Board of Mayor & Commissioners

MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING OF THE PIPERTON BOARD OF MAYOR AND COMMISSIONERS December 21, 2021, 6:00 P.M. The Piperton Board of Mayor and Commissioners met in regular session on December 21, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall, with Board members: Mayor Henry Coats, Vice-Mayor Mike Binkley, Commissioner Hugh Davis, Commissioner Preston Trotter and Commissioner David Crislip. City Manager Steve Steinbach, Police Chief Phil Hendricks, Fire Chief Reed Bullock, Finance Director Maria George, Public Works Director Richard Mills, Bill Kilp, Building Official Tommie Johnson, and City Recorder Beverly Holloway were present. City Engineer Harvey Matheny and City Planner Brett Morgan were absent. Vicki Hancock, William Meacham, Jim Ragon, Mr. and Mrs. Chris Welker, Scott Rozanski (Spirit Architecture), Officer Washington, and et al were present in the audience. Agenda item 1. Call to order, establish quorum Action taken: Mayor Henry Coats called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m., and established that a quorum was present. Agenda item 2. Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag Action taken: Commissioner David Crislip led in the opening Prayer and Commissioner Preston Trotter led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag. Agenda item 3. Any changes to Agenda; Motion to adopt Agenda Action taken: There were no changes to the Agenda, Vice-Mayor Mike Binkley moved to adopt the agenda, seconded by Commissioner Hugh Davis. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 4. Any changes to the Minutes of the Regular Session of November 16, 2021: Motion to adopt the Minutes of the Regular Session of November 16, 2021 Action taken: There were no changes to the Minutes of the Regular Session of November 16, 2021, Commissioner Preston Trotter moved to approve the Minutes of the Regular Session of November 16, 2021, seconded by Vice-Mayor Binkley. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 5. Review/approval of Financial Reports, Building Inspector’s Report, Public Works Report, Fireman’s Report and Police Report City Manager Steve Steinbach stated the financial report reflects financial conditions through the 5th month, almost half way through fiscal year 2022 already, our cash and cash equivalents have increased by almost a million dollars, a lot of that courtesy of the receipt of our first American Rescue funds which were deposited into our Sewer Fund account and together with our fiduciary funds for fee-in-lieu of and parkland savings, we are just at over 6 million dollars, the balance statement for our various funds are strong as reflected on your statement, our general operating fund is currently over a half million dollars and we continue to sweep funds into our savings when we hit the required threshold which is general 2 months of required expenditures, the financial statement reflects total revenues at 42% of budgeted and it is right where we should be, sales taxes are strong and fall a little bit short on some of our other major revenue producers, property taxes will keep up and will get a deluge between now and the end of February, we are starting to see across our water and sewer fund some discrepancies with regard to revenue and expenditures and we go through this exercise every year where we are over anticipated revenues for both water and sewer with regards to our relationships with our third party vendors (Collierville, Marshall County or Rossville) and we 1 also have expenditures related to those that we will propose amending as part of our second budget amendment for fiscal year 2022 probably in February, we are currently in the middle of completing a utility rate study and it looks like there will be rate increase anticipated which we will recommend at the first of the year once the Board has an opportunity to review that, my preference would be an incremental rate increase as opposed to an all in one swath, a lot of the projections are for capital expenditures not yet materialized or realized and then our depreciation exposure has increased as a result of the new subdivision work, our major water and sewer line infrastructure that are awaiting customers so that has a way of working itself out but that will be forth coming. Building Official Tommie Johnson stated during the month of November we issued 48 total permits with 7 for new single dwellings basically because of Piper Hollow and the next phase of Piperton Preserve, conducted 127 inspections, and handled 10 code compliance issues. Mayor Coats inquired what are total for the year for new housing. Mr. Johnson stated probably at 75 for the calendar year. Public Works Director Richard Mills stated JR Wauford’s electrical engineer has been to the WWTP yesterday, today and probably again tomorrow inspecting all the electrical components at the plant and they have started the biological testing on the bench model to see how the plant is going to operate once it goes online and hopefully we will have that information back from them the middle of January or the end of January, and on December 11th-a large tree fell across Russell Road and it took several hours to remove it and is still on the side of the road but we are in the process of trying to get it removed and I have spoken with Mrs. Wilson and she is fine with it sitting where it is at. On the Piper properties, the contractor is still set to take down the two outbuildings after the first of the year and we got a contractor to come in and bushhog a lot of the property and what he didn’t get our in-house crews finished bushhog and it looks much better. The SCADA that we are bidding will open on January 7th, the water contract with Collierville has been approved by Collierville on November the 22nd and it is before you tonight for approval, there were a few major changes: 1) we went from an 8 year contract to a 10 year and 2) we went from 14 million gallons per month to 18 million gallons before we have to pay any penalties. The Rossville wastewater flow last month from 10/25 to 11/29 was 1,325,014 gallons which is an average of 37,8573.54 gallons per day (47.32% of the allotted 80,000 gallons per day), and the Public Works crews did 81 work orders created with 6 still outstanding and 5 after hour call outs. Mayor Coats stated for public information, the water contract was extended with Collierville because we anticipated some problems on the sewer system that we have got to do a lot of work on and we don’t know what the amount of the expenditure is going to be but we couldn’t try to fix/start sewer and do water at the same time, it would be too expensive so that is why we were negotiating. Fire Chief Reed Bullock stated it was a very average month on calls, 30 total calls with 26 in the City that were mostly medical (7) with 4 calls being outside the City, I was attending the Tennessee Fire Safety Conference last week and was chosen vice-president of the West Tennessee board of the association. Police Chief Phil Hendricks stated in the month of November there were 27 dispatched calls, 4 incident reports, 4 arrest and 5 motor vehicle crash reports with 2 crashes involving deer. Action taken: Vice-Mayor Binkley moved to approve all reports, seconded by Commissioner Trotter. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 6. Presentation of Preliminary Design Documents (Pinckney House Renovation) – Spirit Architecture 2  Mr. Steinbach stated the City retained Spirit Architecture to assist with the site planning and the architectural repurposing of the Pinckney home and there was a committee that was assembled consisting of myself, the Mayor, Bill Kilp, and Richard Mills, we have been working with Scott and his staff over the last several months going through the process of reviewing the property, the interior of the property and very excited about where we are with regards to Scott’s design input so I asked Scott to go ahead and present to the Board the design that has been achieved at this point and to give some insights to what a repurposed facility for administrative services might look like. Scott Rozanski of Spirit Architecture stated thank you for letting me be here tonight, the packet consists of a site plan, preliminary first floor plan of the Pinckney house and the third sheet is preliminary floor plan of the upper level which is a very little second floor, and beyond that is the survey of the existing facilities that document what was there and included what would be needed for all the facilities that we are putting in the building and as you find out in there we can really only fit the administrative office in the building, the base numbers are in 3,000 range and when you look at the Pinckney House and take the outside square footage they talk about you have about 4,500 square feet but when you break it down to usable square footage because it is a house and you have a lot of corridors and fireplaces and other things odd shapes, you really only have about 3,000 square foot that is usable for the intended use, basically the floor plan is pretty straight forward-the foyer will be turned into a waiting area, the front family room area of the original house will be for reception and utilities, on the other side there is a study that will turned into the recorder’s office, as we move to the back of the residence there will be a main corridor, which is a very wide corridor (10 feet wide) but is not wide enough to use for anything other than some support facilities but it also leads to the back sunroom and the back of the facility will be used mostly for the Building Department/Codes and then we will have to renovate the lower right hand corner (master bedroom & closet) to provide for handicap (ADA accessibility) community bathrooms and a small office and next to that we will have the finance department and the assistant for the finance department and will reuse the kitchen area by removing the center island and using it as a break area/prep area for events, and the dining room becomes the main conference room, the overall idea of this is to make sure that the house can be used and maintained as a house in the future with long range plans that the administrative office be joined with other facilities in a new facility in the future but this facility will handle that short term transition and the same with the offices upstairs those are not handicap assessable but there are offices downstairs to be utilized for meetings. It is a good facility to convert something from a residence, however it is not built for new technology and power requirements so those are things that will effect what happens in the house and the house is in a bit of disrepair, the siding needs work and it needs a new roof. We will have to install parking (17 spaces) area and there will be an area for future parking to the back side, the drive needs to be widened and we haven’t talked to fire yet but a fire truck turn around must be installed and we will remove pine trees and leave the hardwoods, the grading here is decent and will be able to maintain a 2% slope on the front part of the parking lot for the handicap with a 6% slope to the back which may be softened a bit and the other part that has been talked about is the City wants to make a nature space park area (possible 10 to 12 acres) and there are a couple of outbuildings that can’t be used for offices but cleaned out and possibly used for events, we have not done a budget through contractor and we need to get some more details into it but feels the general budget for this project would be somewhere between $350,000.00 to $500,000.00 with a caveat. Mr. Steinbach stated we are very appreciative of that, it is just a glimpse of what can be in the future for the City as Scott noted, the construction process is surely fluid at this time where lumber prices as back to where they were before the pandemic so the immediate goal is arrest some of the deterioration and moving forward securing prices on the roof 3 replacement and those critical repairs that have to occur to minimize additional work that was not anticipated but I think we have got a good schematic to move forward with and I have asked Scott’s group to prepare a proposal for design development/construction drawing that we can actually take out to the contractor community and secure bids. As Richard noted we are looking to demolish the garage in the center of the site to facilitate access and parking. Agenda item 7. Consideration of Professional Service Agreement (Utilities Cost of Service Analysis) – RateStudies, Inc. Mr. Steinbach stated RateStudies is in the mist of wrapping up their current rate study and we just received the draft and part of the conversation was refining the analysis to break it down with regard to a cost analysis on the user rates and as our centralized system is expanding I felt it necessary to evaluate what the true cost is relating to the centralized service versus the decentralized system, the decentralized systems north of the river (Madeline Farms & Shaws Creek) will continue and on the southside of the river we have decommissioned two decentralized system (Lakes of Greenbrier and Ridgewood Grove) with Twin Lakes next and so I asked Mr. Petty to provide a proposal to streamline and do a finder analysis on the deferential cost associated with both of those services, his proposal is for $3000.00 which I felt was very reasonable and ask the Board to approve this. Action taken: Commissioner Crislip moved to approve the Professional Service Agreement with RateStudies, seconded by Commissioner Trotter. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 8. First Reading, Ordinance No. 349-21, repealing Ordinance No. 296-18 in its entirety and amending Ordinance No.174-10 to amend the speed limit for all vehicles traveling on Keough Road east of Highway 196 in the City of Piperton Mayor Coats stated I requested this as we plan next year to widen Keough for a walking trail and bicycle lane and also Piperton Preserve will soon extent their roadway to Hwy 57 which will help to reduce the traffic flow but there are a lot of pedestrians on that road. Commissioner Trotter inquired if this is a temporary reduction until those two things are completed to which the Mayor stated yes. Vice-Mayor Binkley stated at first I was against this but there are just so many people that go in and out that road and 30 miles per hour is very slow but if it is temporary I can go along with that until we get the road widened. Action taken: Commissioner Trotter moved to approve Ordinance No. 349-21 on first reading, seconded by Commissioner Davis. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 9. Resolution No. 21-244, adopting the Mitigation Plan for Fayette County, TN Chief Bullock stated this a document which we have approved previously, it basically outlines the hazard that we face in the county and in the municipalities and if there are funds available and we have a plan in place we can apply for assistance for mitigation or disaster relief should we have an incident, FEMA and the State requires this plan to be eligible for funds, Chief asked for the Board’s approval on this. Action taken: Commissioner Trotter moved to approve Resolution No. 21-244 adopting the Mitigation Plan for Fayette County, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 10. Resolution No. 21-245, approving/adopting Water Contract with Town of Collierville, TN and authorizing the Mayor to execute same Mr. Steinbach stated as Mr. Milles presented to the Board, it was time to make a determination as our current contract required a two year notice if in fact the City was going to move forward with its own water treatment facility, we made a determination that we were not 4 in a position currently to take on that burden so I asked Mr. Mills to bring negotiations with Collierville and he did an excellent job and I am appreciative of that process and Mr. Mills hit the high points for the City and it means the continuation of a very stable, competently run water enterprise, and the period extents to 10 years which helps both communities and staff recommends its adoption. Commissioner Davis stated it is over all a good contract but the tap fees is $870.00 or $875.00 for every new house built and we also charge a tap fee for the City so it is a good contract overall but it also means that anyone building a new house is giving Collierville a donation of $875.00 with no benefit to us even though we keep the low rates and we don’t have to worry about having our own water function. Vice-Mayor Binkley stated we are avoiding hundreds of thousand dollars in depreciation by having our own water system. Action taken: Vice-Mayor Binkley moved to approve Resolution No. 21-245, seconded by Commissioner Trotter. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 11. Re-appointment of Jack Murphy to the Industrial Development Board Action taken: Commissioner Trotter moved to approve the re-appointment of Jack Murphy to the Industrial Development Board, seconded by Vice-Mayor Binkley. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 12. Any other old/new business, questions or matters from the audience William Meacham inquired if the fees changed on the water contract, are they charging the same or did they go up or down? Mayor Coats stated the fees stayed the same but our gallons of usage went up by four million gallons a month. Agenda item 13. Adjournment Action taken: Vice-Mayor Binkley made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes and the meeting was adjourned at 6:40 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Beverly Holloway, City Recorder Approved: _________________________________date:______________________ 5