You guys good? Yeah. All right. Good evening. Welcome to Ovito City Council Chambers. If everybody could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please join me in a moment of silence. I would like to call our meeting to order. It is July 7th, uh, 2025 at approximately 6:30 p.m. and we have all
members of council present. We have no ceremonial items. So, we will move on to the approval of minutes. What is the pleasure of council? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes for May 19th, 2025 regular session, May 27th, 2025 work session. I
second with a friendly amendment that the May 19th minutes have added to them that I uh objected to that the mayor suggested the city attorney may be sued for slander.
May 19th Is the motioner willing to amend? No. Okay. Well, are you still seconding? If he's not amending, I withdraw. Okay. Do we have a second on the motion? I'll second. We have a motion and a second.
Any discussion? She did say that. I do think it is fair if there's going to be an accusation listed in the minutes that an objection to the accusation is also included in the minutes.
Motion second. I'm reading which page would you like this added to if this uh this is going to be on page two at the very top there. Uh so deputy mayor Tret requested guidance on how to proceed with future
agenda items that were discussed at meetings that are potential violations of sunshine law. Uh Mayor Sladuk suggest informed the city attorney that his statements may result in a slander lawsuit. I don't see that. It's not there. I'd like it.
You'd like to add? I think it's good as it written. I mean it it did happen. I don't mind adding it, but I don't does not matter to me. It's a public meeting. So, we have a motion and a second. Well, do
we second? Somebody else seconded. Okay, cool. Council member Brandon. So, if we would like to adopt the meeting minutes, all in favor, please say I. I. I. All those against? Nay. Okay. The motion carries.
We will move on to public comment. I do not have any written requests to speak. If there's anybody in the audience wishing to address council at this time, please come up and state your name and address for the record. Hearing none, I will close public comment. And on that, Mr. Cobb, we have
no longer have to ask for the address. Is that correct? If they if they fill out a green sheet. Okay. So, I can stop saying that. Cool. Moving on. If if I could just clarify real quickly, this would be uh the my comments regarding the city attorney is not our current one. This is our new
city attorney who I believe has integrity and is competent and is wonderful. So, our old city attorney uh is the one who I believed was making himself liable to a slander suit. Uh moving on to the consent agenda. What
is the pleasure of council? I move we approve the consent agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I will ask the clerk to call a roll call vote. Mayor Slick, I. Council member Bterford, I.
Deputy Mayor Dickert, I. Council member Britain, I. Council member, I. Motion carries. We do not have any public hearings, no first reading of ordinances, no rel resolution items. So, we will move on to our one and only thing on the agenda, which is our
discussion item number nine, the appointment of Dr. Deborah Bower to the public arts board representing the seminal cultural arts council. Mr. Cobb. Uh, thank you, Deputy Mayor. When the city council created the public arts board, one of the things that they stated, uh, one of the things that's
part of the enabling ordinance was that there could be a member, an exeicio member of the public art board, uh, from the Semino County Cultural Arts Comm Council. Uh, the council has nominated Dr. Deborah Bower to uh, be their representative. And so tonight, we're
asking that the city council accept the council's nomination and place Dr. Bower onto the public arts board as an exicio member. Thank you, Mr. Cobb. And as this is a uh discussion item, we just can come up with consensus. So
move do we I move we accept? I I concur. Does anybody else? Okay. Well, we would be happy to have you on board. And it sounds like we have full consensus here. Should have made it tougher. I I mean, this is a really tough meeting, guys. It's 6:35. So we will
move on to the city manager report. Uh thank you deputy mayor. I do have a couple of things. Uh first thing is is that we need a voting delegate for the league of cities conference. Uh I Mr. Britain normally does it but I don't like to make that assumption. So I we uh
we have to inform the league uh who our delegate will be. And so I'm asking tonight for uh who will be for who will be the voting delegate. I nominate Mr. Burton. It's fine. Are you up for it again? I guess.
Does anybody else have interest? It's such a tough thing. Then I think uh you still have consensus on Mr. Burton. Okay. Thank you very much. And anyone can attend that meeting uh if if you so desire. It's a very interesting at times. Uh the
other thing I wanted to do, I wanted to recognize our recreation and parks department, our police department, fire department, and public works department for the great work that they did for our uh Independence Day celebration. Uh it was a wonderful event, and I just wanted to recognize them for their great work.
I also want to thank all of the neighboring law enforcement agencies that came out and helped us uh with the event. Uh the traffic movement just was great. I I got home in 12 minutes. I I was It was amazing. And uh also want to thank the mall ownership. It's not often
that you get all four of the mall owners to agree on something and uh the fact that they were allowed us to do this again for this year that uh that was that was no small task. You know, Mr. Beldon deserves a lot of credit for that as well. But anyway, I just wanted to
recognize the staff on the wonderful job that they did on the Independence Day celebration. That's all I have. Deputy Mayor. Thank you. Uh the city attorney's report. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh, just wanted to briefly give you a heads up. Keep an eye out for an email that's going to be coming from my office uh
either tomorrow or in the next couple days. Want to give you a heads up about one of the many new laws that the governor has uh signed this uh uh this session relates directly to elected city council members. There is now a public records exemption relating to uh certain
information, personal information of yourself and your spouse and your children, both uh minors and adult children. Uh it's a little detailed how that uh exemption works and the exemption works a little bit differently within the city and with other
governmental agencies if you want to invoke it. So uh going to be sending out an email just to give you the basics of how that works and if there are any questions you're welcome to reach out to me. Does it apply only if you're in office or what what happens if you leave office? It it applies uh it applies to you while
you're in office. My recollection is I haven't fully internalized it myself because it just got uh signed. My recollection is uh there is an ongoing protection um with regard to children. Uh but let me get you the details on that.
All right. Appreciate it. Uh in addition uh you would have received an email from me earlier today uh with a memo. I apologize for its length. Uh I I tend to to my office tends to prefer, you know, shorter uh answers to some things because that's relating to an RFQ that's
going to have a big dollar number on it. I wanted to really uh nail that one down and uh get that in front of you all. So if you all have any questions about that memo, please uh don't hesitate to reach out. And that's all I have. Thank you. Uh up next we have Mayor Slitic.
Just want to echo uh shout outs to everybody for making the Independence Day celebration phenomenal. I am beyond jubilant that the festival came back. So thank you to my colleagues as well for agreeing that when we did it again that festival come back. I think it really made it a community event instead of
just to show up in an isolated way and see some fireworks. So added a lot. And my five five and a halfyear-old, he he was there the whole time and he could have stayed for another three hours talking to the vendors. So I hope the vendors had fun, too.
Okay. Uh, Council Member, yeah, Independence Day festival was great. I really loved having it inside the mall just as a different different thing to to what we've done with some of the other things and and having the the mall businesses be involved in it. And uh, that's all I have. Okay. Council member Bifford.
Yes. So again, the fireworks, uh, Paul, you know, chiefs, you guys did did a great job. Uh, Mr. Wyatt as well with you guys parking out the street cleaners out there to block people out, but uh, great job for uh, for that. Also want to
comment that uh, the grades for schools came out uh, today. Uh, it was happy to see that all the schools here in Avido uh, were A-rated. So again, I think and that's a uh attribute to our community um that we have here and uh it's a great community that we do have. Uh the only
other thing too was on the budget that got passed, we had three things on there and I just want to confirm that the two that got passed and one that did not. Mr. Mr. Kelly, you want to come up and the state budget. An estate budget.
I believe we lost on the training the training facility. Yeah. And then we got the other two if that's correct. Good evening, Mayor. There we go. Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, city council. Uh Councilman Bford, you're correct uh that we did
lose uh one item to veto. All three were placed in the state budget. Uh the uh fire uh wildland rescue apparatus and high high water rescue vehicle uh was a rollover event. We just had to uh um re re-erequest
it uh due to the length of time since the funds were appropriated and um with delays in construction. Um so that was passed and signed in the budget as well as the West Mitchell hammock uh safety corridor safety improvements. um that
was also uh in the budget, but we did lose a million dollars uh to the veto uh for the fire training facility. It's certainly something that we can look at uh reapplying for uh in a future legislative session. Yeah. So, we would look at reapplying for that or look for some kind of other
grants to help for that because I think that's important that we have that. It it is Yes, sir. Um it is something we can look at uh reapplying for as well as grants and it's also in the uh the sales tax list as well. Okay, great. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Oh, on the truck, it's probably more of Chief's CL. Where where are they on getting that delivered in? October, Chief. October. Yep. Okay. So, soon. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. This year. This year. 2025.
That's good to hear. And that's all I got. All right, Council Member Britain. Um, just two things. one Fourth of July was or Fifth of July Independence Day celebration. I think that was the best fireworks display I've seen in many
many years. So, hats off to the the vendor. And I guess we got him for next year. Okay. And and the mall thing, I think I don't know why we didn't think about that years ago to have it inside the mall. And it didn't start raining till just after the last firework went
off. So, that's pretty good timing. Uh the other thing is I've got some uh compliments on public works on the Alfa uh Woods sidewalk uh repairs. Folks are are happy with what they're doing. I just have one question as to whether the
the Madakin Drive area is part of that project and I know it's part of Alipa Woods, but I'm not sure if that's part of the ongoing and also the uh repairs to Mitchell Hammock on the on the I guess the south side of Mitchell Hammock
that runs in front of Alfa Woods. The the repairs in uh Alfa Woods that was just that section just on Alfa Woods Boulevard. That's that's the main push. Okay. Okay. For this one, um I am not familiar with the repairs you're talking about on Mitchell Hammock.
Uh which is odd because normally fix it for him. Okay. Because normally I'm aware of everything on someone needs to go walk that because there's a lot of big uh big heavy uh dips and and cracks. Mitch Hammock Southside by Alipe Woods Boulevard. Yeah. Between Lockwood and I would say
Alfa Woods Boulevard. That whole section. Okay. That there's quite a few. I rode my bike on it and almost crashed a few times. I will have it checked tomorrow. Okay. Thanks. Yes, sir. And that's all I have. Okay. And then it's up to me. So, I got an email a couple days ago and then I
know it was sent out to all of council from the school board, which I also concur. Uh, A-rated schools are a lot of the reason why our economy and our city and our area does so well. So, uh, a lot of credit goes out to our school system out here. So, they did invite us to the
state of the schools on July 28th. Um, so I can probably go, but I know they would like to have some representation from the city. So I don't know if our city manager wanted to come or if any other council members wanted to go, but that email was sent out, so keep an eye out for that. And then I just wanted to pretty much repeat what everybody else
here said, but uh the 4th of July being inside the mall, I have never seen that many people in the mall except maybe like the holidays when I was growing up. So, uh, that was pretty cool that not only was it a great city event, um, and I met some people, not even from Innova, who said they'd be back next year, but
we also helped out a lot of local businesses. So, it's good to see the mall actually being full of stores and having people out there with bags. So, that was that was the other thing is I said, "Look how many people are in here." And someone said to me, "But are they shopping?" And the answer was, "Yes, you saw people shopping." So,
that's that's really cool. So, uh, thank you to our fire department, police department. I also saw like Castleberry and a couple other cities out there. So, that was that was a really cool big pull by the community. And that's all I had. Is there anything else for the good of the order?
Well, it's been a really long time. It is 6:45 p.m. and I will say the meeting is adjourned. Future future meetings. I will almost say the meeting is journ. The future meeting dates are July 21st at 6:30 p.m. at regular session. July 28th at 5:30 p.m. a work session. Yes.
Tenative. A tenative work session. And August 4th at 6:30 p.m. a regular session. And now it's 6:46 and this meeting is good.