis take it off route and all that for something that takes 10 minutes to do we'll just either send somebody down or warranty will give us permission to let the municipality repair it
15:57
Ryan Flight (River City Hydraulics)° okay yeah and that would be how so it's a how garbage truck so we they would basically send us a letter that says the city can replace this part on warranty. We'll they'll send it to us and we get it to you guys.
16:09
Councilman Don Etherly° Okay. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Well, we thank you for
16:21
Unidentified Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
16:23
Unidentified Thank you.
16:24
Unidentified Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
16:26
Councilman Don Etherly Okay. So, um you have all of those proposals in front of you. um you understand the the time frame in terms of when you might have it. I will tell you that you have some other proposals in your packet. Um one is from Scrugs Equipment. That's the most expensive one and certainly I don't not suggesting we spend that much money.
16:50
Unidentified I know the president a lot larger.
16:52
Unidentified Yes, sir.
16:53
Unidentified Yeah. What's the difference in the two trucks? Did both of you the same or?
16:58
Councilman Don Etherly° And are you talking about the one from Scrugs?
17:01
Unidentified Yeah,
17:18
Unidentified Yeah.
17:19
Councilman Don Etherly And it cost $300,000. And so I'm
17:23
Councilman Don Etherly as a Cadillac. Yes, sir. Uh, you do have two proposals from Arkansas Municipal Equipment, and in those proposals, you have a you have two 20 yard trucks and one is $223,000, one is $234,000. And my understanding is that they have those on the yard now, ready for delivery. Um, I've been trading some text messages with with a representative and I was trying to ask about warranty information, but I don't have any response at this point. And so, just take a look at those and I think you need to make these decisions because as time rocks and rolls along, we may incur some additional cost in trying to pick up the garbage, whether it be in in whether it comes in rental or whether it comes in overtime. Uh, because we only have those two trucks that are operating. And so I I would suggest you kind of look at those and decide how you want to proceed on it. We've already uh expended the 7500 that you previously approved uh to to pay on the uh contractor, but this is kind of a it's a cost issue and we don't have a you know we're not overflowing with money at this point in time. So at some point we need to uh bite a bullet somewhere and commit in one direction. These two out of Arkansas Municipal Equipment. Yes sir. They they got a 20 yard uh maximum capacity. Is that right?
18:53
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. That's the same as the um as the new truck that you just just discussed with the uh representative from from River City. Same same capacity.
19:03
Unidentified Yeah. I'm trying to compare apples to apples.
19:05
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah, I see. Uh those others, the price is considerably lower.
19:19
Unidentified Yeah.
19:20
Unidentified right? The River City price is the cheapest. That's the cheapest part.
19:25
Unidentified Cheapest price and and then but you have the weight. So, you got to balance it out.
19:28
Unidentified And that's a new trust.
19:30
Unidentified Yes, sir.
19:45
Unidentified Yes, sir.
19:50
Unidentified we got to replace the truck. There's no doubt about it. We're going to have approximately a h 100,000. You say about a half half that money to do it with. So I'd move in that direction. We don't Oh yeah, just pass that
20:11
Unidentified was being passed around. Representative River City wanted you to see additional information.
20:16
Unidentified Okay, so he's this is Oh, yeah. This is a lot better picture of it. Th this uh that's a picture of the truck we're talking about.
20:27
Unidentified Yes, that's the one that's you were just discussing with River City.
20:30
Unidentified Yes, sir.
20:33
Unidentified Yes, sir. What? Very similar to what we got, just a little bit smaller.
20:40
Unidentified Brand new with a fiveyear warranty, high capacity hop. Yeah.
20:53
Unidentified Suggestion, recommendation, that'd be the way to go. You want to look at this ad saying um scrubs, but you said there was another another quote. Yeah, it was um it was the one that I emailed. I attached it to the email today, this afternoon. I just got those this afternoon. Okay. And I attached it.
21:12
Unidentified Good looking truck.
21:13
Unidentified But that's Arkansas Municipal Equipment. The one the two supplemental uh quotes that I attached.
21:22
Unidentified I just wanted
21:23
Unidentified When do you recommend uh we make a decision on?
21:28
Councilman Don Etherly° As soon as we know because we're going to have to approve a financing agreement. As soon as we know what the numbers are, I recommend we we move on it quickly
21:36
Unidentified by Friday.
21:37
Councilman Don Etherly Hopefully, we'll know by Friday. Yeah. And that may require a special a special meeting. Uh the other thing that I think we need to do is um probably need to put some additional funds in the hat for um rental or contractor to make sure the garbage gets picked up. And so we spent 7,500. And again, that's the money we'll claim under loss of use in the accident. And that means we'll submit to the insurance company that because of your insurers accident with our truck, we had to do this to maintain our business.
22:12
Unidentified Well, what was my question?
22:16
Unidentified Okay.
22:17
Unidentified Insurance company was the liability had the liability us at $75,000.
22:25
Councilman Don Etherly° 7500. Not 75,000. 7500. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir. Typically what happens in an insurance claim like that is you can claim the replacement value of whatever you lost. So they hit your car and you can get a rental car and that's that's the replacement or you can take the cash and so under this these circumstances what we would like to do is have them just compensate us for what we're having to pay. So reimburse us for what we've already paid to have the trash picked up. So my expectation is that we won't be out of any additional money but on the front end you have to approve it so that they can get it and and make sure the trash gets picked up. South Mor Columbia, just one thing for the record. It's my understanding that the truck that was wrecked is 20 yards. So the brand new truck that you're discussing the five years is is a replacement of the truck. It's the same truck. It's a newer model.
23:12
Unidentified Correct.
23:13
Councilman Don Etherly° Just for the record. So you guys want to know how much you should approve?
23:23
Unidentified Huh? Yes. Um, what do we do? 30
23:31
Unidentified 3750.
23:33
Councilman Don Etherly 3750. Yeah, I was Yeah, 3750. It's for a week. So, that would be my suggestion. So, it if there's a motion, uh, I would suggest you make it for a week, which would be 3750. Motion by Davis to approve 3750. Is there a second?
23:52
Councilwoman Maxine Miller° Second.
23:53
Councilman Don Etherly Second by Miss Miller. Is there any discussion? Madam clerk, would you call the role?
23:58
Roll call Roll-call vote — Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Joe St. Columbia: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Monica Davis: yes. Clerk's count: 6 yes (1 further vote the captions did not attribute).
24:08
Councilman Don Etherly And just as soon as we get the appraisal, then Miss Ramsey will get it to to our new mayor and then he'll distribute it to you all and then that way you
24:19
Unidentified time for our next meeting, we should have this all wrapped up.
24:22
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. I I would expect that we may need We may have to meet before the next meeting because we'll have two weeks. Our next meeting is the 14th and if something happens before then I I really think we need to address this before that because I
24:37
Unidentified Yeah, cuz it takes
24:40
Councilman Don Etherly Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. It's the 21st. I'm sorry. My mistake. I got caught, you know, uh, in the change thinking that this wasn't my responsibility anymore. And then, you know, apologies. I found out I had a few more hours on the clock and so I got this together quickly. But yeah, the next meeting is October 21st. So sometime between now and then, if we get the information, my suggestion is that we move on it quickly so that we don't lose any more
25:07
Unidentified money or time.
25:08
Unidentified Yeah.
25:09
Unidentified Okay.
25:10
Councilman Don Etherly All right. Um, I'm going to stay in the new business section of the agenda, and that covers truck proposal. We have an ordinance submitted by fire department for adopting regulations for open burning. And what they want to do is, uh, they've had a number of fires caused by people who have been attempting to burn their own trash. And sometimes it's just too dry. And so they want to adopt this ordinance. And what it requires is that somebody who's burning items of certain size get a permit. There's no cost for the permit, but it just puts the department on notice that something is going to happen to prevent any, you know, unwanted events. Uh, this does not apply to your average person doing residential burning in your yard, and it says who it won't affect, but it's for people who want to have burn large loads, and so they will get a permit and then they will be required to put the fire department on notice that they're about to burn, and then it tells the specifics of what they have to have on hand in terms of fire extinguishers and ability
26:18
Unidentified be supervised by our fire department.
26:20
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That's exactly it. And this is this is modeled on an ordinance that they use in Rogers, Arkansas, as a matter of fact. So want to adopt the same thing here.
26:30
Unidentified Okay.
26:33
Unidentified Now, that's this ordinance you gave us here.
26:35
Unidentified Yes.
26:36
Unidentified Uh that you want
26:42
Councilman Don Etherly° and the open burn permit. And so take a look at it and then uh um what will that ordinance number be?
27:04
Unidentified Eight.
27:05
Councilman Don Etherly° Number eight. Okay.
27:24
Unidentified No sir, there's no charge in it. And uh it's just meeting with code enforcement. You have an open burn permit.
27:31
Unidentified Yeah.
27:33
Councilman Joe St. Columbia° Okay. Well, I make a motion that we adopt uh put it on first reading only. Uh ordinance number eight, open burning ordinance. Reading title only.
27:50
Councilwoman Maxine Miller° Second.
27:51
Councilman Don Etherly Okay. Motion by St. Columbia to adopt ordinance number eight uh by placing it on its third and final reading, reading title only. Second by Miss Miller. Is there any discussion? Madam clerk, would you call the role?
28:04
Roll call Roll-call vote — Monica Davis: yes; Joe St. Columbia: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Maxine Miller: yes.
28:12
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey° Uh, ordinance number 820, 202.5, an ordinance adopting regulations for open burning and client emergency and for other related purposes. Uh, there need to be a motion to adopt. So move.
28:24
Councilman Don Etherly Motion by St. Columbia to adopt. Is there a second? Second by Miss Miller. Any discussion? Madame clerk, would you call the role? Mr. Sloia.
28:33
Roll call Roll-call vote — Joe St. Columbia: yes; Adrian Messina: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Don Etherly: yes.
28:42
Unidentified there's emergency
28:43
Councilman Don Etherly° emergency clause on here anywhere. So,
28:45
Unidentified yes. Six or nine.
28:47
Unidentified Section 9 is an emergency phone.
28:49
Unidentified There is.
28:50
Unidentified Yes, sir.
28:51
Councilman Joe St. Columbia° I'll move we adopt the emergency clause.
28:53
Councilman Don Etherly Motion by St. Columbia to adopt the emergency clause. Is there a second?
28:57
Councilman Don Etherly Second by Messina. Any discussion? Madam clerk, would you call the role?
29:02
Roll call Roll-call vote — Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Joe St. Columbia: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Adrian Messina: yes.
29:16
Unidentified Yes, sir.
29:17
Unidentified So, now that it passed, a lot of people a lot of people may not know.
29:22
Unidentified Yes, sir. But do we have anything in place to educate people or
29:27
Unidentified that ordinance will um
29:30
Unidentified be published?
29:31
Unidentified Okay.
29:32
Unidentified Um
29:34
Councilman Don Etherly Yeah, it'll be published and I understand it'll take time for people to understand that but this again won't affect most residential burn burner. If you go out in your backyard and burn some trash, it doesn't apply to you. And it it says it on his face. This is going to be the people who want to burn hu make burn huge fires structures. Sometimes we have people who decide they want to destroy their own structure by burning it down. This is regulations. Sometimes, you know, people just have piles of trash that they pile up. This is so that they'll have to notify the fire department and they will be either on hand or they'll know what the regulations are so that we don't have something get out of hand.
30:07
Unidentified Yes, sir.
30:08
Councilman Don Etherly Okay. Next item on the agenda, you have a proposal or estimate from Lucket Pump and Well Service. This is from the water department and it's a large amount, $30,000, but let me tell you, it's for it's going to take us off two bypass pumps and this is um for the um the pump located over.
30:40
Unidentified Was it Miller?
30:41
Councilman Don Etherly Yes. Yes. Yes. I was trying to get this straight. It's for that pump. They've got two bypass pumps over there and then when they fail it backs up into the residential area and so this will get us off two bypass pumps. And so this comes from water. We've already completed one. So we've lost one bypass pump in the last 30 40 days. With this repair, we can lose two more and we can stop renting these bypass pumps, but taking them one at a time, but this is the next up. And so, they're asking that you uh approve this expense so they can get this panel in and then we can lose the pumps. Um
31:18
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller° I'd like to make that motion.
31:20
Unidentified Um will you have to prepare an ordinance on this?
31:24
City Attorney Andre Valley° Yeah, we'll bring the ordinance. Okay.
31:26
Councilman Don Etherly So, you can go ahead and make your motion. City attorney is going to will prepare an ordinance that will formalize the thing. But um go ahead.
31:32
Councilman Dr. Kyle Miller° Okay. So I like to move that we accept this uh proposal from Lucket Pump and Well Services.
31:38
Roll call Roll-call vote — Joe St. Columbia: yes; Dr. Kyle Miller: yes; Adrian Messina: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Maxine Miller: yes.
32:08
Councilman Don Etherly Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost seven figures on bypass pumps over the last few years. And so, uh, this should be one of the priorities of our department is to lose these bypass pumps. We've bought them several times over, uh, just by paying rental fees. Next item on the agenda is an event permit for a family reunion and this is to take place this weekend 109 through 1011. It has all the signatures of the police street and fire department heads department heads. So
32:52
Unidentified they all look in order.
32:54
Unidentified Yes, sir. Uh this on Hernando Street, right?
32:56
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. It's on the west side of town.
32:58
Councilman Joe St. Columbia° I move that we approve the family reunion of rec recommendation event permit application.
33:07
Councilman Don Etherly Uh motion to approve approve the event permit for family reunion by St. Columbia, second by Messina. Any discussion? Madam clerk, would you call the role?
33:17
Roll call Roll-call vote — Don Etherly: yes; Maxine Miller: yes; Monica Davis: yes.
33:24
City Clerk Sandi Ramsey Mr. Sobia.
33:25
Councilman Joe St. Columbia Yes. Yes.
33:27
Councilman Don Etherly All right. Um, next item on the agenda. We're going to go back up to the top and you have the treasurer's report. So, I don't know if there's any presentation that you might want to make on the report. Are there any questions regarding the treasures report? And I'll tell you what, we might as well wrap this up with the finance update as well. It's all money. So, you have your treasures report and we have a finance update. Um, in your packet, Miss Ramsey, Mr. Turner, city attorney, myself, we have gone over all that we've seen and you have a complete list of all of the known debt. I won't call it debt, known claims. uh made against the city.
34:22
Councilman Don Etherly And um if you look at that on page two, Mr. Turner has gone through that and summed it up for you. And you'll see that you show a total on page two. And he hasn't broken down by general fund, street fund, and landfill fund. But you'll see on page two that you have a total of $4,46,87466. Uh what that includes is all of the known claims being made against the city. Um I'll tell you, we started out in I think around June, we thought we had $4 million in debt. And what we learned through this process and
35:14
Councilman Don Etherly claims we had we thought we had $4 million in claims and what we learned through this process is that we had more than that and we actually had right up around $5 million. And so what we've also included is a uh third sheet is put together by the treasur to show you some things that we have actually paid since July 1. And you'll see that we got to 4.4 4 million. Uh we paid $561,18.71 during that period of time.
35:48
Unidentified Yeah, I saw that on another sheet
35:51
Councilman Don Etherly and and I want to take this opportunity since I have the mic. Let me take a few personal privileges here and say I want to um I want to thank Miss Ramsey and Mr. Turner for all of the help that they've given me during these three months. We have done we've worked tirelessly for the last 90 days and we had no idea going in that this is what we were facing. But I want to say that we have talked and talked and talked and talked almost on a daily basis about this level of debt. Um, we had to make some decisions and to get the payroll down and to get some of the uh the things that were dragging us down to make them go away. I'll say uh Miss Ramsay through this time has she I made jokes about her saying, 'I'm loading you up on email.' She would literally send me emails on Saturday and Sunday night and I would try to address those things just as soon as we got back. They all they both had suggestions about things that we could do to save money. And so I want to thank them for all the support they've given me during this period of time. Um, again, we have and I'll tell y'all I'm really proud of this that in 90 days we paid over a half million dollars in debt. And I'll tell you that based on what I know about our finances, let me back up and say this. For the last two pay periods, we've made our payroll. We've paid our payroll taxes at the same time. Uh we're current with April and just a week and a half, two weeks ago, we were able to actually engage in a payment plan with LFY that will help us to get LFY paid off. Uh you may recall that earlier in the year we were notified by Lafayette that we could try to work out a payment plan, but they actually uh discouraged us because if we didn't have the money, it would have been disastrous for us to uh take on a payment plan and not be able to pay it. But of course, we couldn't let the debt pile up either because we were incurring penalties uh when we weren't able to pay it. So we met and we were able to get on a payment plan. We made our first payment last week and so we have 17 more payments. It's an 18-month payment plan. Uh live right now has a hold on our turnback money. They will do that until they are repaid. They will not apply the turnback money to the loy debt, but they will release it once we pay that.
38:25
Councilman Don Etherly And so we'll be doing that simultaneously. But but uh we are thankfully at this point in time able to actually do it. And so we'll be doing that over the next few months. And and you know we were in a rough spot 90 days ago. Uh one of my goals was to turn this over to someone and have it be in a better place than what I found it.
38:50
Unidentified I'd like to compliment you on the way you laid this out. It's understandable. I'd like to see us get a copy of this each month as we progress into this.
39:00
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. And that'll be that'll be the the treasure
39:03
Unidentified and then let us see exactly how we're moving with this thing.
39:07
Unidentified Yes, sir.
39:26
Unidentified Yeah.
39:34
Unidentified Okay. One other question I have are we look still looking at the reducing the number of employees and trying to cut our payroll down
39:44
Unidentified rather than raise it. I
39:46
Councilman Don Etherly° You've significantly reduced it already.
39:48
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. We have we have significantly red. continue looking at that.
39:52
Councilman Don Etherly Absolutely. And and of course that'll pass from me to somebody else, but but yeah, we've significantly reduced our payroll and that's why we're able to make payroll. When I got here, we were paying the net payroll. We didn't have the other things that went along with it. Um and so in other words, we were paying the net, but we weren't able to pay the taxes and everything that went along with payroll. But we're able to do that now. So for the last month, we what I call operated normally,
40:19
Unidentified okay? make payroll, pay the taxes at the same time.
40:21
Unidentified Increasing our debt.
40:22
Councilman Don Etherly Yes, sir. And we've taken over $200,000 of that was off of the federal taxes. Um the lobby fee will come in time. And I would I'll tell you this from where I sit right now and what I see knowing how our money is going to come for the rest of this year and what we have in front of us, we can go into January under 4 million. We can go into January.
40:47
Councilman Don Etherly That's good. But of course, I won't be driving the car. But I'm saying that opportunity is in front of us right now. And I say that with all the things that we face, having to buy a new garbage truck, uh having to take care of some other things, uh we have the opportunity to go into January and be under $4 million in debt.
41:04
Councilman Joe St. Columbia We our gross our gross income is around 9 million, isn't it?
41:10
Councilman Don Etherly° Yes, sir. That's project
41:11
Councilman Don Etherly° basically what it's gross is. Yes, sir.
41:13
Unidentified See, that's what we have to work by. We had a budget, but I don't know how we got this debt like it it is. But
41:19
Unidentified anyway, it is what it is. And I'm glad we're
41:22
Unidentified working on it
41:24
Unidentified and have a plan to get it reduced.
41:26
Councilman Don Etherly° The the the budget is the budget. Mr.
41:28
Unidentified Way laid it out.
41:29
Councilman Don Etherly° Well, that's Mr. Turner's layout. Yeah.
41:31
Councilman Don Etherly Yeah. But but the budget is the budget. What matters most is what happens on a day-to-day basis and the decisions that are made. I said this when Mayor Franklin was still here and they presented the proposals and let me stop and let me say thank you all. Thank all of you city council because I made some proposals to you and you went along with it, right? Uh I know some of you looked at me sideways and said, 'How is he going to do this? I've been sitting across the table with him for years and he cannot possibly run his mayor's office'
42:02
Councilman Don Etherly and and but but I want to thank you for trusting me to implement some of these plans and those were instrumental in us being able to pay off this and put us on the pathway to paying off the debt. Um this is not a picnic. This is going this is a grind and it's going to be that for probably the next 24 months. And so
42:21
Unidentified you see this plan working if it work
42:24
Councilman Don Etherly if we stick to it. If we stick to it. uh if we stick to it, I can see it I can see it working as well. Um but but I'll say this again, I've learned more from the mayor's office than I ever thought I knew from the city council chair.
42:38
Unidentified Yeah.
45:31
Councilman Don Etherly° Turns laughing at me.
45:33
Unidentified Um,
45:34
Unidentified well done.
46:20
Unidentified time as mayor bro Tim and for your sacrifices that you've made to help to move our city forward.
46:27
Councilman Don Etherly Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um the water update part of the water update was uh the proposal or the estimate that I submitted to you, but the other part is this. Um, I told you at our last meeting, the last regular meeting, I told you we had done everything that we needed to do to close on our loan. Now, I didn't tell you that the reason why we couldn't close is because we had to have a permanent appointment, but I knew at that time that we had to have a permanent appointment, and I knew it was going to happen really, really quickly after that because we had firmed up everything that we needed to do to close on that loan. Um, I want to thank the people uh with the city who helped to make that happen. The first thing I did on my very first day is I walked into the mayor's office and I said, 'I need to know everything we need to do to close on that loan.' And so, uh, Miss Ford uh, over in the mayor's office immediately got on the phone and started making telephone calls. And of course, I couldn't do all the things that needed be to be done. But I want to thank all the people who came and we met and we met and we met. Uh you know, and I kept telling them, you might have to tell me this three or four times because I'm getting this out of a fire hole. So tell tell me again. Tell me again. And but everybody pushed along to get us to this point. And so I made a joke with Mr. Turn. Well, he laughed at it. I made a joke. I said, 'I get to I get to see it, but I don't get to cross over.' And so uh um preachers like that, though. I get to see it, but I don't get to cross over. But but again, thanks to all of those people who made this happen and so that we can get to a point where we can start to uh uh fix our water system. And so that's going to be coming soon in the future. And so and even with that, we have so many other opportunities that are out there. And I could talk forever about what I believe they are. Uh but I won't do that. But I want to thank those people as well who helped to get this deal closed to push us to a point where we can close on those.
48:22
Councilman Don Etherly Okay. I don't think we have anything else to take up and so uh
48:29
Unidentified I move we adjourn if we don't have any other business
48:34
Unidentified put on the agenda by uh
48:37
Unidentified top screen
48:38
Unidentified hold on a second hold on a second
48:42
Unidentified I don't know what whose hands we can do
48:45
Unidentified yeah that came
48:46
Unidentified maybe we can talk about it the next meeting
48:49
Unidentified the new
48:50
Unidentified the conference
48:52
Unidentified you know the current one.
48:53
Unidentified I I'll I'll tell you after we finish. It's it's pretty it's pretty straightforward at this point.
49:00
Councilman Don Etherly° Okay. So motion we journ if we have no other business.
49:05
Councilman Don Etherly° Is there a second?
49:07
Councilman Don Etherly° Everybody second that. Everybody vote in favor.
49:09
Councilman Don Etherly Thank you all. I'll see you I'll see you from the from the other side of the table.
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.