[0:06] good evening uh Justin could you please give the invocation this

[0:12] evening well good evening Madame mayor councel Ecclesiastes 3:1 and14 says that

[0:19] for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under

[0:24] Heaven I perceived that whatever God does endures forever nothing can be

[0:29] added to it or anything taken from it and God has done it so that people fear

[0:35] before him so these words encourage us to embrace true wisdom humbly seeking

[0:40] our creator so would you please pray with

[0:43] me Lord you are the source of all wisdom indeed you are the only wise God you are

[0:50] above time and exercise your control over all things in fact it is by your

[0:56] government that times and seasons are stable so that that we may depend upon

[1:01] them pray that you would lead us toward your wisdom free us from the foolishness

[1:06] that our hearts are naturally bent toward as we turn away from you Lord we

[1:11] need wise leaders it is the glory of these men and

[1:14] women here tonight these leaders to seek your wisdom indeed they have no wisdom

[1:20] except from your hand so Lord we ask that you'd please grant them true

[1:24] knowledge and insight and discretion by your mercy May the desires and plans for

[1:31] this city be good and just plans not plans that bring harm or waste please

[1:38] give them persistence and joy in their work help them to desire integrity and

[1:43] help them to walk in it and may we seek all these things from you you who freely

[1:48] give to all those who sincerely ask and so we ask all of this in the Name of

[1:53] Christ your son your very greatest gift amen amen amen thank you so now we'll

[2:01] officially call this meeting to order Madam clerk could you please take the

[2:03] role Mayor Miller here Elder persons CLM here Monroe here Simmons here Parker is

[2:11] absent Stacy here Shadel here Sanders here and sellers here and if you could

[2:18] please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman

[2:23] Clen to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation God

[2:33] indivisible withy andice for

[2:39] all item number one is approval of the agenda however we will be taking off

[2:43] item number 20 for a later time frame is there a motion to approve so

[2:51] moved motion made by Alderman Monroe seconded

[2:55] by Alman Shadel yeah oh okay Alman Shad all those in favor signify by saying I I

[3:03] opposed that motion passes item number two is approval of the minutes from the

[3:06] regular meeting on February 5th and the special meeting on February 5th 2024 is

[3:12] there a motion to approve so moved Sor motion made by Alderman Monroe

[3:18] seconded by Alderman Clem all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed

[3:25] motion passes item number three is public comment we do have two that are

[3:30] signed in uh Ashley

[3:38] Hilman Ashley H um I'm just here to reiterate again as neie did um when the

[3:43] ordinance was read for the first time 20249 that there are two protected

[3:49] classes that are not mentioned in there source of income and immigration status

[3:53] this is again a reminder that you're putting an ordinance through that

[3:56] potentially does not have two protected classes so you're putting an ordinance

[4:00] that would potentially be completely out of date already with those two classes

[4:04] not included thank you thank you and Linda

[4:12] Johnson City Council leaders and Mayor Miller I'm here tonight to speak

[4:17] regarding agenda number nine to raise the which is to raise the

[4:21] number of festivals from 12 to 18 many in this city are working to decrease

[4:27] violence gun violence in our city statistics from John Hopkins Bloomberg

[4:32] School of Public Health Center for gun violence Solutions in 2023 states that

[4:38] alcohol use and gun violence are leading causes of preventable injury and death

[4:43] in the US alcohol kills 140,000 annually guns kill more than 48,000 both are

[4:50] Public Health crisis these issues are most deadly when they intersect with one

[4:55] another heavy drinking was involved in in nearly one one third of all gun

[5:00] homicides and 1/4 of of all gun suicides alcohol impaired driving is one of the

[5:08] most common and deadliest crimes committed in America one person is

[5:12] killed every 39 minutes in drunk driving incidents we as a city are trying to

[5:18] reduce violence gun violence why would we promote more drinking in our streets

[5:23] since increased drinking leads to more violence I do not know how much revenue

[5:27] is generated for City purposes by increasing the events where alcohol can

[5:32] be consumed on the streets but is the money worth more than the lives of those

[5:37] who have suffered violence or death due to

[5:41] alcohol consumption or is it worth more than families who have suffered abuse

[5:48] due to alcohol is issues in the home and what kind of example are we giving to

[5:52] our youth it is very sad that alcohol has to be used to draw people to our

[5:58] city I would urge you you to vote now on this ordinance thank

[6:07] you okay that concludes our public comments next is item number four which

[6:12] is the consent agenda the consent agenda is considered to be routine and nature

[6:15] and acted as one motion unless the council has something to remove Alderman

[6:19] uh Stacy I just have a few things I would like to

[6:26] question yes um

[6:32] they're all under 4-b um page 17

[6:38] or 1 through n it had two different page numbers item number two one two

[6:46] one55 can you say that last part again item number

[6:55] 12155 you want them all or are we going to do one just to is

[7:03] this yes for okay so so then um the consent agenda will be uh a the approval

[7:12] to receive and place on file the board and commission minutes from the foreign

[7:15] fire insurance board from December 14th 2023 The Liquor Commission from January

[7:20] 18th 20 and the 25th 2024 the fire department report January 2024 and

[7:26] payroll for pay period ending February 10th 2024 in a total of

[7:43] $579,500 by Alderman sers Madam clerk could you please take the role CLM I

[7:49] Monroe I Simmons I Stacy I Shadel I Sanders I and

[7:56] sers I uh the motion passes is 7 to Zer sorry thank you uh so the second portion

[8:03] of uh the approval is the finance bills payable in the total of

[8:09] $1,448 19028 uh and discussion with Alderman

[8:15] Stacy concerning those two items

[8:20] okay

[8:25] um number 12155

[8:30] for 21793

[8:34] 34 it says Hancock what does that mean Madam may can we get a page number

[8:43] please it's either one through n or page

[8:54] 17 the item says one- nine on the page

[9:04] however it says page

[9:09] 17 and what was the total

[9:17] again yes 16 of

[9:23] 25 director RoR do you know what she's questioning I'm trying to figure it out

[9:33] can you repeat the total that you're questioning 21,000

[9:37] 2,793 34 it's on the first page of the itemized

[9:45] list under 4B you have a vendor it's a fair it's fair gram and

[9:52] Associates um it's for Shaun E Street and Hancock for

[9:57] engineering that one yes I don't I didn't see sha on it but

[10:14] yeah Darren do you know that answer yeah certainly it's design

[10:19] engineering for the Shaunie Hancock uh Vio that we're under contract to perform

[10:25] and we have HDR as our subcontractor as uh the rail expert um I don't remember

[10:33] the total of the contract off the top of my head but uh we're we'll we're well

[10:37] within our contract amount for that project okay so the 21,000 was for what

[10:43] design engineering we've been working on it for

[10:48] uh probably four months maybe

[10:54] five okay 121 066

[10:59] preliminary 29,000

[11:04] 852 and what page is that on that's page 16 it's four items

[11:17] below you have that too so that's a phram as

[11:22] well I'm sorry I'm just not able to find what are preliminaries what is that

[11:30] uh that's our design engineering for the 24 Street program that we're working on

[11:34] now so we can bid the projects uh before

[11:41] summer that was budgeted in the 2024

[11:46] budget okay um number 121 070 Hancock Bridge

[11:55] rehab 3,750

[12:00] that's our fairr contract for the Hancock Bridge replacement uh and

[12:06] Rehabilitation that was approved to council that's another contract we're

[12:09] under for to design the bridge replacement so it was

[12:13] $30,000 just to design it uh I think it was it's uh if I recall right it's a

[12:19] $250,000 contract it's a2.2 million project okay but just the designing was

[12:28] 30,000 that was our that's our monthly invoice for work that we performed for

[12:32] the city for that project we're under contract to design

[12:42] itations okay um number 18699

[12:48] HVAC contracted building contracted

[12:57] building 5 ,550 what is

[13:01] HVAC heating ventilation and air conditioning okay so what contracted

[13:08] building are we speaking of there's one at the police station I know that's okay

[13:13] but I I I don't know so I'm just saying it's Heating and Cooling

[13:20] basically that's geostar that's um geostar that's

[13:25] probably just bu maintenance contract maintenance

[13:31] Contracting okay um there was two I don't have the

[13:38] number if I had to find it I could pelen benefits

[13:46] contributions

[13:49] um um pep is that what you're looking at p e l l i o n pelen p benefits contrib

[13:58] part of our employee benefit plan that's so for payroll we run that every

[14:08] payroll um there was a 12,900 and it said airport

[14:16] management that's uh probably CMT Crawford Murphy Tilly there are

[14:21] Engineers that work um on our state on the airport and they also help us with

[14:26] the state grants out at the airport so how often do we pay that

[14:32] 12,900 it varies um what kind of work that they do that month um I'll have to

[14:39] look this one up to see if it was a a state um Grant I'll have to find out

[14:45] which one this is if you want to give me a minute

[14:57] okay

[15:06] is that the Feb 2024 one uh Alderman Daisy

[15:13] um for the amount of 12,900 so that's that was actually paid

[15:18] the second gen Aviation

[15:22] LLC um SEC if if that's are you talk that's second gen so that's the monthly

[15:28] management fees for the airport manager they're paid monthly that exact

[15:34] amount that's page four of nine I'm sorry I'm jumping around so

[15:42] every month we pay yes we have a contract with the management of the

[15:48] airport okay um number 1721

[15:54] [Music] 905 it was some type of

[15:59] ebsco membership industry

[16:04] membership

[16:12] ABCO is that the vendor or the um description that you're that's probably

[16:18] the

[16:24] vendor 1721 905

[16:29] it's

[16:32] on page five of nine is that a library

[16:38] thing I think so it's one of our databases that we pay for it's a library

[16:44] database set a 213 count

[16:53] code it said it's periodicals that's our magazines that people

[16:59] check out every day it says membership titles in the uh description yeah yeah

[17:05] I'm looking at it right now and I'm looking at the account code that it came

[17:09] out of too so that's our magazine and I said it set membership but I mean how do

[17:15] I know that it's a magazine membership well I can see and since like

[17:22] I I know all the library stuff so I just know that that's our magazines

[17:26] periodicals is magazines okay [Music]

[17:31] um 7344 Hancock

[17:37] other Technical

[17:41] Services

[17:44] 4754 yes I got that one that was a situation where we had a homeowner who

[17:51] uh agreed to sell us their property and then we had aist work done on the

[17:55] property and then that's not that one sure I'm sure

[18:04] okay what page oh maybe you're right we have already talked about that I'm okay

[18:10] with that um Adam Street Improvement number

[18:16] 121057 13,440 what improvements have we done on

[18:22] Adam Street that's to engineering from fairr that's the it's our construction

[18:29] engineering contract that was approved by

[18:32] Council okay so it's nothing else that's been add it no these are these are

[18:38] contracts that have already been approved by Council and these are our

[18:41] our reoccurring bills to pay those contracts as Works performed by the city

[18:47] for the city excuse me okay okay so um underneath that one there was a phase

[18:56] one um for 93475 that's the wastewater treatment

[19:02] plant project that's under contract and it's saying phase one how many phases

[19:07] are there to this project uh the phase that we're currently under for the 57

[19:13] million is phase one uh there is a planned four phases over the course of

[19:19] many years um potentially there could be a

[19:23] fifth if there's other grant money but right now we're planning on

[19:27] for

[19:30] um okay um I only have one more number 12159

[19:37] wwtp study what is that excuse

[19:48] me what I'm what's the amount of that one there's a couple

[19:54] 12,500 facility is facility that's the facility plan for the funding from EPA

[20:00] for phase two that's required to be done in advance of the design and planning

[20:05] for phase two of Hancock of the wastewater treatment

[20:10] PL right those plans take you know five plus years to develop and so that is

[20:17] also a contract that is or a project that's under contract with the

[20:22] city okay that's how you get the funding for phase

[20:27] two

[20:34] okay if there's nothing further um before you council is to proove of the

[20:38] finance bills payable in the total of 1,448 19028 is there a motion to approve

[20:45] so moved second the motion made by Alderman Monroe seconded by Alderman

[20:49] Clem Madam clerk would you please take the role CLM hi Monroe hi Simmons hi

[20:57] Stacy hi Shadel I Sanders hi and sers I uh the motion passes 7 to zero thank you

[21:06] item number five is award presentations manager

[21:22] Boer good evening everyone um we'd like to present the City employee of the year

[21:30] uh this year it goes to officer Brandy Hilby she has been awarded the 2023

[21:35] employee of the year award for her unparalleled dedication to the Freeport

[21:39] Police Department including covering an except exceptional amount of overtime

[21:45] participating in Step Grant shifts and demonstrating remarkable productivity

[21:50] her commitment is evident in her professional handling of calls

[21:53] willingness to work under any condition and significant contribution to the

[21:58] community Through engagement and safety initiatives officer hilby's positive

[22:03] impact on both the department and the community along with her activity

[22:07] involvement in the community events underscores her deserving recognition as

[22:11] City employee of the year thank you Brandy we appreciate

[22:16] [Applause] you

[22:33] okay well we thank you all

[22:38] [Applause]

[22:52] right so tonight uh it's my privilege to be able to present patrolman Conor green

[22:58] with our life-saving award um I'd like to say the life saving award it's not

[23:03] something that we take lightly we don't hand these out to often there's a strict

[23:07] criteria that uh the incident has to um adhere to and I was able to review um

[23:14] what was submitted to me and I and I agree uh with uh sergeant schnor and

[23:18] Lieutenant wiel that what patrolman green did is worthy of the life-saving

[23:23] award so um I Chief Shen was advised by Sergeant Kurt schnor and Lieutenant Tim

[23:30] weel that patrolman Connor Green responded to an accident he witnessed on

[23:34] February 2nd 2024 at 6:50 p.m. at the intersection of West Avenue and

[23:40] Fairgrounds Road patrolman green quick actions when he arrived on scene saved

[23:45] the life of another person upon review of the incident I learned the following

[23:49] on the aforementioned date and time patrolman green while on duty witnessed

[23:53] an accident involving two vehicles at West Avenue and Fairgrounds Road as

[23:58] patrolman green exited his vehicle one of the vehicles involved in the accident

[24:03] had a visible Fire Starting under the hood and there was an occupant seated in

[24:07] the driver's seat of this vehicle the fire then began to spread rapidly and

[24:11] grow in grow in intensity as uh patrolman green approached the vehicle

[24:16] patrolman green calmly instructed the occupant to exit the vehicle because the

[24:20] vehicle was on fire the occupant obviously days from the Collision was

[24:24] reluctant to exit the vehicle until she found her phone

[24:28] patrolman green quickly assisted the occupant out and helped her exit the

[24:32] vehicle as a fire then took over the female was escorted to safety and

[24:36] patrolman Green's quick actions prevented the occupant from sustaining

[24:40] severe injuries or possibly even the loss of her life so after reviewing the

[24:44] facts of this incident I feel patrolman Green's actions deem him worthy of the

[24:48] receiving the life-saving award as he was exposed to immediate danger for the

[24:51] purpose of moving the occupant of a burning vehicle from immediate

[24:56] Danger

[24:59] [Applause] congratulations very

[25:13] nice thank [Applause]

[25:26] you

[25:42] hey item number six is the second reading of ordinance 20 2408 mam clerk

[25:46] could you please read this ordinance approving the city to enter into lease

[25:50] agreements with Freeport solar North and Freeport solar South regarding solar

[25:55] facilities at landfills 2 and 3 thank you manager warer uh thank you

[26:00] your honor uh just uh following up from the last council meeting in 2017 the

[26:05] City of Freeport initiated a lease option for the installation of a solar

[26:09] array on landfills number two and three in 2023 amesco express interest in

[26:14] formalizing the lease agreement for both sites amesco has presented lease

[26:18] agreements for two and three these agreements have undergone extensive

[26:22] review by the city manager City attorney and landfill engineer uring alignment

[26:26] with the initial 2017 lease option Arrangement uh the city is set to

[26:31] receive an annual lease payment totaling $16,500 with

[26:36] 9,750 for the uh South landfill and 6,750 for the north landfill staff

[26:42] recommends that city council approve the amesco lease agreement for City Landfill

[26:47] number two and three thank you

[26:52] questions seeing none Madam clerk please take the

[26:56] rooll CLM hi Monroe hi Simmons hi

[27:04] Parker oh I'm sorry he's absent

[27:09] Stacy I Shadel hi Sanders I and sellers I the ordinance is

[27:16] passed 7 to zero thank you item number seven is the second reading of ordinance

[27:21] 20 2409 could you please read this ordinance amending the codified

[27:25] ordinances toab EST lishing a standing human relations commission and fair

[27:30] housing regulations and amending chapter 270 fair housing human relations

[27:35] commissions thank you director tuckman thank you Madame mayor so uh nothing has

[27:40] changed since the first reading of this ordinance essentially what happened just

[27:43] to recap we uh we were working on a on a grant from the US Department of

[27:48] Agriculture for housing preservation which would allow us to have access up

[27:53] to $140,000 in funding for rehabilitation of homes for property

[27:58] owners in need and in reviewing our Grant application it was brought to our

[28:03] attention that we were lacking a fair housing ordinance our staff worked with

[28:08] the USDA to talk about what they kind of wanted to see from our organization to

[28:13] meet these requirements and essentially what uh we're reading today is that we

[28:19] were we're looking to establish a Human Services Commission which is going to

[28:23] consist of nine members of the community appointed by the mayor and uh would be

[28:28] subject to approval by the council but essentially what their job would be to

[28:31] do is to look at uh complaints alleged against uh property owners in that in in

[28:38] discriminatory actions so essentially they would come to Community Development

[28:43] Department file a complaint uh we would review it and it would eventually be

[28:47] heard in front of this uh commission and then the commission would look for

[28:53] Action to remediate this issue and then present it to council um one thing to

[28:57] mention is that this commission would not be reviewing anything in this

[29:02] criminal matter and it would just be something that wouldn't fit that type of

[29:06] requirement so um in reviewing this staff is recommending approval of this

[29:12] ordinance director Duckman you said that this is what the USDA is asking of us um

[29:17] so is it or is it not outdated well our current ordinance is

[29:22] outdated yes so how do we no I mean public public

[29:28] comment the public comment piece of saying that there were already a couple

[29:31] pieces that were outdated can you address that I think

[29:35] that they're looking to be more specific on uh protected classes of people and I

[29:42] think that uh on the floor here I know attorney zto was probably listening

[29:45] maybe documented and we could certainly add that to the ordinance on the floor I

[29:49] I mean we could mend that so what you've got is more of just a general blanket

[29:53] covering I want to say off the top of my head there's probably seven s to nine

[29:58] specific protected classes and we probably and what um the

[30:03] Realtors association has said is we want you to add two more protected classes of

[30:08] people and does it ises that in line with the USDA I yes I would say it is

[30:13] you know we can certainly I I would agree that it is

[30:18] yes so C certainly if the council wanted to do they could make a motion right now

[30:22] to amend the ordinance to add those two additional I believe it was two

[30:26] additional prot ected classes to the list of protected classes that are

[30:56] already

City Council Meeting - 2/20/24

Transcript