COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT

JULY 22, 2003

The Regular Meeting of the City Council of the City of Shreveport, State of Louisiana, was called to order by Chairman Monty Walford at 3:00 p.m., Tuesday, July 22, 2003, in the Government Chambers in Government Plaza (505 Travis Street).

Councilman Lester led the Invocation.

On Roll Call, the following members were Present: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson (3:10). 6. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

Approve Minutes. Motion by Councilman Gibson, seconded by Councilman Lester to approve the Administrative Conference Summary Minutes of July 7, 2003 and the Council Meeting Minutes of July 8, 2003. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson and Hogan. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Jackson and Green. 2.

Awards, Recognition of Distinguished Guests, and Communications of the Mayor Which Are Required By Law.

Councilman Walford: At this time we have guest from Shreveport Green, Shreve Corp. And I would to ask Mr. Lee Jeter I believe it is. If you would come forward and introduce your folks, we welcome you.

Lee Jeter: Good afternoon. Thank you Mayor, Council, Council President. It gives me great pleasure to be before the Council this afternoon. I would like to briefly talk a little bit about our Shreve Corp Program, our Americorps Program that affects our local citizens and our local students.

The City has been supporting Shreve Corp for about the past nine and a half years. I provide each of the Council Members and the Mayor a copy of our recap report. But I'd also like to talk a little about what we're facing this year. I don't know how much the public keeps up with Americorps, but we're facing some drastic Americorps cuts as far as our funding. That funding is actually going to affect our members and the job we do around this City.

We'd like to thank the Council and the City of Shreveport for their continued support of this program and the support they have given this program for the past nine and a half years. Right now, our status for the future remains uncertain. However, our young people, our young adults in our community have been given a task to accomplish certain things and they have accomplished that mission. This year, our Impact Statement reflects everything that we've done, but more specifically, I'd like to address some of the things that we have accomplished this past summer with our 24 members. We've already, since the beginning of the program on the 23rd of May painted 15 houses throughout the City of Shreveport. We've also had a partnership with the City Public Works Department where we've grown and maintained 16 major intersections throughout the City for litter abatement and we've conducted those exercises twice a month. We've painted 100 storm drains, note stenciling signs in communities adjacent from Cross Lake as well as picked up 1 ton of trash and debris out of Cross Lake. The program currently has 24 members serving at the present time, that's an economic impact of about $73,000 that these members received in salaries over the summer. But more importantly, they're going to receive in excess of $35,000 in educational scholarships, that's what this program is about. Its about giving young adults from our communities, our high school and college students age 17-24 the opportunity to serve, to give something back to their community. So, we don't know what's going to happen with Americorps funding at the national level. But we want to make sure that Council and the City understand, regardless of our status in the future, we appreciate the support that we've gotten from our community and it has given our young people an opportunity to make a difference to help develop their skills and to give something back to their community through service and all of our citizens and our communities benefit from this service.

I'm gonna allow two of the members that are currently serving in the program right now to address the Council and let the Council know what impact that this program has had on them. We've got Alex Smith, which is a graduated senior of Loyola College Prep. We've got one of our team leaders, one of our members that's in a leadership position, Ms. Cindy Smart. She's a student at Louisiana State University and she's going to be a physical therapist. Our program impact the lives of young people in our community and we would like to keep that in mind for our Council. At this time, we're going to turn it over to Ms. Cindy Smart.

Cindy Smart: How y'all doing? As he said my name is Cindy Smart and I'm a second term member of ShreveCorp and I also had the privilege of being the team leader for the care team that incorporates the mowing, the edging, the picking up of trash at some of the more predominant intersections in Shreveport and when I'm not doing that, I attend LSUS with the hopes of one day becoming a physical therapist.

We all have differences, but my team mates and I all have different reasons why we chose ShreveCorp. And for me, yes, the scholarship is very appealing, but and this may sound trite, but I sincerely want to make a positive impact on our community, our state, our country and dare I say, our world. And by being a part of ShreveCorp, I'm able to do that and so much more. Just last year, I was able to go to Lafayette to attend a State Forestry Conference and then later on that year, I was able to go to Minnesota for a Water Quality Conference. And now, I've been given the challenge to be a leader of my peers. Not many jobs out there that will let someone as young as myself be in a leadership position, but they've allowed that. And so, I chose ShreveCorp to make a difference in others, for others, but in time, its made a difference in me as well; so, I'd like to thank y'all for your support for allowing me to do that.

Alex Smith: Good afternoon Council Members. My name is Alex Smith. I'm the 2003 graduate for the Loyola Preparatory School. I am a first term Corps member and I represent the Parish team.

Now, on the Parish team, we do numerous projects for Caddo Parish such as carrying for several nature parks and also maintaining a tree farm at Walter B. Jacobs Nature Park. I was introduced to ShreveCorp by Mr. Lee Jeter and he informed me that not only will this program build character, but also look nice on a college application.

But getting that aside, there were three main reasons I wanted to be a member of ShreveCorp and I'm going to share that with you really quick. 1. The first of course is the scholarship which I will use to pursue my dream of becoming a professional actor at American Musical and Dramatic Academy. 2. That I would be a part of a national and local program. The program aimed at helping our community and preserving our environment. Being a part of a national and local program for the first time gives me a sense of belonging and a sense of pride for what I do. 3. The third reason why I made the conscious decision to become a ShreveCorp member, was the fact that I would be making an impact in our community and most importantly I would be helping others. And once again, I would like to thank you for your time, and thank you for support for ShreveCorp.

Mr. Jeter: Again, as my members have said and the rest of the members that's standing to the side really appreciate the support that we've gotten from the Council and so, its been a great run, we hope to continue our run. We're hoping that the funding for our program continues and we can continue to make a difference for our City, for the citizens and we continue to provide something positive, a positive learning experience for our young adults.

We believe in our program that we are grooming our leaders of tomorrow and we're grooming them today. These are our future leaders and we're giving them skills that they are going to need to successfully be able to transform their communities; so, its been a pleasure. We thank y'all and we thank you for the pleasure of addressing the Council. If anyone has any questions, then I'll try to answer them for you and if not, we'll try to exit as smoothly as we can without becoming a total disruption to the Council.

Councilman Lester: Mr. Jeter, I think I would ask my colleagues to join me and all the people in the audience in giving you guys a round of applause for the hard work that you've done.

I think that the Americorps concept is a great one and I think that what you have done in Shreveport is has been excellent. One of the things that impressed or continues to impress me about the program is the Team Concept. There are no '"i's" in Team and you have a group of young people from diverse backgrounds, diverse parts of the City, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, but they unite around a common goal of doing different projects of service to help themselves and help the community.

And I certainly hope that if there is anything that we can do from a Council standpoint to support you in what you're doing, if it means that we have to pass a resolution asking the President or anybody else to give you guys what you need to continue, I'm certain that this Council would do that. So, I just wanted to thank you, the staff, the fine young men and women for what you've been doing and we definitely appreciate you. In fact, I think there are a lot of things that we can learn on this body about team work from you guys.

Mr. Jeter: Thank you very much Councilman Lester. We appreciate those kind remarks.

Councilman Gibson: I too want to congratulate you. My only question would be . . .do y'all do testimonials down at the High schools and Junior Highs in terms of the testimonials and the experiences that you receive in the . . . I see the student body or the other volunteers that are in the audience? Cause it seems to me like if y'all aren't getting down to share those experiences with High Schools and Junior High, we're missing an opportunity to promote these opportunities and also the. . .I appreciate the young lady's comments about giving back to the community and what it means in terms of fulfillment for you personally, but we need more of that within the youth of our community. I think we've got some great youth, but they could always use some first-hand experiences of what this type volunteerism means in terms of helping out their community.

Mr. Jeter: We actually do, do that at the Middle School and High School level. We partner with several of the Middle Schools for our Water Quality Testing Program in Caddo Parish. And we actually go out with those students and teach them how to do water quality test and conduct tests to determine the quality of water. We actually have a program where we try to get students if they discover a problem, to be able to move from the problem to a course of action. How do you address this course of action if there is a problem. We currently test waters in about six bodies of water around Caddo Parish.

In addition to that, we have some members that specifically work with younger students or Elementary School students from seven to eleven years old that do an Environmental Earth Camp throughout the summer as well as we use members throughout the year to provide recycling tours, landfill tours, educational tours throughout the year. So our members are out best advertisement. They are also the best example to other young adults within our community, the other young students within our community. How they can make a difference.

We also partner with all of our students about (unclear) the Presidential Students Service Award for any student from Elementary School to College that commits 50 hours of 100 hours of community service. Those students are eligible for a Presidential Students Service Award which is a gold or silver pin from the President of the United States and a certificate from the President of the United States for their service. So, we actually try to get those students to come out and not just volunteer with Shreveport Green, but any volunteer organization throughout our City that can use their service. But we monitor that program and we track all of the hours and we get the awards for those students and we go out and make presentations to those students for their work.

So, we are really trying to bring service to our community to make a difference, not only for those elderly people in our communities, but for all the citizens of our community.

Councilman Gibson: Keep up the good work.

Councilman Jackson: Lee, Alex and Cindy, and not only them. I don't know if those people who are viewing via television, I very often make comments about not making comments directly to people who may be viewing, but I think this is a wonderful sight and I think a lot of people who are in this City are already proud and certainly should be proud of the work that these young men and women are doing and they represent. We talk about our future, but they represent our present as well as our future and an investment now is good for return that I think will be coming soon. So, I just wanted to say thank you not only to Alex and Cindy, but to those young men and women who are here, whose names I may not have the benefit of knowing or being able to call. Thank you so much for what you are doing and thank you for what you've done and you've done a great job. But we all I think share the same sentiment that the best is still yet to come.

Very often we worry about where Shreveport is going and we talk about things that may in fact seem to be negative. But, I think this is a picture that the future is secure and we have young men and young women in this city who have a sense of altruism and have a sense of understanding that service is the price you pay for the space you occupy. And so, I want to say thank you to you all for being the living embodiment of that at young age and I hope that as you grow older, that you are able to continue to do that same kind of work not only for this City, but for the State and for this country.

Mr. Jeter: Thank you Councilman Jackson.

Councilman Hogan: Mr. Jeter, I was just curious to know what percentage of your support comes from the City?

Mr. Jeter: We currently get about 30, I think about 30% of our support from the City. The majority of our funding comes from Americorps which is directed by the Louisiana Service Commission out of Baton Rouge under Lt. Gov. Blanco's office and that's at a tune of about $121,000. But because of the partnerships that we have not only with the City, but from our other local business in our City, we are able to provide virtually a 1-1 match in our program. And that allows us to use all of the funding that we get from the national level to support our members as far as their educational awards, their stipend and the things that we need. And then the support that we get from our sponsors and supporters allow us to maintain the equipment that we have: the weed eaters, the line trimmers, the lawn mowers that get broken when you taking young people and you're teaching them how to serve and how to get things done, across, the purchase of paints, the necessary equipment we need to make things happen, to improve the quality of life for our citizens. So, we have a great match for our program. But the educational scholarship that's what drives the members. That's what brings the members to the program and that's what America needs. America needs to continue to provide educational scholarships. These young people don't give up their time to work in 110 degree heat, through rain to work on welding projects, to travel across this great state, just because they want a summer job. They could be doing air conditioned jobs or other things other places. They want to truly make a difference not only to their community, but for their future. And that educational award, that educational scholarship that they'll receive when they leave this program, that's what drives our members and that 's what we need to keep focused on at the national level. They've got to continue to provide educational opportunities for students.

Councilman Walford: Let me add my congratulations and while they do look good over here, I have to say, I've seen 'em out working and that's where it really shows. Thank you very much for coming.

Mr. Jeter: Thank you and we appreciate the opportunity to address the Council.

Communications from the Mayor

Mayor Hightower: I've got several today. First I'd like to ask Fred Williams who is standing in the back. He is Superintendent of Solid Waste to come forward. We've got a couple of solid waste refuse collectors that were working in Bossier City several weeks back, actually a week ago that both were aware of not only of what they were doing, but what was going on around them and were able to thwart a home invasion and subsequently had the suspects arrested. So, we certainly appreciate what they have been able to do, not only in their job, but outside their job in protecting and noticing what's going on in neighborhoods that they serve on a weekly basis. So, we've Kenneth Black with us today and also Eddy Cooper with us today.

So we are certainly glad that you guys were able to come visit with us today and certainly wanted to take a minute to recognize you on behalf of the citizens of Shreveport but certainly on behalf of the citizens of Bossier City in which you were working when the incident was thwarted. So, we appreciate the awareness that you got on the job.

Mr. Williams: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, what happened was I received a call about two weeks ago from a citizen who lives in Bossier City concerning the effort that these two gentlemen made to foil a robbery that was in progress at his residence.

These guys saw what was going on. They are familiar with the community and they know who and who should not be in certain areas. They weren't exactly sure if these guys lived at this residence. So, they went to the neighbor across the street and said "look, do you know these kids?" and she said, no, they don't live there. He said well, you better (Kenneth I think said) well, you better call your neighbor and tell them that they are being robbed. And as a result of their efforts, everything that was taken from the residents was recovered. So, we just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Kenneth and Eddy Cooper for what they did the other day in Bossier.

And I will add that when the Shreveport Times found out about it, they came out and interviewed each one of the guys and did a pretty good story in the paper. So, it put a very positive spin on what these guys do. And it happens all the time. Very seldom does anyone ever call in to say look, these guys are really doing something special out here. So, this one did and when the Mayor found out about it, he wanted to make sure that they got the proper recognition; so, we thank you.

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Black, Mr. Cooper, very quickly, I did want to personally want to thank y'all because it's a pleasure to open up the paper and see an employee of the City getting commended for doing the right thing. And it is I understand, I'm not sure which one of the gentlemen made the statement that-- it just appeared that these kids didn't, were not supposed to be where they were-- and sometimes people just by the way they act , you can tell, they're not behaving the way they're supposed to be.

But I commend y'all for having your eyes open and having the intestinal fortitude to look into it to help that citizen or even if they were in Bossier, because nobody likes to be robbed. And, if all of us as a community would keep our eyes open and look out for one another, it certainly would be a better home for all of us, but thank y'all for your service.

Mayor Hightower: The second thing that I'd like to do, talking about government employees that do a good job. We received recognition this week from the Government Finance Officers Association recognizing our budget process and the job that the assistant CAO, Tom Dark has done in preparing the budget over the past several years for you guys. So, on behalf of the Government Finance Officers Association, I'm proud to extend this award to our Assistant CAO for the good job that he's done. So, Tom we certainly appreciate that.

Councilman. Carmody: Does that come with a check?

Mr. Dark: Every two weeks.

Mayor Hightower: No, but it was pretty impressive. The few awards that they do give out versus the number of actual audits and government budgets that they look at every single year, so I thank Tom and his efforts to put us at the top of the heap in one category; so, we appreciate his efforts.

The next thing I'd like to do is have Chief Campbell come forward for a second. We've got some more citizens that deserve recognition today and Chief Campbell is going to tell us about their contribution to our society.

Chief Campbell: Mayor, Council good afternoon. Before me today are Mrs. Odessa Britton and Mr. Randy Williams. It was brought to my attention by the case investigator, Detective James Cromer, that these citizens actions were instrumental in saving a citizen's life who was the victim of a violent crime. And at this time, I would like Detective Cromer to just give a brief description of their actions.

Detective Cromer: I had the opportunity to meet these people the night of the incident. If you believe in divine intervention, I believe that they were put there for a reason. The young lady was a victim of a severe beating which I believe had they not intervened on her behalf, she probably wouldn't be here today.

This occurred off the MLK area. They happened to be driving by, they heard screaming coming from the wooded area. They went in, saw or observed the subject run, gave a description. Went and sought aid for the young lady. By them doing that we were able to identify a suspect and eventually bring him into custody. I had an opportunity to talk to the victim at the hospital and she was very thankful and I felt that they deserved some type of recognition, that's why I sent the letter up.

Chief Campbell: And just for the record, like to note that the victim of this crime was in critical condition based on the severity of the injuries that she received and it was kind of touch and go the first few days. The Fire Department's medical personnel said that it was very likely, that had she not received immediate attention, that she could have died from her injuries.

So, at that this time, I'd like to present the Department's Lifesaving Award to Ms. Odessa Britton and also Mr. Randy Williams. They are commended for what they did.

Councilman Lester: I'm not surprised that these two folks, Brother Randy of course we know him on the Cooper Road as "Pokie" and Sister Odessa were there to give a hand. Everyone in the MLK and the Cooper Road area knows that Brother William and Sister Odessa are people that serve.

I know, and he's not going to say it, cause he's a very shy person, but one of the things that Brother Williams does in the neighborhood is that he takes a lot of the senior citizens around when they need to get their business done in terms of helping them shop and helping them do things. And he's one of those people in the MLK area that put a positive spin that's a good citizen all the way around. And, I'm proud to call him a friend and a neighbor and, so am I with Sister Odessa. So, I'm not surprised. They do these types of things everyday. We have lots of heroes on the Cooper Road everyday that people don't get press about, but I'm just glad to see that you know. . . of course you hate the situation that they came to light, but they are just typical of the good men and women in the MLK area that care about their neighbors and their citizens that do good things for their neighbors everyday; so, I'm just. . . I'm ecstatic to see them here. So, I just want to congratulate both of them for that. Thank you Chief.

Mayor Hightower: I've got one last thing. I know that the Council has inquired on numerous occasions about our GIS System and the progress that we're making in that system and hopefully the end and the use and the value that the citizens will receive from our spending of those dollars on GIS. So today, I've asked 3001 to come (Lewis, here he comes.)

(Unidentified 3001 Representative): Thank you so much for giving me a few minutes today to bring y'all up to date on what we undertook several months ago. I recognize Mr. Carmody, he was at one of our first meetings.

But, 3001 is a Louisiana company, I'm from Baton Rouge, is a Louisiana company that was selected by the City to do two things: 1. to evaluate the GIS system that was in place at the time we began the project. 2. was to make recommendations on how to enhance that and make it more effective in delivering services to the citizens of Shreveport and I think almost as important is to try to find the money to do that.

So, we undertook the project by starting off interviewing 20 separate departments within the City which includes the Fire, 911, Police, Finance, the Department of Operational Services, NLCOG and we did a detailed interview of each of these entities which took a period of two, potentially two weeks to do. And out of that we found out that a lot of the geographical information system that's in the City now, could be used a lot more effectively, but we also found out that there is a lot of geography and information in the system of Shreveport right now.

What we did was in doing the interviews, we essentially interviewed the people as to what their jobs were, their day to day functions. We then said okay, do you use geography and the information in doing your work. And then we found out how they actually used geography and information in doing their work and then from that we made recommendations in a report as to how each of these departments can use GIS more effectively for the City of Shreveport.

Each of you have, I think each of you have in front of you a summary that we prepared which basically summarizes what we did and what we found out over a six or seven month period. In the back of this summary, I'm sure y'all will want to run home and put this on your computer this afternoon, is a complete study with all the appendices and all the other data that was included in that study.

But in 1996, Shreveport really ahead of a lot of other cities in the State and the Country recognize the need for this kind of information and y'all entered into an agreement called the Regis Agreement. I don't know if y'all are familiar with that agreement, but it was the original GIS agreement and in that was the Tax Assessor of the Parish. the Metropolitan Planning Commission, the City of Shreveport and NLCOG. And starting in 1996, this information was starting to be gathered. I don't know if y'all are familiar with GIS, but I try to make everything as simple as I can, but GIS is simply a map that's put on a computer and then with that is put information about that map on the computer. So, if you want to know where a bridge is, you can look at a map and then with a GIS system, you can click on the bridge and it will tell you information about the bridge. If you want to know where a road is, you look at the map, you click on where that road is and it will give you some descriptive information about the road. The Tax Assessor has information about the parcel property here in the City of Shreveport and in the Parish of Caddo and he can click on his information that he has tell you who owns the property, the dimensions of the property, the taxes on the property, a lot of information that's very, very useful to the Tax Assessor. So, what a GIS system is, you take geography and then you put information with it and you put that into a thing and they call it a system. But, it is really becoming more and more predominant across the United States, that these GIS systems (these geography and information systems) are being used by city officials to deliver services to the citizens in a cost effective and efficient way. And the City of Shreveport has got a real, real good start in doing that.

What one of the things that we found out that I think may be of interest to the Council and the Mayor, is that an example of how the GIS information could be used if it was formatted a little differently is in the area of Code Enforcement. As you know, the Code Enforcement area is a real active area. There are 12 employees in Code Enforcement. They process about 8-12,000 claims a year and they are using information that's in a system, in a computer system now that's a little outdated in that its 1994 information.

When a violation is noted, whether it be weeds or abandoned vehicles or general nuisances or premises demolition, when a violation is written up, it normally takes 3 or 4 days from the time that violation is noticed by the Inspector to the time the first letter goes out. It takes about 2 man hours to do that and then another letter goes out in a couple of weeks in terms of whether or not the problem was corrected.

And this system itself, because of outdated information and because of the way it's actually done, can be improved to where that process—from the time the inspection is noted until the time the letter goes out can be done in one day.

What that does is that allows the whole process to proceed faster, so you can actually get a violation noticed, letters out and if the violation is not corrected in the appropriate amount of time, a work order is issued. That work order then is performed and that creates an invoice, and that invoice goes to Finance for collection. So, that whole process can get with GIS using GIS in an effective and efficient way, can be reduced, modernized, streamlined.

Based on what we found out in one of the interviews, Code Enforcement asked us to give them a proposal to do it and we have done that and we're waiting to hear from Code Enforcement now on what we can do to make that whole process more efficient.

In addition to the need for the information by the City officials, the federal government under a program called Gatsby 34 is requiring the cities to report on the assets that they manage. They're actually responsible for reporting on the condition and the condition of the physical assets and how you maintain those assets and a report has to be submitted to the federal government if the City in anyway receives federal funds.

Part of all those reports are inventories or pictures with information. Geography and information. And as the Gatsby guidelines are being more and more enforced, I think it becomes more and more important to have a very accurate and very sophisticated GIS system to help you locate your infrastructure, locate your manholes, your buildings, your roads, your bridges and be able to report to the federal government on the condition of those assets.

What we have recommended as a result of our report is that we use the Regis contract that is in existence right now that was signed in 1996. In this intergovernmental agreement between Caddo Parish Tax Assessor, the City of Shreveport, the MPC for Shreveport/Caddo, NLCOG and the Caddo Parish Communications District and add to that, try to get the Clerk and also (I keep forgetting), the Caddo Parish Administration to participate in this agreement. And, that basically would give us a foundation for starting getting all this information in all these various departments throughout the City, getting it into a format where you can share the information as you go up the line.

We think that this can be done in three different ways. 1. You can just take what you've got right now and maximize the use of the information you've got right now, the geography and the information. 2. And we proposed an intermediate proposal which takes what you've got right now and adds more users to the system, more hardware/software. It addresses applications like Code Enforcement to write specific programs to do that kind of stuff and it re-flies the area in, I think, 2003-2004 and it also incorporates in the most sophisticated proposal incorporates Gatsby in terms of e-government.

As I said when I started, we were hired to evaluate the GIS system here in Shreveport and to make recommendations on how it could be improved and thoroughly define ways to pay for it. Well, we have identified several very, very active federal agencies that are interested in supplying 75/25 money to do this. One of them if FEMA, of course FEMA is always interested in flood control which affects insurance rates and flood zones and evacuations, emergencies. So, FEMA is very interested in getting what we know right now to be the 3-D (unclear) for Shreveport. Homeland Security is a big issue. 3001 has a 10-year contract with what used to be the Defense Department to help them do mapping for defense purposes and homeland security purposes throughout the United States.

In the United States, there's 126 cities that are identified as critical cities and Shreveport is one of those cities in Louisiana and the other is Baton Rouge and New Orleans. There is always availability of direct grants to get this stuff done on a 75/25 basis. Crime mapping, the U.S. Department of Justice has programs in terms of identifying and using modeling to help alleviate crime and they have 75/25 money and the Gatsby people too, the financing of the infrastructure control people have funds that are available.

So, it was a great project. NLCOG has a tremendous amount of information and are very key to getting this done for the City of Shreveport. We look forward to working with them. All the people we interviewed, all the 20 plus agencies that we interviewed were very, very cooperative; very, very enthusiastic about getting this thing moving and we look forward to working with the City of Shreveport to get that done.

Councilman Carmody: I do want to commend y’all on the work that y'all performed. This is certainly one of those tools that I think that all municipalities should be pursuing. I know the frustration that I experienced when I first came onto the Council and something as small as trying to find out when a particular road was actually constructed. And you know, that type of information and not being able to find out to try to plan when we could work toward actually re-constructing a road, but as you said, I'm not sure that my other fellow Council members heard what you said about the Gatsby 34, I mean the requirement that we account for the improvements that we are responsible for and then provide for future expenditures to maintenance those improvements, how important that really is. And it is such a vast amount of information, but this particular tool, I'm glad to see the City and the Administration as well as our other governmental partners are really behind implementing this, because I think it would be a tremendous asset to all the citizens of this community.

(Unidentified 3001 Representative)Well, thank you Mr. Carmody. As I sat and listened to the other great things that are going on in Shreveport today, there's a lot of good things happening in Shreveport and I think that Shreveport in doing this and trying to get all the various agencies together and talking to each other about how we can avoid redundancy and how we can use the information that y'all have paid for over the last many years, use it more efficiently and deliver the services to the people of Shreveport is very forward thinking and is something that is not done very frequently throughout the United States.

Convention Center and Convention Center Hotel Project Report:

Councilman Walford: Okay, we received our Convention Center and Property Standards Reports yesterday.

Mr. Antee: Mr. Chairman if I may on the Convention Center report?

Councilman Walford: Yes.

Mr. Antee: At the last Council Meeting, Councilman Carmody had sent a list of about eight questions and we had responded. I think we responded to everybody, gave everybody a copy yesterday of the response to Councilman Carmody.

But I would, for the public since it has become a public issue and there have been certain editorials written without actually getting into it and finding the facts, I would like to kind of shortly set the record straight and let the public know the answer to their questions.

1. The first question was how the bid process was handled?

Basically originally when the design team, Jones Environmental was originally selected to perform the environmental assessment, after the City became with the lack of quality of work being presented to the DEQ and the cost and what appeared to be excessive charges and excessive estimates. We replaced Jones Environmental with Altec. At that point and time, Altec provided a rate sheet. And, Councilman Carmody, yesterday you requested the contract. Here it is. So, however the Council office would like to handle the copies. Whether it be sent to Choice and billed to the Council office or however but each book is part of the work that was submitted to DEQ with the projected numbers and the cost, so there wasn't one little contract like this. This is what it entails.

2. Another question was what authority did the City rely on to bypass a normal bid process?

The normal bid process was not bypassed. The City hired Tim Harding who was with the law firm of Lemly & Kelleher. Mr. Hardy was the Assistant Secretary of DEQ, probably one of the most prominent environmental attorneys in the State and is thought of to be that because he is very proficient and is experienced at the DEQ. He was hired to look after the City's interest.

At his direction, the environmental remediation and evaluation process began once it was determined what plan of action was approved by the DEQ, then Altec proceeded to remediate. He proceeded in the same fashion that the State Department of Transportation, the State Department of Environmental Quality, Bossier City, Shreveport, every other public entity in the state who has had remediation work performed proceeded. And, so there was no violation of the bid process. If the Attorney General's opinion is correct and that those items have to go to a public bid, then the entire State and every government entity within the State will have to change the way its done, environmental remediation since remediation began. So, there was no, in our opinion, there was no bypass of the normal bid process.

One of the things that we did that was different was that in most instances, the contractor who was hired to remediate, normally just goes and selects their subcontractors. At the insistence of the Mayor, Altec went out and requested proposals. The proposals that we received to haul off the contaminated dirt went out to the only three licensed truck haulers in the area and that was American 'Fleet, Covington and Murphy Brothers.

American Fleet was the low bidder at $4.75 a yard. It was estimated originally by someone with the prior environmental consulting firm, that the cost of hauling would be approximately $10 per yard and it was actually $4.75 to haul off the contaminated dirt; that's the only thing different.

Councilman Carmody: The backfill?

Mr. Antee: Well, the backfill was an additional $1.90. What we did was when the contaminated dirt was hauled to the landfill and dumped, the Parish was gracious enough to give us at no cost dirt from the GM site free of charge. So, rather than doubling our costs, when the truck hauled the contaminated dirt, dumped it at the landfill, they then swing by GM and for a cost of $1.90 a yard picked up the clean dirt and brought it and stockpiled it on the site. That saved the taxpayers thousands and thousands of dollars by utilizing the truck both ways, rather than just one way; so, that answers another question. Did we pay for the dirt? No, the Parish gave us the dirt. Another question and I won't go through each one of them.

3. But another question was why did the City not contract directly with Altec?

I just explained that. By going through Lemly Kelleher and looking at it on the City’s behalf, they were able to save us a lot of money that making sure that the work that was being performed was work that was actually necessary to be performed and not additional work just for the sake of adding cost to the project.

4. Would the various unanticipated delays surrounding this project, does the Administration anticipate any legal liability or consequences?

No, we do not. I think the Attorney General’s opinion was an opinion that was written without their seeking advice from the Department of Environmental Quality or the Department of Transportation to determine what the actual practice in environmental remediation is and has been. And I think once that AG’s opinion has been released and those departments have become aware of it, there’s communication going on at the State level, because it will completely bring to a halt every project from highways to buildings, once there is a determination as to what the environmental remediation would need to be.

And so, I think what you’ll see is down at the State level it will be addressed and it will be addressed and cleared up because the City of Shreveport and Mayor Hightower specifically requested because there have been so many rumors and false statements that he wanted to submit to the Attorney General to get the legal opinion and with that we think it will be cleared up throughout the State.

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Antee, thank you very much for responding back to my questions. Did want to make sure though, the Administration said they were going to seek and new opinion from the Attorney General’s office. Will the, will my letter and the responses provided by your office be forwarded to the Attorney General so we can get that second opinion?

Mr. Antee: Actually Jerry Jones with Lemly Kelleher had his. . . . to the Attorney General in conjunction with the departments I mentioned. Jerry, has the letter been submitted? If not, then we can attach your letter and the response to the request.

Councilman Carmody: I wouldn’t make that a requirement, I just did not know if that, it seemed like that this was part of the explanation I think you were trying to get a second opinion based on that it might be beneficial. I’ll leave that up to Mr. Jones’ and the Administration’s discretion.

I did have one last question though today and that was, was Altec environmental services selected through a RFP and was that bid then handled through our A & E Selection Committee (the original work Mr. Antee, so that I know that we’re talking about the same thing)?

Mr. Antee: Originally, Jones Environmental was a lead environmental consultant and we were splitting the work up into two sites. We had the Convention Center site and parking garage site.

Altec Environmental was performing the test drilling and the evaluation on the parking garage site. Once we got word through Mr. Hardy that DEQ was not satisfied with the responses and the quality of work and the work product being presented to them by Jones, since Altec was already part of the team, we asked them to help clean that up and submit it the DEQ and so they stepped into the shoes of Jones Environmental.

So to answer your question, we did not stop and go back to the A & E Committee to find a replacement since they were already part of the team, which was originally selected with the architects. We just kept moving forward with the blessing of the DEQ and I might add that, Mike correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we were one, if not the first, one of the first to complete this voluntary cleanup program in this region of the Environmental Protection Agency and either will receive or have received a certificate as such, stating what a great job they’ve done.

Councilman Carmody: So, to make sure that I understood the answer to your question. Altec Environmental Services was not a party to any bid process by which they went through the A & E Selection Committee at any point?

Mr. Antee: They were part of the original team that was selected. They were not the lead in the environmental area. So there was no submission to the A & E Committee for the replacement of Jones.

Councilman Carmody: But the original request for proposals to do the work at the site, was Altec Environmental Services, a part of the bid process in which would have gone through the A & E Selection Committee?

Mr. Antee: There’s only been one A & E Selection Committee meeting and selection and that was for the design team of the hotel. Part. . . I’m sorry, of the convention center. Part of the design team included the environmental consultant which the lead environmental consultant was Jones and the secondary because they had the smaller site on the parking garage was Altec. So, as part of that overall process they were under the Slack Alost team and there were several teams that submitted. So, I don’t know if that answered your question.

Councilman Carmody: No, sir I’m sure I understand.

Mr. Antee: But I don’t know that I understand your question. Yes, they were part of an A & E selection process by being a subcontractor of a subcontractor of Slack Alost.

Councilman Carmody: Thank you sir, that answered the question I asked.

Councilman Gibson: I guess, obviously there is lessons to be learned to this, if this would have been a contracting of a construction contractor and that contractor was non-responsive, we wouldn’t have selected a subcontractor instead we, more than likely, would have rejected that (unclear) and put out an RFP and gone through the process again, I think that’s what Councilman Carmody was trying to get to.

I guess my question regarding this is do you recall what the estimates were originally for this site for environmental and what we ended up with in Actuals? Are we above the Estimates versus Actuals?

Mr. Antee: Well we had several, we had a budget that was just picked out of the air by the design team based on their first glance and their first budget that they do through the entire process. Once we got to Phase I environmental completed, then there is another estimate. Once they go in and complete Phase II, then they have a much better understanding of what all is there and what needs to be cleaned up, although they don’t know 100% until they get in and clean it; so, then we have another number.

The first number that was set out was just a gross estimate of the part of the entire project, the number to clean up, it exceeded that. Once we had the Phase I and the Phase II, the rough estimate from Jones was somewhere around $5million with somewhere between 2-300 cubic yards that would have to be hauled off and remediated. That number did not end up being $5million, it was $2.something million and it wasn ’t 2-300 cubic yards as suggested by them to the DEQ, it was approximately 30,000 cubic yards.

Councilman Gibson: Well again, my question is not in the fact that obviously the Administration is part of this final decision. Obviously we paid millions of dollars to a design professional and that professional has responsibilities throughout the process in terms of coming up with estimates. That’s the reason why I’m asking the question is, we did pay for a professional design team and throughout this entire process, I’ve never and again, I know y’all not in the business but I’ve had specific questions in my mind with the design professional in terms of accountability with that design professional in terms of coming up with proper estimates for this particular project.

I guess the second question that I have regarding DEQ and that deals with our current site path which we’re getting close and again, I’ve commended the Administration for getting us to the point with obviously we were dealt several cards from the general contractor going into bankruptcy and some other things which were out of control, but obviously we’re, sometime in August are going to be in a better position to know where we’re going to get in the ground for this particular project.

Do we have documentation signed off by DEQ that, that site pad is clean and is ready to go from a construction standpoint to where . . .?

Mr. Antee: Yes we do. We’ve got the certificate of clean dirt or whatever they actually call it for both sites, the parking garage and the convention center.

Councilman Gibson: If I could get a copy of that documentation, I would appreciate it. Because again if you’re going to be wanting to move on this, if everything goes according to schedule, I know that the proposed construction manager and I’m sure that they already have that information and the 45-bid packages or whatever to make that happen. I’m only from a check and balances and want to make sure that we’re on track for that.

And, I guess my last question deals with Jones Environmental and Altec on the original submissions of contract dollar amounts. Was Jones original, cause I think if I’m not mistaken, the last number I saw, they were paid around $300,000 when the termination of their services took place, somewhere in that neighborhood. And again, that’s the last number I recall, but I guess my question was, was Jones gonna be doing--how much of the contract environmental services were they gonna be responsible for if they provided from A-Z the response to the RFP vs. what Altec received?

Mr. Antee: Well, who knows, because one of the reasons we made the changes, we had a serious dispute with the amount of the bill and actually refused to pay and ended up working out and settling after getting a third party to come in and do an audit of the bill. And, then I personally sat down with the attorney for Jones and we ended up reaching a settlement short of filing suit which reduced the amount and I don’t recall exactly how much the bill was reduced, but it reduced the amount.

They were charging a one amount to provide certain services. Altec was charging a lesser amount to do the same testing and so, I don’t know what the end result would have been had we not made the change.

Councilman Gibson: Okay and then my last question regarding the environmental side. Obviously Jones environmental submitted through an RFP process for the original services. What other companies, and again, I don’t need the names today, but I’d like to see in writing, what other companies responded at the origin of looking for environmental services? I’d like to see those companies and again, I’m not asking for an answer today, I’d like to see that if I could.

Mr. Antee: Those would be contained in the submittal by the design teams and I’m assuming we still have those.

Councilman Gibson: Slack Alost could probably produce that?

Mr. Antee: No, because they were just one design team of 8 or 10 or 15, I forget how many initially submitted.

Councilman Gibson: Well, I understand, but lets back out of that. I’m asking specifically on the design professional that was selected through the A & E selection process and I sat through those presentations. When Slack Alost was selected, obviously they brought in a team, okay?

Mr. Antee: Right.

Councilman Gibson: Which included Jones Environmental, correct?

Mr. Antee: Correct.

Councilman Gibson: And you know Altec was a sub of that. Did Slack have any other proposed team players with that?

Mr. Antee: I don’t know. We could get you that answer. I don’t know.

Councilman Gibson: Okay, I’d like to see that and then if there are any others with those other. . .because I think there was about 5 teams that submitted proposals if I recall back. My mind is being or memory is being taxed real quick based on those presentations. I’d like to see that if I could.

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Antee, my notes from the July 8th meeting reflect that you believed that you had saved approximately $30,000 off of Jones’ invoice after negotiations.

Public Hearings: None.

Confirmations and/or Appointments, Adding Legislation to the Agenda and Public Comments:

Confirmations and/or Appointments: None.

Adding Legislation to the Agenda. None.

Public Comments.

Ken Kreft (157 Archer): And on a day on which Hussein’ sons seems to be no more and Ms. Lynch got home, I just wanted to say, I think this item was on the agenda but its about the parking fee and I just want to encourage the Administration, I didn’t see it on there, to do anything possible whether through a single administrator or a group or a committee to try to recall some semblance of the ordinance we had a few years ago in so far as there appears to be a goodly sum out there. As one who just put in 40cents a minute ago to get to 5:00, you know, has never had a parking ticket. I just want to encourage y’all to do that. And lets see what we can do. It might be that a good person already with the City or somebody not on board, I would think that he or she could pay for his/her salary many times over. I know at Tulane years ago, my son called me. "Dad, I got a boot on the Escort." Why? "Well, I parked in the faculty lot." You know, there was not getting out of it, I had to send him a money order to pay the university cops. They’re real good at universities at doing this. I don’t want to be a. . . I know Chief Campbell has enough irons in the fire and the only question I have is something I’ve discussed earlier. If the DDA, if its re-criminalized, then its not longer a civil matter. Not being an attorney, I just want to be sure we get some good legal advice. I’m not sure the DDA could still have the proper jurisdiction. It might be that it would have to go back to the City. But just whatever y’all could do, lets try to get some of this money.

Someone else suggested paying a third party contractor, where they get so many cents on the dollar for whatever they can get in. I think this worked from about the 28-30% rating several years ago. I think somebody was hired under a three year contract. I don’t know why it wasn’t renewed. Maybe we weren’t happy with the amount they collected, but certainly all these things in a tight budget year, we already know about the property standards and $3 million here and $1.7million there and that’s about how much y’all had to cut back in April; so, just give that all due consideration.

The final thing not related, anybody who wants to here our new School Superintendent, sure invites you to come out to our meeting tonight and hear Ms. Ollie Tyler at the Broadmoor Presbyterian Gym at 7:00. I’m sure it’ll be an interesting evening.

Councilman Carmody: I’m not sure how many other Council Members received phone calls like I did the last couple of days, but a number of citizens of the City seem to be upset about entertaining any type of a property tax increase in that they feel like that its imperative that the City do what it needs to do to collect outstanding amounts of money that are owed to the municipality. And that as what I heard over and over again was that I’ve always felt like I was a good citizen and wanted to do what was best for my community, but I would like to see some accountability on the part of the City to try and collect these delinquent amounts.

And so I mention that in that I’m not sure that anyone else received that type of communiqué, but I take that to heart that I think for the most part, the citizens of this community, if you lay out the necessity for them to bear an additional expense, that they come forward and they support us. But in the same way, I think it’s incumbent upon the City and those persons that lead this community to follow the due process and to collect those monies and to make sure that those persons that are delinquent are brought before the appropriate authorities and then required to pay that amount.

Mayor Hightower: I would like to address that just briefly. The reason that there is an item on your agenda today, that’s asking you about a single hearing officer is. when I became mayor four years ago, we realized internally at City Hall, there was a problem not only collecting parking tickets, but writing them in the first place.

We also recognize the fact that we had parking issues downtown; that’s when we got with Andy Taft and the DDA. We sub-ed out the parking meter collection and ticket writing with the DDA. They have since come back to us and said look, we don’t have any teeth to collect these extra dollars that we’re writing tickets for and I think you ’ve read the information to show how many more tickets they writing now and how much more collections have been even though we have a $1.7 million outstanding.

They’ve been working and working back with us and again, that’s the reason that this is on the agenda. We don’t have, nobody has anything to hide here. We’re trying to address a problem and we need to do it through the booting process and we need a single hearing officer to help us get that done. So, its not like the City Administration or the City Council or the DDA or anybody has been sitting on their tails not working to find a solution to this problem, that’s exactly what’s been happening over the last four years and Andy and his staff have now come back and said, here’s what we think we need to be able to go collect these monies.

And I think just like Mr. Kreft just said, once somebody has a boot on their car, they don’t have a whole lot of choice. They can do some explaining if they want to, but they need to be able to convince Mr. Taft that what they have to say is correct and at that point, he can make that determination.

But we don’t look to leave a dollar of that $1.7 million sitting on the table. Our aim is to collect it all. Whether we collect it directly by the DDA or as it may have been suggested, we go to some sort of collection agency to do it. I hope that we don’t have to do that, but those dollars that we can’t collect through the booting process, we will make a diligent effort to get those monies back in our coffers. Because we want at some point to be able to build that fund again to address parking issues downtown via additional parking garages or additional surface lots.

Councilman Hogan: Mr. Antee, you had mentioned yesterday during the Administrative session that you were in the process of trying to gain the names of the people that had the parking violations. Where do we stand on that?

Mr. Antee: We received them but the lawyers won’t let us release ‘em. Basically, there is a federal statute called the Driver’s Privacy Act that Jerry Jones, the attorney for the DDA has read and has interpreted it to say that we could be subjecting ourselves to liability. The attorney for the Times disagrees with that. So, we asked him if he would provide us information and that the Times would agree to and indemnify and hold the City harmless in the event we are hit with a fine of $5,000 per violation, then they would pay that.

But we would like nothing more than to get those names out. I think what we can do is send to the Times under their request, the make, model, and license plate number of the car. And if they can obtain the name that goes with it, then at least the City won’t be subject to penalties and fines for violating that statute.

Councilman Hogan: Okay, you said a second ago, that the lawyer for the Times had agreed to do that?

Mr. Antee: No.

Councilman Hogan: He did not.

Mr. Antee: No. We told him that if he felt comfortable enough that the statute did not apply and that the Times would indemnify the City and the DDA should we get hit with these penalties or fines, then we would submit the names to ‘em.

The thing is, we get the names from the license plate of the data base from the Louisiana State Department of Motor Vehicles and that statute applies to any information we get from the DMV and they can cut us off if we release that information. And if we get cut off from the DMV, then we don’t know who the cars belong to and then we just loose whatever enforcement we get by passing the ordinance today.

So, as much as we’d like to get those names out, from the advice of counsel, we can’t and I think Mr. Taft can attest that I think a few people that know they’re on that top 25 list have come in and paid today. Haven’t they Mr. Taft? So, just imagine who’d pay if we start printing them in the paper.

Councilman Jackson: Yes Mr. Chairman. I would wish that we would try to entertain as and perhaps that, that sense of printing those names in the paper, I don’t know if we’ve done and I’m sure, maybe the Administration or the Downtown Development Authority can talk a bit about all the things that we’ve already done to try to collect, I think those folks who may be on that top whatever the number may be list, if people. . . one of the things is the best indication of what a person will do in the future is, what they’ve done in the past. Some people may succumb to punishment, I mean to embarrassment, others may not.

I wondered particularly when we began to print those names and those cars may have been, you know it may be the parents name of a child who had the parents’ car. In many cases, I don’t know how many years this goes back, these particular, I would hope that $1.7million doesn’t represent last year. I would hope that it would represent you know several years, perhaps in succession and we have an issue of cars that people no longer own, license plates that are no longer even genuine license plate numbers and those types of things.

I don’t know what the deviation would be from just the total number of license plate versus those that are no longer even in affect and those things. I don’t know what it would be, but those are the things that come to my mind when we think about it.

I don’t know how much, but I’m sure that we need to as we’ve said before try to do everything that we can to be fiscally responsible and while I’m excited about trying to be sure that we can do what we can to get every dime and every dollar that we can. One of the questions I had, I don’t know if maybe the Administration can answer, when we talk about going to a booting situation, since the people were booted.

Councilman Walford: Mr. Jackson, can I stop you for just a minute. We’re going into debate on what’s going to be an upcoming vote. Let’s go on with public comments and address our debate at a time when debate is proper. So, at this point, I’m going to stop you from the questioning. If there are questions for Mr. Kreft, I think they are in order. If there are questions for the Administration, I think they should properly come under debate; so, at this time we have Terry Ramey.

Terry Ramey (2717 Meriwether Road): I’m here once again. I came in several times before with the same problem of lacking the City’s help to get a problem straightened out in our diminishing neighborhood we’ve got now. We’ve got four citizens on our end of the street where the City-backed a government program has come in and buying our neighborhood out at less than $.33 per square foot, which I think everybody will agree, you don ’t buy nothing for $.33 a square foot unless the government comes in as they have mine and devalued my property in the last year and a half at about $80,000 for their benefit to buy out our land cheap so that they can either bring in GM suppliers or whatever they’re planning on doing out here in South Shreveport.

My Council member that represented us eight years in a row would never comment. Jeff Hogan has been extremely nice and returned phone calls and has kept in touch with me but as of today, absolutely no answers to any questions yet.

I’m kind running out of time and patience. I’ve been in several times, I’ve asked several times from the Mayor’s office to the Council meetings I’ve come, attend to, to please give us some help out there. We’re not only losing value, but I’m like anybody else, if I lose that much value on my home, what makes me want to stay in the City of Shreveport? If the City doesn’t want to back me, stand behind us, take care of their citizens, why do we want to back you folks?

We’ve got a problem out there that’s been going on for about 10 years since before I lived there when the City appointed appraisers came out and appraised my property listed two years ago, they appraised it at $8,000 less than my mortgage that was owed on it. I was up for renewal of my mortgage because I also running it through a business loan at a five year rate, so I had to go in the next year and get a re- have my loan renewed. I had to come up with $12,000 out of my pocket to get my note renewed because the City-backed appraisal had devalued my property so much.

I’m at that point right now, I’ve owned and ran my small business here in Shreveport since 1981. As of the end of last year, I’ve cut back on my services tremendously. I no longer do services for the City of Shreveport, haven’t for 3 years now, because of their lack of paying their bills to me. Several things, I’ve had to cut back on because of the lack of help from the City of Shreveport. I’m not like most people. I don’t get any funding whatsoever. If I don’t work, like I haven’t for the four hours today meeting in this meeting, I make no money.

Therefore, when I make calls to Mr. Hogan and to the Mayor’s office at one time, you know we would appreciate a little help out in our end of town.

We’ve had random break ins, we’ve had thefts lately. The Sam’s Wholesale Building, we had a problem escalated out behind there less than two weeks ago. I talked to the Police Chief just prior to the meeting. I couldn’t get through to the Police Department. I tried the number several times, I didn’t even get a recording. I ended up having to call that 911 number three times. They did apparently have somebody come out and check the Black gentleman that was behind the building yelling and screaming obscenities (an older Black gentleman) which my next door neighbor, Ms. Annabelle, she’s been at this residence since 1912. Her father homesteaded in South Shreveport there where South Park Mall now is and Sam’s Wholesale. She’s been there since the beginning of Summer Grove area. She heard all this. Its ridiculous that we had to call 911 three times to get help out there.

Then on top of that, we was not notified back what was happening. I had to make another call to 911, because the Police Department number still was not being answered. Then, on top of that we were guaranteed by the Shreveport Airport Authority. . .

Councilman Walford: Mr. Ramey, can you wrap it up, you’ve gone well beyond your three minutes.

Motion by Councilman Lester, seconded by Councilman Hogan to allow Mr. Ramey an additional three minutes.

Councilman Hogan: Excuse me, Mr. Ramey is that enough time for you?

Mr. Ramey: I’d like to see, I’ve got a lot to say. I was asked by you a couple of meetings back, if I could hold off coming in. I had a lot to say then, y’all had a lot of agenda on the line. I was nice enough to do that, I would appreciate . . .

Councilman Hogan: I’m just asking you how much time you need?

Mr. Ramey: Three minutes might be enough.

Councilman Hogan: We’ll see at the end of three minutes. I’ll make a motion to give you more if you need. Are we going to vote on that?

Councilman Gibson: Can I get a Point of Order please? Mr. Chair, on the slip of paper what subject matter are we talking about here?

Councilman Walford: We’re on the Airport’s. . .I’m sorry, the Shreveport buyout on Meriwether and. . .

Councilman Gibson: And that is item what on our agenda?

Councilman Hogan: It’s the one that they mistakenly put your name on Mr. Gibson, that re-zoning of the Sam’s Building.

Councilman Walford: No, I thought it was on 83, the Capital Improvement Budgets with the buyouts for . . .Mr. Thompson, can you or the Clerk help here?

Councilman Gibson: I just want to make sure what item we’re talking about here.

Councilman Hogan: The re-zoning of the Sam’s building, the industrial zoning. Its in my district, but it had your name on it.

Councilman Gibson: Okay, so item 80. . . can’t remember which one it was.

Ms. Lee: You’re referring to 104, Mr. Hogan.

Councilman Hogan: Pardon me?

Ms. Lee: You are referring to Ordinance 104.

Councilman Hogan: It is. Correct.

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Chairman, just to make sure that I do understand though, Mr. Ramey, are you here to talk about the legislation regarding land acquisition for security purposes about the airport?

Mr. Ramey: Well, regarding the land acquisition in general, there again, once again, I’m zoned the same zoning as the Sam’s Wholesale building was which is B-3.

Councilman Walford: Okay, at this time, if you are here to talk about the Sam’s rezoning, that is not an agenda item to be adopted today. So, can you clarify for me before I vote now where you were going. What topic or what agenda item are you here to talk about?

Mr. Ramey: I’m here to talk about myself and my three neighbors on either side of me, the security, the lack of the support of the Shreveport Police and the Mayor’s Office on the property and the problem we’re having out there. Abandoned houses that have been abandoned for eight years, City Airport, Shreveport Airport Authority owned which was guaranteed to us no later than May 30th would be demolished and hauled away. We’re having problems out here.

Councilman Lester: The fact of the matter of is, if there was an error in allowing this gentleman to speak, that error was ours.

Councilman Walford: Correct.

Councilman Lester: He’s spoken for three minutes, he’s asking for an additional three minutes to wrap up his comments. At least give us, respect the citizen enough, give him his last three minutes, let him have an opportunity to address us and then if we have questions, lets move on.

But I think its just utterly disrespectful for us to jump up after someone has spoken for three minutes or four minutes to ask them oh, what agenda item are you speaking on? I mean, I think it makes absolutely no sense.

If he wants to finish his three minutes, let him finish his three minutes. The mistake clearly was ours. And what are we going to do, is punish him and interrupt his train of thought? I think that’s just rude. I think that’s just rude.

I think allow the gentleman to finish his three minutes. If the mistake is on us, that mistake is on us. Let the citizen finish speaking. If we want to ask him questions, ask him questions and move on to the next thing. Its not rocket science gentlemen. It really isn ’t and for us to use the rules to embarrass a citizen and ask him questions like "point of order," " what are your speaking on," what’s the agenda item?" If you can’t relate it, then don’t relate it. If you choose not to deal with it, let’s not deal with it.

Councilman Gibson: Mr. Chairman, can I get a Point of Order on this.

Councilman Lester: But I think for us to try to (unclear) is just wrong.

Councilman Walford: Mr. Lester, I’m going to rule on this Point of Order. Clearly he is talking about the property on Meriwether Road. It fits Item 83 which is to be adopted today. The only thing I will ask you sir, is to please confine your comments to that, the properties that have been purchased by the Airport and your problems that are generated by that if you would. I am in no way restricting you otherwise, but those who speak at the beginning of the meeting speak on agenda items to be adopted today. That is an agenda item to purchase additional property and a change in the budget for that. So, you are certainly in order speaking now.

Councilman Lester: There is a motion on the floor to give him additional minutes.

Councilman Walford: And there is a motion to give him an additional three minutes and I would ask you to vote ‘yes’ if you favor that.

Councilman Gibson: Mr. Chairman. I don’t know what we’re talking. Just so, I’m . . . I’m looking on the screen so I can compare what he’s talking.

Councilman Walford: Look under Ordinances on Second Reading and Final Passage, 83 is amending Capital Improvements Budget which includes Airport funding for property acquisition.

Councilman Gibson: Thank you Mr. Chair. Okay? So now, if I could have a vote. (Motion to allow additional time unanimously approved.)

Councilman Walford: Mr. Ramey, I’m sorry you had to sit there through this. Now, if we could ask you to try to wrap it up in three minutes for us.

Mr. Ramey: Sure, my problem is we were in a buyout some years back at $.33 a square foot which in my case amounted to several thousand dollars less than e value that I already had against my home. I tried to work with the Airport Authority which was backed by the City of Shreveport at no help whatsoever.

Second on the agenda was if you didn’t sell out, just like they’re doing a mile and a half away from the Airport now, they’re coming in to Southern Hills and they’re getting new siding and windows and doors and insulation and new air and heat units to people who live a mile and a half away from the airport. I attended a meeting, by his request, at Southern Hills meeting at a Piccadilly’s Restaurant there at South Park and I approached the folks that run Shreveport Airport Authority: Roy Miller, Bill Cooksey, Jerry McKinney, those folks out there and my simple question was "since I did not sell out, do I qualify for the house sounding system?" And they said, no I do not qualify for that even though geometrically looking, I’m the closest house to end of the runway at Shreveport Airport.

I asked, why didn’t I qualify for it? They could not answer it, I’ve asked for help in getting this answered. Its been months. We’re not getting answers nowhere. We’re asking for some help and that’s basically what this is about. You know like, I just wanted to bring to everybody’s attention. I have come to the Council, I have talked to my Council Member. I tried to contact the Mayor in the Mayor’s Office, to no avail. The problem with the police taking care of the empty houses on Meriwether, no help again whatsoever; so, we’re asking today, is there any help here? I mean, can we get some help from the City of Shreveport, the Council Members? Because we’re part of the City, we pay our taxes and that’s why you guys are elected to do things for us.

Councilman Hogan: Well, I have a couple of comments related to what you said Mr. Ramey. I’ve attended, two weeks ago a meeting at the Airport Authority. As you’re familiar with, Dr. Lynn Irish is the Environmental Consultant. He’s done the study, the study was completed last month.

He has met with Roy Miller and the other Airport Authority Board Members. From my understanding, I was gone out of town all last week and they met again and I’ve not gotten the results of that meeting. But it was my understanding they were going to approve Dr. Irish’s recommendation which in relative to where you are, you are a very unique situation. This will include you and make you eligible for the noise insulation.

Now, you said a moment ago, you’ve stated several times about the $.33 a foot and that’s right. I spoke to, I went and verified that with a guy named David Valentine who did your appraisal.

Mr. Ramey: Exactly.

Councilman Hogan: And the appraisal was $105,000. And so, one thing, just a second. . .let me finish. You referred to your property as per foot which typically is how commercial property is referred to and you do operate your business out of your home, I understand that.

Mr. Ramey: No sir, I do not.

Councilman Hogan: Well, you operate your business on your property.

Mr. Ramey: Yes sir, but there is a difference.

Councilman Hogan: Well, here’s the kicker right here though. Back in 1990. . . .was it ‘95 or ‘96 that you had it re-zoned?

Mr. Ramey: ‘95.

Councilman Hogan: It was in ‘95. I knew it was one of those two years and I verified this with the Metropolitan Planning Commission that even, you said just a few minutes ago that you were zoned the same as the Sam’s building, and that is not true. The Sam’s building today is zoned B-3. The applicant is asking for a B-3 with an exception. Your property is still zoned residential with the special exception for you to operate your business in the building at the back of your property. And . . .

Mr. Ramey: Well on my application, it says B-3; that’s all I know.

Councilman Hogan: I verified this myself with . . .wave at me Mr. Kirkland. Did we not call and verify that? Okay, thank you. And it is zoned R-1D with an exception only for you to operate that type of business at the building that you’ve built at the back of your property.

Mr. Ramey: Okay. I’ll accept that, lets move on and figure out what the problem is then.

Councilman Hogan: Okay, the next step for me and if you’ll bare with me, it’s a long and hard process of trying to . . . sometimes, I’ve had difficulty getting answers from the Airport Authority. I’m not going to bash them, you know, but there are other reasons, not their fault. I’ve had trouble communicating with them, but my next step is to figure out for sure that you will be eligible for the noise insulation. Okay, and I can get you an answer on that this week.

Mr. Ramey: That’d be great.

Councilman Hogan: If you’ll give me till the end of this week, you’ll hear from me.

Mr. Ramey: You give me a date, I’ll give you till that day, but like I said, I’ve gave everybody in this Council, in the Mayor’s office and the Shreveport Airport Authority to their given dates that they promised me on everything they’ve ever said and not one time have they come through, yet. So, that’s one of my problems is. When are y’all held responsible. When is the Airport Authority held responsible when they give the citizens a deadline? And, they came to my home, Bill Cooksey came to my house, sat down with me and gave me a firm date, live or die, snow/freeze, hell freezes over, all vacant homes would be gone May 30, 2003. Two homes on that whole block have been leveled. There’s still about eight out there. Three of ‘em right across the street from mine. I’m sure they’re holding off on mine until the last, but that’s fine. The fact is we were told, I expect something out of it. I run a business. I cannot run my business on lies and I don’t know how anybody else in Shreveport can.

Councilman Hogan: Well, I’m not here today to answer for the Airport Authority, but one thing I can say is that if you’ll give me till the end of the week, I promise you that I will find that out and call you.

Mr. Ramey: Well, you’ve never let me down like I said at the first meeting. You’ve returned every phone call and talked to me every time and I highly thank you for it. But like I said, talking don’t get things done. We need to find somebody that will work with us and get it done.

Wyvornia Nunley (4103 Santa Monica Court): May I share these pictures with you?

Councilman Walford: Give them to the clerk or . . .Madam Clerk, will they show on the overhead?

Ms. Lee: We can try.

Ms. Nunley: While she’s getting this together, my purpose for being here again is to explain my bridal wedding consulting home based business that I would like to operate out of ½ of my detached garages, storage building. I want to thank you again for the opportunity to address you all.

My concern I feel in reference to the rejection to my request to use our storage building on our property for my wedding consulting business, I would like to clear up several matters that I feel were either miscommunicated by me or misinformed to you by my neighbors.

I am not expanding my business as far as enlarging it. The expansion merely involves moving from inside our home to a detached building.

I do not have a boutique, a fitting room or a bridal shop on our property. This building serves as our personal storage and also, I would like for it to be a future office.

I am not applying for any type of re-zoning for commercial business as it is understood/as is the understanding of several of my neighbors. I am merely requesting my occupational license for home based business to allow me to operate out of the detached storage building.

This concern was cleared up on the last MPC Administrator by Mr. Clark on this last Council Meeting that was on 7-8 of this year.

My business is low key. No signs or flashing light. The same criteria that governs my dwelling would govern the business out of this building.

In our effort to do this, I feel that my business has been made mockery and politically an issue and it is neither that.

Our City encourage entrepreneurialship and people to start new business. "Bring Our Children Home." And by doing my part to enhance and improve the community, I’m greeted with such opposition and negativism on this matter. It is an embarrassment to the principle that we all stand for.

This issue has become disheartening to me and my family because of the lies that started three months ago from a potentially innocent situation by moving my office. I realize that you all have bigger issues today to deal with, but this is part of my future. What is right and what is wrong have not been played out here and this is not right.

The next time it comes to one of us, the next time the situation should come up, whether it be you all or someone else calling for a just decision, I hope you all will consider such matter.

I would not be opposed to a time trial period being set to see that everything is acceptable to all parties. If this is denied, please explain why during your comments. I share with you the pictures and I want to thank you all and if there are any questions, I please encourage you all to ask.

I would too like to share that the building is used as two purpose, personal and home office and by sharing that, it does not look like a store as it has been called in the past.

Mandelene Bowie (4105 Santa Monica Court): I’m one of the many residents that live in the Western Hills Estate Subdivision and that is opposing this variance and exception for this case BAC-53-03. But I have others and I’d like for them to stand too (approximately 10 people stood). I stand before you to make one more appeal to deny the application and to uphold the ZBA decision.

We, the residents of Western Hills Estates were not confused when we signed this petition, then nor are we confused now. The residents overwhelming voted against having a detached business, period. I submitted to each one of you a copy of the petition and I have a copy of this petition here. That petition states in fact that we were opposed to a variance and special exception application submitted to the MPC. The application was submitted to allow the expansion of a home based business to a detached building which was approximately 768 sq. ft. It was presently under construction at 4103 Santa Monica Court. This is what the petition said and this is what we voted on.

Again, this represents 86% opposition which is 57 of the 66 occupied homes in the Western Hills Estates. 11% was neutral and 3% was for it.

We believe if you make this exception, if you set this precedence, then you’ll open a Pandora’s box. What would happen if the next person wants to operate out of a detached building? It would be hard to deny their application because of the precedence is already set. Too many cases have been fought and won because there was a precedence . . .and we don’t want any. I do not know about you, but I seen too many neighborhoods, that have deteriorated because rules were relaxed or there were to many variances for exceptions that have been allowed.

I do not want this for my neighborhood. I don’t want this neighborhood to become like the inner-city problems. The process of deterioration does not happen over night but it happens, one exception at a time.

At the last Council meeting, Mr. Clark stated that home occupancy should be virtually invisible. It is not invisible. This newly constructed building is over 1,000 square feet of space. I know that she said that this is only going to be used as half of the enclosed square footage space, but who is going to stop her once occupied. The neighbors shouldn’t have to.

Mrs. Nunley would have lots, surely as a part-time nurse, Mrs. Nunley will have lot of opportunity to build her clientele. We, the neighbors was saddened by Mrs. Nunley desire to place her business into this building. In spite of our concerns and opposition, she forged ahead and pursued her own self-gain. Furthermore, will Mrs. Nunley application is denied (and I hope she is) she will to have loss. She can still continue to operate her business inside her home.

On the other hand, if you allow to operate outside this detached building, the neighborhood becomes vulnerable and susceptible to a trail of detached businesses and any adverse affects that comes along with it, then one exception becomes 2, then 3 and so on. What happens to marketability of our homes? When does home-based business becomes too much like a small business. I do now want to look outside of my back porch and see a business.

As a final point, we the residents of Western Hill Estates have done our part to insure the quality of our neighborhood. We have polled the residents, we signed the petition and we wrote letters to each of you. What else could we have done? I am not just pleading with my Councilman, but each of you to look at the information presented to you. Vote what is right. Look at this as if was happening next door to your home and you was one of those 86%.

The majority of Western Hills Estates residents saw the bigger picture here and they voted against the exception and variance and voted ‘yes’ to maintaining the residential, non-business quality and integrity of our neighborhood.

Again, I beseech each of you to uphold this decision of the ZBA and to join many residents, not just in Western Hills Estates, but throughout Shreveport that want to maintain the residential integrity and quality of our neighborhood.

Councilman Hogan: Mrs. Bowie, I remember you submitting the paperwork you said, it has been a couple of weeks ago, at least. I don’t remember seeing anything in there about–are there any restrictions according to your subdivision covenants that will keep her from doing this?

Mrs. Bowie: Yes, well the covenant speaks against businesses.

Councilman Hogan: Do you have a copy of the covenant?

Mrs. Bowie: Yes, I have a copy of the covenant.

Councilman Hogan: I’d like to see if it I may.

Mrs. Bowie: There was some original owners that was here who had to leave that can speak more about that covenant and what it say.

On a bigger note, this building is over 25%. You can use it as a whole dwelling unit, okay. Mrs. Nunley wants to grow, we know that and we have no opposition of her growth, I personally want her to succeed. We just think this is not good for the neighborhood and we do not want a business in our neighborhood.

Now, a lot of us who have a home-based businesses know what the criteria are and we abide and respect those criteria. So I am asking you, they are in place for a reason, to keep this neighborhood intact. I don’t want to be here 30 years later and see deterioration of neighborhood because this is just a start, there is more to come.

Councilman Hogan: Mrs. Bowie, this is quite a bit of information here. I am going to need time to look through that, but one of the things I thought of just a moment ago was that the gentleman that was here a few minutes ago speaking about his property and he had a home-based business, he is a perfect example of someone that operated a home-based business and didn’t affect his neighborhood.

As you may have listened a few moments ago, he got his variance in 1995. It is the same exact situation where he was operating out of his garage and he wanted to set up a building in the back of his property, he has 3 acres and he built a good size building to operate his auto trim shop and that is in my district. I’ve passed by there over the years, several times and it is not affected the neighborhood.

So, I just wanted to let you know that there are situations. I know there is exceptions to what you are saying that some times it does lead to that, but in the case where he was just here a moment ago, it did not impede the neighborhood in any way, it did not cause a deterioration of the neighborhood.

Mrs. Bowie: So wasn’t it not, understand this, I know it is a R-1D I guess, why–the question is Sam’s was his neighbor, right. And said it was an existing building there, correct, not correct? There was a business that surrounded his home. We don’t have business next door to us.

Councilman Hogan: No ma’am, the building is not next door to him. There is another lot between him. There is a house between him and the Sam’s building and there is houses all along that road.

Mrs. Bowie: I understand.

Councilman Hogan: Well, I am just trying to help you understand. I’ve not completely made up my yet. I am just trying to bring out some things and help you understand that we may vote to uphold the ruling of the ZBA.

Mrs. Bowie: But, my thing is that we still, the neighbors don’t want it. We pick and chose where we wanted to move. That cul-de-sac was the only, Mrs. Nunley’s home was the only one there when I moved in 2 years ago. I selected that spot because it was a cul-de-sac it was quite and that it had manicured lawns and that everything was intact.

If I had known that this was a possibility, I could have made other choices. Mrs. Nunley was a resident of that area for 18 years for things to be done---

Councilman Walford: Mrs. Bowie, I am going to cut you off because it has been far beyond the 3 minutes.

Mrs. Bowie: That is fine, thank you. I appreciate it, thank you.

Elmer Nunley (4103 Santa Monica Court): I just wanted to comment on the covenant that he asked about. The covenant does not state anything about detached dwelling. It states that if a building is built, it had to be on the same design as the home that you live in, that is what the covenant states. It does state anything about a business being (inaudible) from a detached dwelling and, when we built this building outside, we did not foresee any problems.

And, as I said before, I hate this has gone this far. It has raised a mockery out of me, my family, and my home, and the neighborhood itself. I have been there 19 years and I’ve always tried to be the one who do what is right in the neighborhood, and I’ve always done what was right for that neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I am the President of the Neighborhood Association, myself. So I don’t understand how this got this far with my neighbors and it has become a problem and a mockery for not only us, but you the Council and the Councilman in our district.

I hope that we can come to a solution for this problem that will be best for all of us. But, the covenant does not state anything about what can go on from a detached dwelling. It only states that if a building is built, detached from your home, it must be in the same design as your home or the same material as your home. I have tried to abide by these rule every since moved in that area and I have tried to inform other people who had planned on moving in that area or who have moved in that area, to do the same.

So if there is anyone here from the Zoning Board who know that we are not trying to get the area re-zoned, we are just asking for an exemption to move out of the house into an office area that is into, that is built onto the storage area in which we have built.

CONSENT AGENDA LEGISLATION:

TO INTRODUCE RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES ON CONSENT:

Motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for Introduction of Ordinances 98 and 99 to lay over until the August 12, 2003 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

RESOLUTIONS: None.

ORDINANCES:

1. Ordinance No. 98 of 2003: An ordinance to create and establish a stop intersection at the intersection of Ashley Ridge Boulevard and North Ashley Ridge Loop and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

2. Ordinance No. 99 of 2003: An ordinance to create and establish a yield intersection at the Intersection of Darien Street and Mabel Street and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

TO ADOPT RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES ON CONSENT:

RESOLUTIONS: None.

ORDINANCES: None.

REGULAR AGENDA LEGISLATION:

The Deputy Clerk read the resolution by title: Resolution No. 53 of 2003: A resolution authorizing purchase of Snap II properties from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Lester to postpone the resolution until the August 12, 2003 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

Councilman Carmody: I have a question for the Administration. In that we’ve postponed this again, do we have a time-frame when we might be able to bring this legislation forward for consideration?

Mayor Hightower: At this time, we don’t.

RESOLUTION NO. 106 OF 2003

A RESOLUTION AMENDING SECTION 1 OF THE CITY COUNCIL RULES OF PROCEDURE BY ADDING SUBSECTION 1.14 RELATIVE TO CARRYING OF SIGNS AND RELATED MATTERS AND OTHERWISE PROVIDING WITH RESPECT THERETO.

By: Councilman Hogan

WHEREAS, it is in the public interest, and the public demands, that meetings of the City Council in handling the public's business, be conducted in an orderly and dignified manner; and

WHEREAS, the City Council has found that the display and waving of signs during a meeting while other persons are speaking is distracting to both the speaker and the audience because it diverts attention from the subject being discussed; and

WHEREAS, the display of signs frequently obstructs the view of persons in the audience in seeing the person speaking and obstructs the view of persons on the dias in seeing persons in the audience; and

WHEREAS, the display of signs directly behind a speaker may be misleading to persons watching the meeting on television by making it unclear whether the speaker is also a proponent or sponsor of the sign.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport in due, legal and regular session convened that Section 1.14 of the Rules of Procedure of the City Council is hereby added to read as follows:

1.14. Carrying of Signs.

(a) No sign, poster, placard, or similar item shall be displayed in the City Council chamber (or any other room in which a City Council meeting is held) during a meeting of the City Council, except as provided in subsection (b).

(b) Such a sign may be displayed by a person whose request to speak has been approved by the Council, during the person’s allotted time to speak.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if any provision of this resolution or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this resolution which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications and to this end the provisions of this resolution are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Hogan, seconded by Councilman Gibson to passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

The Deputy Clerk read the resolution by title: Resolution No. 107 of 2003: A resolution authorizing the execution of a contract with BFI Waste Systems of Louisiana, L.L.C ., and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for passage. The Council considered the following amendment:

Amendment No. 1:

By: Councilman Carmody

Amend the resolution as follows:

Delete the first WHEREAS clause and substitute the following clause:

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport desires to enter into a nine (9) year contract with BFI Waste Systems of Louisiana, L.L.C. ("BFI") for the operation of the Woolworth Road Sanitary Landfill, the Recyclery, and the Buyback Center (collectively "the facilities"); and

Amend the NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED clause as follows:

On the last line after 2003, add the following: ", as amended" .

Amend the contract as follows:

Delete Paragraph IX, styled "Term" and substitute the following Paragraph IX:

IX.

Term

This Contract shall be for a period of nine (9) years commencing on the date of execution of the Contract by the parties. In the event the parties execute the Contract on different dates, this Contract shall commence on the date the last party signs this document.

Explanation of amendment:

This amendment reduces the term of the contract from 25 years to 9 years. Nine (9) years is the number of years remaining on the current contract.

Motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for adoption of the Amendment.

Councilman Gibson: Mr. Strong, my question and again, I appreciate Councilman Carmody’s amendment, but after we talked yesterday you gave kind of an overview of this particular proposal with BFI in terms of extension. And I am still a little bit confused in my mind but if I could ask you to focus specifically because again, we all sit up here and we have been dealing with several things in our tenure with this new Council dealing with liability and we are all cognizant of the fact that we are faced with decision-making that affect liability. One thing that I picked up in your conversation or your presentation yesterday on this particular item is on the, and obviously dealing with environmental issues, there is a lot of liability and I would like you to kind of expand or discuss and talk to this Council about what we are dealing with in terms of the liabilities, because that is something that I specifically clued in on what you were talking about yesterday in terms of extending this contract from nine (9) to twenty-eight (28)/twenty-five (25) years?

Mr. Strong: Twenty-five years. Liability is definitely, probably one of the biggest issues that you are looking at because of being a landfill and the environmental issues that arise from that. One of the things that we have done at the City when we went back, past Administrations, was to contract out the landfill by a true professional company that knew how to do that.

And in bringing that company in 1986 or 1987 when we brought them in, we have seen it was, I believe, an original ten year had been extended to a 25 year contract. One of the things that is there is that, you are dealing with one company. They are good company. They have got a good record with the Environmental Quality of Louisiana. And, if you start moving to other companies that are out there, then you are going to get into issues of liability of the sharing of liability or does one company, do they cause a problem or whatever. So, I saw this that when we were putting this together, of trying to bring all of the amendments now, is to give the City a long life in a landfill where you’ve got an existing company that is doing a good job, that as far as pricing is competitive and that it keeps our liability to a minimal amount and that is dealing with the one company. There is no question about if there is a problem that happens at the landfill what happen and who are we dealing with and that would be with BFI.

Councilman Gibson: And so in doing some visits with some environmental companies this morning because of my concern about the liability, I guess what I heard from some of the professionals out there, continuity is a critical point in having an extension of what y’all are proposing here in terms of length of contract because of a potential break in information flow if some liability come back with DEQ or EPA tied in with our landfill which we are ultimately responsible, correct?

Mr. Strong: Definitely. There is no question on that because we are in a situation that something is not broke and we are not trying to fix it. We are just trying to help the City for a longer period of time.

Councilman Lester: I defer first to Councilman Carmody and then to Mr. Strong. First to Councilman Carmody, since you are the author of the amendment. Can you explain the rational behind, if you could for me, your amendment.

Councilman Carmody: Basically, Councilman Lester, my amendment is to make the agreement to follow the same time frame as the existing agreement with BFI as opposed to extending it for an additional 25 years to 2028.

Councilman Lester: I guess my question is, what is the rational for changing what the Administration is pro posing? Is that do you believe that there is problem with BFI?

Councilman Carmody: No, sir it is not that I have any problem with BFI. I think that we have an existing agreement with them. What I have heard and reviewing the packet it just said that this would be a 4th Amendment on the existing contract and therefore instead of doing another 4th Amendment, that we go ahead and do a whole new contract and extend out that period of time. And at this point, I not sure that I feel that it is prudent to extend the period of time beyond the nine years that we currently have under contract with this company.

Councilman Lester: When you say, I mean, when you are not prudent, I mean, is there a problem that you see in the way that BFI has administered the contract or do you think that we are losing money? The reason I ask that question, quite obviously you were here before I’ve served and if there was an issue I would ask Mr. Strong have we had any problems with BFI in terms of their liability? Have we had any problem with BFI in terms of operation of the landfill? If so please because I haven’t heard any of them.

And the other question that I would ask would be is this a scenario that is going to benefit the City? In other words, what the Administration is proposing the 25 years versus the 9 years, is this going to inure to the benefit of the City and the citizens or are we going to be putting ourselves in a detrimental relationship? I ask that question because when you talk about long-term deals those are thing things that you have to, in my mind, you have to go over so I guess I would defer to you on those issues, Mr. Strong.

Mr. Strong: Councilman, if I could get it to 2050, I think it would be good because you are dealing with a company that has done a good job environmentally. We are putting the City in a situation that we are dealing with one company, not multiple companies. When you come out and you start going to court and trying to figure out who did what, I think without a doubt this is in the best interest of the City. Because if they had not have done a good job, I would have been in here before the contract was over trying to get them out.

But we are in a situation that we are seeing an excellent track record, and I felt like that it was definitely in the best interest of the City to get it extended.

And then also another deal, was to add the component of the household hazardous waste which is, over 25 year period, I mean, we are talking about I think almost $700,000 ($600 and some odd thousand dollars) that we will be getting from that where initially there was a 5-year program for that and that has expired and so we are getting that. So, I felt very comfortable that we can do this with the extension.

Councilman Lester: So with an extension are you saying that we are going to continue our relationship that has been positive with the City and we are going to gain revenue from that?

Mr. Strong: Yes sir.

Councilman Lester: Thank you, I have nothing further.

Councilman Hogan: Mr. Strong, I know we discussed this some yesterday and you have to forgive me if you said this, I was talking to someone else on something part of the time you were speaking, but who initiated this? Whose idea was this to? Did BFI come to us and say, we’d like to renew this contract or was it our idea?

Mr. Strong: It was our idea.

Councilman Hogan: And on the $25,000 payment, whoever negotiated the contract and they were able to get us this $25,000 payment could you just clarify that for me of what that is and is that a set rate. It is not based upon revenue, it won’t fluctuate, is it for the whole 25 year term, things like that.

Mr. Strong: That is correct. Twenty five thousand dollars ($25,000) for 25 years per year.

Councilman Hogan: Twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) per year.

Mr. Strong: Yes, sir.

Councilman Hogan: Now, that money will go into?

Mr. Strong: Household hazardous Waste Collection Program that we have set up that we do once a year. It cost the City approximately $72- to $75,000 a year to do. BFI is going to be paying $25,000 into it. The City of Shreveport pays into it and Caddo Parish pays into it and also the City of Bossier. Bossier Parish is the only area that does not pay into this program.

Councilman Hogan: One more question. Would there ever be scenario where and I’ve not read the contract but would there ever be a situation where they would sub something out, where they would farm out a certain type of operation of the landfill?

Mr. Strong: No sir. Excuse me on that. What do you mean, like some of the environmental side of?

Councilman Hogan: Well in any area. In any operation out there whether it is the, I can’t think of what the operations might be, but would there ever come time when they could based upon the contract language say, we are going to sub this part of it out?

Mr. Strong: Grass cutting is a part of it and I would think that could very well be a possibility. I am not whether or not they do it with their own personnel or whether they do sub that out. I know for years out there, that they work with the neighborhood and some of the people had some brushhog business out there and they were having them come in and do some grass cutting, so the answer to your question is, yes, I think they have sub-ed out some of the work to that and in fact that was one of the issues when we put in the landfill back during the mid- to late -80s was there was some resistance on having a landfill out there. And I think that Woolworth Landfill has turned out to be a good neighborhood through the area. We share the road with the Parish. We are involved in the overlay of the Parish road. We widened the section where the landfill is and the landfill is set off of the road, so.

I think it has become a decent area and one of the things that we were looking at is that the property values have not deteriorated, in there, and they have not because we are finding that out when we tried to look for more property out there.

Councilman Hogan: One more quick question for you and I’ll let you go. In this scenario where you just mentioned about the grass cutting, for example who would assume the liability if they hired XYZ company to come cut the grass and somebody got hurt. I mean, is that language in the contract that BFI would assume full responsibility for that?

Mr. Strong: BFI. Yes, it is there operations today, yes, Sir.

Councilman Carmody: Mike, I did want to make sure that my math was correct. Twenty-five thousand at 25 years is $625,000 and not $700,000 (at least according to my calculator). How much is—

Mr. Strong: You might have written it down however, I was doing it in my head.

Councilman Carmody: I didn’t want you to have to pull of your shoes. What is the annual consideration paid to BFI to operate this facility? Again, I am not asking you to pull your shoes off, if you could just give us a ball park.

Mr. Strong: I think Tom Dark is probably closer on the numbers off hand.

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Dark, can you help us?

Mr. Dark: Mr. Carmody, it is based on the number of tons that are disposed off out there.

Councilman Carmody: What would be the average with you just guessing?

Mr. Dark: I’m guessing somewhere in the eight million range for this current year.

Mr. Strong: That is what I was thinking.

Councilman Carmody: And at this point, they have agreed in the past to pay us $25,000 a year of the eight million approximately that–and I think that, that is a tremendous thing for them to assist the City in that capacity, I know it helps offsets some of our costs.

I want Mr. Lester and the rest of the Council members to understand that I am not trying to cast any dispersions on this particular company. What I am saying is, it is my belief that we have a 9 years remaining on the existing term of our agreement with BFI and it is my belief that in the free market that if at some point the taxpayers have the benefit of basically shopping the operation of our landfill, we could probably get a more competitive rate and again, that might not be true but we will not know if we grant 25 years to this particular company.

Yesterday, you made a comment about the fact that the company will remain liable for the landfill and I might not be an attorney, but I do have enough experience in dealing with commercial real estate to know that, the owner of the property is the primary person on the hook for the liability, okay, regardless of who is operating that property. I mean the DEQ and of course your experience has been with that particular organization, I think you would probably agree with me that the principle person in title is going to be held accountable for what occurs there regardless to whether or not you have a tenant or someone operating your business on the site.

So, I understand it is nice to have someone who is certified and I would look for this community to do so to make sure that the company was apprized of the environmental regulations that they are required to operate under to keep us in compliance and I am sure BFI does that as any other company that does this type of work. But my feeling is that it would be best for the community to allow this contract to reach its existing limit, which would be nine years from now, and at that point, allow this community and another Administration and Council to put it out for competitive bid. We might not find that there is someone else that could be more competitive than our existing contractor, but we will not know if we look ourselves out that possibility.

Mr. Strong: And I will say one thing to that and I think you know that I don’t necessarily agree. I think---

Councilman Carmody: I take that to be the fact.

Mr. Strong: I think the situation on this to me is the importance to the City is liability. The situation, when you are dealing with environmental issue, you are not dealing with a couple of bucks. You are going to be dealing with millions if not tens of millions of dollars on, when you are talking about situations of a landfill. And, I have been involved while I was with the DEQ down in New Orleans, of a landfill that was costing tens of millions of dollars that they was having address where they ended up being a (inaudible) of; so, things of that sort happen.

And, I guess I was looking at it more on a situation of what is best for the City in the long-run. A few pennies here and there is not going to be the situation that we are dealing with if something happens out there that we can go to somebody that has the funding and the background. Brown and Ferris (BFI) has the permit. It is there shown on the permit as the operator. They are liable, that is in there. Without a doubt, we are the owners of the property, we are liable.

You start dealing with other companies that is out here and you start getting into a situation where you have some sort of environmental excursion from the sites, then who are you dealing with if the other company has been there for a few years. Did they cause it or did this company cause it? We are going to be in court.

I am looking at this as we are dealing with one company, that is where I felt like and really if we can get additional property out there, and I thought that we could get 50-75 years I would be comfortable with that. But if we had a bad company that we were not doing good thing then our contract allows us to get rid of them, but we do have a good company, so that is my view.

Councilman Carmody: I want to makes sure that I understand what you are telling me. If you terminate your agreement or should I say, if the City should terminate their agreement with the existing contractor, the operator of our landfill, they liability ceases at that point and the City takes it all on without, I mean, they walk away?

Mr. Strong: No sir.

Councilman Carmody: Oh, they don’t?

Mr. Strong: No sir.

Councilman Carmody: Okay, in the same way if 9 nine years from now, the City went out to competitive bid and another company and again, I am not familiar with the particular companies that are certified to do this type of work, but I am sure that this community would be prudent enough to make sure that we were dealing with those companies to be certified to do this type of work, that anyone that took over the operation from the day that existing contractor was relieved of their duty and capacity would understand that they now assume the liability I’m sure from any, that day forward for anything that they are doing, is that correct?

Mr. Strong: Correct.

Councilman Carmody: So, regardless as to whether or not it is tomorrow that we would terminate this agreement, 9 years from today or 2028 BFI would remain liable for the part that they are involved with, is that not correct?

Mr. Strong: That is correct.

Councilman Carmody: Okay. I just want to make sure that, I understood that correctly.

Mr. Strong: Go a little further on that. When something leaks out of the site, what part did it come from? Did it come from the part that BFI was on or did it come for XYZ Company? What material was it? When did it come in? Are we going to get into potential lawsuits. I’m not an attorney of finding out which company allowed that to happen, that’s what I’m saying is there is no question BFI is going to be liable.

We get into it, in another company and they are here for 5, 7, 10 years and something happens, then we are going to have to be in a research program of trying to figure out where did it come from, what part of the site did it come from, where is the flume what did this, and that is what I’m looking at.

Councilman Carmody: Let me read from the contract though just so that we are again on the same page. Under VIII. Following closure of the Landfill Site or termination of this agreement, Contractor (BFI) is responsible for final closure of all areas that have been filled by Contractor with solid waste. City will give contractor a final inspection within thirty (30) days after closure of Landfill Site or termination of this Agreement to ensure all final closure terms are met.

Mr. Strong: True.

Councilman Carmody: Well in essence Mike then if we, excuse me, Mr. Strong if we terminated our agreement with them as I say either tomorrow or either 9 years from now, we are still going to have a time period in which they are going to be required to make sure that they produce to us that everything is acceptable at that point, is that not correct?

Mr. Strong: Without a question.

Councilman Carmody: And you are not going to let them out of that contract or release them from any further liability until you have the assurance that everything copesthetic.

Mr. Strong: And we do not see the bottom of the landfill.

Councilman Carmody: Alright. My point being here gentlemen is that we have an agreement and I think this original agreement, was it not for what was the original term?

Mr. Strong: Ten years.

Councilman Carmody: Ten years and we have nine years left remaining?

Mr. Strong: No sir.

Councilman Carmody: Then please come back. Where are we in the contract. The original term was for 10 years. It was renewed for an additional term of?

Mr. Strong: There was when the recycling, I think, recycling and the composting was done, it was given a 25 year contract, and that period of time. There is nine years left upon that 25 years.

Councilman Carmody: And we want to give them an additional 25 years now or basically taking it to 2028?

Mr. Strong: That is correct.

Councilman Carmody: My vote is going to reflect that I do feel like it is in the best interest of the community at this point to allow the existing term of this agreement to stand at 9 years and that I think that it would certainly serve to keep our present contractor fully notified that the City wants to make sure that everything is up to par which it obviously has been and again not to cast any dispersions but that, some point probably, I would think within a 36 month period of that 9 year date, that we would be looking at the potential for shopping, the contractor for this landfill and that they would be aware of that and that they would take all prudent measures to assure the community, as I am sure they already do that everything is done in accord with the regulations that they must meet in order for us to maintain our landfill and keep it open. And, I’m sure that they are doing a good job out there and I would look for them to continue to do a good job through the term of this agreement.

Councilman Jackson: I really just want to reiterate, I think very often we mix our decisions because I think at the end of the day we are suppose to take care of this as a business matter and I think as a matter of doing business.

One of the conditions in my opinion for doing business right or for doing good business is that very often you benefit and you expand upon your relationship with individuals and I think to threaten people over the course of the next nine years to maybe hope we will get another price, I think is not good business for period who have been good business partners. And I think if they have been good business partners for us, well we can look to do is expand upon that relationship with them. I think the most prudent business decision would be to build on a positive relationship rather than going back out and saying over the course of the next nine years it would be prudent for you to come back and gives us a better deal than we have. I think if we would consummate a longer term relationship, it would make more sense in the context of that relationship to then go back and ask if in fact they could give us some inducements that may be palatable to this Council or to whatever it is that Councilman Carmody is insinuating.

So, I think that I would ask that we would move to extend this contract to 2023 in an effort to build a relationship with a company who has proven to be, at least in Mr. Strong’s opinion and the Administration opinion, a good business partner so I’d like to ask us to build on that relationship.

Councilman Gibson: Just a couple of comments and it was going back to Mr. Strong regarding indemnification by BFI, if they are hiring somebody out there on their premises and they get hurt, obviously is going to attach everybody but they are indemnifying and holding harmless City of Shreveport for any of their employees or subcontractors they’ve got on that site?

Mayor Hightower: That’s true.

Mr. Strong: They have all of the insurance. . . .

Councilman Gibson: And they’ve got certificate of insurance and everything required?

Mr. Strong: Yes, sir. All their insurance plus performance bonds, everything.

Councilman Gibson: And again after doing some review with certain people in the industry and obviously the industry I represent have a lot of same concerns in terms of, with your background and experience with DEQ and what we seen just in the last 5-years with environmental regulations coming out of Washington D. C. and Baton Rouge, from what I’m gathering, we are going to see more stringent requirements instead of less stringent requirements in terms of our landfill, is that correct?

Mr. Strong: They are happening every day.

Councilman Gibson: And again, I use the word continuity in my previous statements only from the standpoint that we deal, it is like an owner dealing with multiple contractors out there. The owner will spend a lot of money in litigation trying to determine who exactly is liable and I kind of use that same parallel in the industry I represent in terms of what we are dealing with here that and I’m sure there is a lot more problems that can occur with a massive landfill that we are dealing with here. But I’m focused on the continuity aspect of this liability side of things which again, I’m going to think worse case scenario at some point and time we are going to be faced with additional burden of which to have somebody from start to finish is going to help our case better than hurt our case, in terms of working with EPA and DEQ, so that is how my vote will reflect in this particular item.

Councilman Lester: Just a couple of comments, I would hope that if in fact we don’t do the 25 year scenario and we are looking at switching companies, I would hope that either my son or my daughter has their license to practice at that time, and if there is an issue that they could represent them because I can know for a certain, that my grandkids’ college will be paid for.

There is one thing that is certain that when you talking switching liability in something like this like a landfill you are talking about millions and millions of dollars. This is not a car or this is not a house, this is talking about people’s life and we are talking about millions upon millions of dollars. We are talking about federal money, that is why there are very few companies that perform this type of work. We are talking about do you want Coke or do you want Pepsi. I mean right now, we have Coke. Some people might like Pepsi but coke is working for us. Over the life of the contract we are going to save some money. In fact, we are going to make some money. I’ve heard us talking about reducing a lot of decisions when we chose to financial considerations so I think that would be enough in and of itself. Nothing that I’ve heard either from the Councilman or from the Administration says that the entity that e are dealing with has done a disservice, has done a poor job or anything of that nature.

I haven’t, this is my first time on the Council, but as I appreciate it Councilman Carmody you voted for long term deals that having gone beyond the confines of one particular Council. So I mean, I don’t think this is scenario where it is unprecedented and our conscious is particularly shocked. It would be a different scenario if we had situation where BFI was doing a poor job, BFI was a poor corporate citizen, BFI was not taking care of the business, but the fact of the matter is they done that and they’ve done more.

I think that the benefit that we have with the City of Shreveport is we have in an individual like Mike Strong who is recognized not only in the confines of the City of Shreveport but the State but I would dare say this country as an expert in environmental issues. We couldn’t get better advise on something like this if we paid for it and certainly if we go litigation, we will be paying dearly.

He says it is a good deal, I think the Administration says it is a good deal. From my reading I think it is a good deal. Yet, you maintain a stream of liability with one individual because trust me, once we switch if there is a scenario that happens at that landfill the first thing for the first few years of litigation and I do mean ‘years’ will be who did what and when. And trust me like I said, I only hope that Kaylee or Trey has their license to practice and they get a piece of that litigation because I know my great grandkids will get paid.

So, I just think that this is scenario where we’ve got a good scenario and I would ask that we would defeat this amendment and move forward on Item 107. [Councilman Hogan called for the question, seconded by Councilman Jackson and unanimously approved.]

Amendment denied by the following vote: Nays: Councilman Lester, Walford, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 5. Ayes: Councilman Carmody. 1. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

Motion by Councilman Jackson for adoption of the resolution, seconded by Councilman Lester passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 5. Nays: Councilman Carmody. 1. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

RESOLUTION NO. 107 OF 2003

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION OF A CONTRACT WITH BFI WASTE SYSTEMS OF LOUISIANA, L.L.C., AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport, Department of Operational Services, Solid Waste Division, desires to enter into a twenty-five (25) year contract with BFI Waste Systems of Louisiana, L.L.C. ("BFI") for the operation of the Woolworth Road Sanitary Landfill, the Recyclery, and the Buyback Center (collectively "the facilities"); and

WHEREAS, BFI possesses the qualifications and experience necessary to operate the facilities in accordance with the terms of the contract and applicable provisions of federal, state and local law.

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, regular and legal session convened that the Mayor is authorized to execute a contract with BFI Waste Systems of Louisiana, L.L.C., substantially and in accordance with the draft thereof which was filed for public inspection in the Office of the Clerk of Council on June 24, 2003.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that if any provision or item of this resolution or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this resolution which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications and to this end the provisions of this resolution are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all ordinances or resolutions or parts thereof in conflict are hereby repealed.

RESOLUTION NO. 108 OF 2003

The following resolution was offered by Councilman Carmody and seconded by Councilman Green:

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT TO EXECUTE AND DELIVER A MASTER SWAP AGREEMENT WITH JP MORGAN CHASE BANK WITH RESPECT TO THE AGGREGATE PRINCIPAL AMOUNT OF $30,000,000 LOUISIANA LOCAL GOVERNMENT ENVIRONMENTAL FACILITIES AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY REVENUE BONDS (CITY OF SHREVEPORT/INDEPENDENCE STADIUM PROJECT) SERIES 2000 AND SERIES 2002A AND PROVIDE FOR OTHER MATTERS IN CONNECTION THEREWITH.

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport (the "City") has caused the Louisiana Local Government Environmental Facilities and Community Development Authority (the "Authority") to issue the Revenue Bonds (City of Shreveport/Independence Stadium Project) Series 2000 and Series 2000A which bear interest at a variable rate; and

WHEREAS, JP Morgan Chase Bank (the "Bank") has made a proposal to swap the interest rate on the Bonds to a fixed rate (the "Swap") which will result in a savings to the City; and

WHEREAS, this City Council desires to authorize the Mayor to enter into the Master Swap Agreement and other related documents.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, BY THE City Council of the City of Shreveport, in legal session convened, acting as the governing authority thereof, that:

Section 1. Authorization. The City Council hereby authorizes the Mayor to execute and deliver a Master Swap Agreement (the "Swap") between the City and the Bank and other necessary documents in connection therewith. The Mayor in conjunction with the Director of Finance is authorized to approve the final terms and conditions of the Swap and the execution of the Swap shall be conclusive evidence of his approval, agreement and acceptance.

Section 2. The Mayor or Director of Finance are authorized and empowered to take any and all further action to sign any and all documents, instruments and writings as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this Resolution.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Gibson, seconded by Councilman Carmody for passage.

Councilman Carmody: I was hoping that the Administration could apprize us basically of what the effect of this particular what the effect of this resolution would be. If I remember correct Mr. Antee, I think we had some kind of fluctuating interest rate?

Mr. Antee: . . . and John can explain that. I will note that the savings that we have accumulated, I think we got a statement, I think yesterday totals about $3.3 million since we first borrowed this money as to what the interest rate was at the time at 6.25% and what we had been paying on the fluctuating rate.

Shaun Tuff with King Foche, Nusiki and Holly: As you know you all have bonds outstanding that finance the Independence Stadium renovations that are on a floating rate basis right now. Basically those bonds float with the market, they are re-marketed every week and the rate has averaged over the past year, probably 1 to 1 to 1..25 which has been tremendous for the City, saved bunch of money.

We are also at a unique time in the market where this deficiencies to be gained through interest rate swaps which are, hard to believe we can actually lower the floating rate below what it is now. Your bonds float right now based off a BMA Index and they adjust weekly at a rate of approximately BMA plus 48 basis points. In conjunction with J. P. Morgan, who is currently re-marketing your bonds on a weekly basis, we will re-market those bonds to a fixed rate for 5 years and swap them back to a floating, so the effect to the city would be the same, you will still be paying the floating rate just like you are but instead of being a BMA Index plus 48 basis points, you will be a BMA Index plus about 28 basis points. So it saves you an additional 20 basis points over what you are paying now. Everything else works the same for the City, it is still a floating rate. It looks the same, it smells the same. It is not a re-issuance of bonds, there is no major work to do there. Deficiency in the market that can save you some more money.

Councilman Lester: Are we having minority counsel that is working as part of this issue?

Shawn: Yes, sir.

Resolution passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, and Hogan. 5. Nays: None. Out of Chamber: Councilman Jackson. 1. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

RESOLUTION NUMBER 111 OF 2003

A RESOLUTION DECLARING THE CITY’S INTEREST IN A CERTAIN ADJUDICATED PROPERTY AS SURPLUS AND OTHERWISE PROVIDING WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, there are numerous parcels of property which have been adjudicated to the City of Shreveport and Caddo Parish for non-payment of ad valorem taxes; and

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport has entered into an intergovernmental agreement with Caddo Parish under which Caddo Parish will undertake to sell or donate said properties as authorized in R.S. 33:4720.11 or R.S. 33:4720.25; and

WHEREAS, pursuant to Section 26-294 of the Code of Ordinances, the city’s interests in said properties can be sold after the City Council declares them to be surplus; and

WHEREAS, the purchasing agent has inquired of all city departments regarding the property described herein and has not received any indication that it is needed for city purposes.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport in due, regular and legal session convened that the following described properties are hereby declared surplus:

A tract of land 44' x 125' located Geographic Number 181417-013-0510

in Lot 445 of the Jones-Mabry Subdivision,

Unit No. Seven (7)

Municipal Address: 2155 Isaac Dr. P/D

Council District "A"

Lot 1, Westwood Park Subdivision, Unit 1 Geographic Number 171417-013-0001

Municipal Address: 12744 None

Council District "G"

Lot 2, Westwood Park Subdivision, Unit 1 Geographic Number 171417-013-0002

Municipal Address: 12745 None

Council District "G"

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if any provision or item of this resolution or the application thereof be held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this resolution which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items, or applications, and to this end the provisions of this resolution are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Lester, seconded by Councilman Gibson passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, and Hogan. 5. Nays: None. Out of Chamber: Councilman Jackson. 1. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

RESOLUTION NO. 112 of 2003

RESOLUTION STATING CITY OF SHREVEPORT’S ENDORSEMENT OF LUSK-DALE PROPERTIES, LLC TO PARTICIPATE IN THE BENEFITS OF THE LOUISIANA ENTERPRISE ZONE PROGRAM AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Act of 901 of 1981, Act 337 of 1982, Act 433 of 1987, Act 1024 of 1992, Act 581 of 1995, Act 624 of 1997, and Act 997 of 1999;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program offers significant incentives for economic development to some of the most distressed areas in parish, and

WHEREAS, LUSK-DALE PROPERTIES, LLC is located in Census Tract 239.03 Block Group 2 , which is a designated Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, said business will employ a minimum of 35% of its employees from the distressed groups targeted by the Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport states this endorsement is in agreement with the Overall Economic Development Plan for the City of Shreveport, and

WHEREAS, the attached Enterprise Zone map is marked showing the location of the business being endorsed, and

WHEREAS, in accordance with the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program requirements the City of Shreveport agrees:

1. To participate in the Enterprise Zone Program

2. To assist the Department in evaluating progress made in any Enterprise Zone within its jurisdiction

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City of Shreveport, in due, regular, and legal session convened that LUSK-DALE PROPERTIES, LLC and their project NEW MEDICAL CLINIC, Enterprise Zone Application # 2003-0233, is endorsed to participate in the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if any provision or item of this resolution or the

application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this resolution which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications and to this end the provisions of this resolution are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Gibson , seconded by Councilman Carmody for passage.

Councilman Lester: As I appreciate, this is giving this entity an opportunity to participate into the Enterprise Zone for tax benefit. Do we have anyone that can state affirmatively, whether or not that they are going to actually hire somebody from an enterprise zone or someone that is currently on public assistance. Who is the person that will check to make sure that is completed, to the Administration?

Councilman Walford: Welcome Mrs. Moore. There is another issue besides property standards for us. Can you help with Councilman Lester’s question, please ma’am.

Mrs. Moore: I can not answer that question but I will get an answer for you.

Councilman Lester: Okay. My other question would be, who is the party that designated in the Administration to make sure that, because as I appreciate it with the enterprise zone program, we confirm them a tax benefit and one of the benefits that they say is, they are going to hire somebody from either economically distressed area, person that lives in the enterprise zone, either or but that person is someone that’s on some form of public assistance.

Mrs. Moore: Yes, that is correct.

Councilman Lester: My question is, whose job is it in the Administration to make sure that in fact after we confer these folks the benefit that they actually do what they say they are going to do in terms of hiring somebody that is either in an economically disadvantaged situation or lives in the enterprise zone, either or, but is someone on public assistance. Whose job is that?

Mrs. Moore: I am assuming that it is our job to do that and that we would do by (inaudible) as a result of that.

Councilman Jackson: Just for information for Mr. Lester. It is not the City’s job it is the State’s job. And what happens is the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program is a state program. We are just endorsing this person for that. What happens is, those people who live within the enterprise zone and who meet those standards as it relates to income barriers and those things, it is the responsibility of that business to document that that was in the fact the case and then state basically, for a lack of a better term, rebates the credits toward against tax liability in future years.

Councilman Lester: I understand that and I’m asking the question for a reason. The reason I’m asking that question going into it in one of my former lives with the African-American Chamber of Commerce, we authored a bill in the Legislature, that House Bill 214 to change the statute because what typically happens is you come to the city and saying we are going to hire someone from an economically disadvantaged area or someone from an enterprise zone and there is someone on public assistance but once we’ve endorsed it, there is nothing from the State that actually says, we are going to make sure that happens. So I mean, I understand that but the question I was asking was somewhat rhetorical but my point is, if we are going as a City Council and I understand that there is a certain amount of (inaudible) that we have in terms of dealing with city statutes and state statutes, but I just believe that if we going to give this benefit to a business and we are going to be the body that starts that, at least in some point initiates that process, then I would think that someone on this side of the fence would check up on these individuals and to use Councilman Carmody’s language, I am not casting any aspersions on anybody (Councilman Carmody: Well said.) I would just think (I try), I would like to say that we should in fact, someone should make sure that they are going to do what they say they are going to do, that is all I am saying so that is why I ask.

Because in my district a lot of times you have these people that come in that are these multi-million dollar businesses and they are taking advantage of the enterprise zone program, but they don’t bit more hire anybody from the MLK/Allendale/Hollywood or anything than a man in the moon and they certainly don’t have anyone that is working on their staff that is on public assistance. So it is like, at one point are we going to confer the benefit to make sure everyone does what they say they are going to do.

So, that is all I was asking. So, if it is in fact no one’s responsibility from the City to make sure that happens, then I guess the rhetorical question would be, I would like for someone to be able to take that responsibility and I appreciate you Mrs. Moore for saying that you will check on that.

Mrs. Moore: I certainly will.

Councilman Lester: And that is my concern. And I would say, again, that would be my concern without going back into this on each and everyone of these issues that someone from the City should make sure that in fact as we are conferring this benefit to them in terms of the rebate or what have you, on our sides of the street that they follow through with what they are going to do and report back to us that, they do.

Councilman Jackson: I think the only, and Councilman Lester I think I understand what Councilman Lester is saying as it relates as to wanting to know. The problem is that this kind of a program we would have to be reactionary in this program because the business has to qualify for these particular credits and the state has to check out everything that they said and I might add, a person who is disadvantaged who counts as a person who would be eligible for that business to receive a credit has to work there for a certain length of time. And what happens is, I think the only thing that the City could possible do or we as the Council and the City if you will could possible even do seeing that this is under the auspice of the State, is perhaps as a condition of endorsement, ask that whenever the state grants those credits or whatever they submit to the State to get the credits, if they dont mind, if it is certainly not something that is going to infringe upon their privacy or whatever if they could give us a copy of those things I think that would probably be--we have no authority over it but that may be something that we could utilize and leverage as a condition for endorsement as a municipality so I think if we maybe ask for that kind of a scenario but we have to also remember that, if they are granted that today it will be 2005 before we could really before we could really see some results from what may have happened; so, I think that may be what we can do is ask for those kind of reports as a condition of municipal endorsement.

Mr. Chair, I know we have a motion on the floor. Is it possible to accept 112 thru 115 at the same time?

Councilman Walford: My ruling would be to go ahead and vote on 112 and then if you would like to make the motion to adopt the other three, that would certainly be in order.

Councilman Jackson: I just wanted to know if there was a way to do more than just one at a time, that was my concern.

Resolution passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

RESOLUTION NO. 113 of 2003

RESOLUTION STATING CITY OF SHREVEPORT’S ENDORSEMENT OF DUGGAN-DAVIDSON, LLC TO PARTICIPATE IN THE BENEFITS OF THE LOUISIANA ENTERPRISE ZONE PROGRAM AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Act of 901 of 1981, Act 337 of 1982, Act 433 of 1987, Act 1024 of 1992, Act 581 of 1995, Act 624 of 1997, and Act 997 of 1999;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program offers significant incentives for economic development to some of the most distressed areas in parish, and

WHEREAS, DUGGAN-DAVIDSON, LLC is located in Census Tract 210.00 Block Group 3, which is a designated Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, said business will employ a minimum of 35% of its employees from the distressed groups targeted by the Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport states this endorsement is in agreement with the Overall Economic Development Plan for the City of Shreveport, and

WHEREAS, the attached Enterprise Zone map is marked showing the location of the business being endorsed, and

WHEREAS, in accordance with the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program requirements the City of Shreveport agrees:

1. To participate in the Enterprise Zone Program

2. To assist the Department in evaluating progress made in any Enterprise Zone within its jurisdiction

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City of Shreveport, in due, regular, and legal session convened that DUGGAN-DAVIDSON, LLC and their project CHAD DUGGAN DESIGN, Enterprise Zone Application # 2003-0229, is endorsed to participate in the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if any provision or item of this resolution or the

application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this resolution which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications and to this end the provisions of this resolution are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Jackson, seconded by Councilman Carmody passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

RESOLUTION NO. 114 of 2003

RESOLUTION STATING CITY OF SHREVEPORT’S ENDORSEMENT OF WALGREEN CO. (#7595)TO PARTICIPATE IN THE BENEFITS OF THE LOUISIANA ENTERPRISE ZONE PROGRAM AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Act of 901 of 1981, Act 337 of 1982, Act 433 of 1987, Act 1024 of 1992, Act 581 of 1995, Act 624 of 1997, and Act 997 of 1999;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program offers significant incentives for economic development to some of the most distressed areas in parish, and

WHEREAS, WALGREEN CO. (#7595) is located in Census Tract 243.02 Block Group 3 , which is not a designated Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, said business will employ a minimum of 35% of its employees from the distressed groups targeted by the Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport states this endorsement is in agreement with the Overall Economic Development Plan for the City of Shreveport, and

WHEREAS, the attached Enterprise Zone map is marked showing the location of the business being endorsed, and

WHEREAS, in accordance with the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program requirements the City of Shreveport agrees:

1. To participate in the Enterprise Zone Program

2. To assist the Department in evaluating progress made in any Enterprise Zone within its jurisdiction

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City of Shreveport, in due, regular, and legal session convened that WALGREEN CO. (#7595) and their project NEW WALGREEN’S STORE, Enterprise Zone Application # 2003-0134, is endorsed to participate in the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if any provision or item of this resol ution or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this resolution which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications and to this end the provisions of this resolution are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Jackson, seconded by Councilman Carmody passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

RESOLUTION NO. 115 of 2003

RESOLUTION STATING CITY OF SHREVEPORT’S ENDORSEMENT OF PSO, INC. TO PARTICIPATE IN THE BENEFITS OF THE LOUISIANA ENTERPRISE ZONE PROGRAM AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Act of 901 of 1981, Act 337 of 1982, Act 433 of 1987, Act 1024 of 1992, Act 581 of 1995, Act 624 of 1997, and Act 997 of 1999;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program offers significant incentives for economic development to some of the most distressed areas in parish, and

WHEREAS, PSO, INC. is located in Census Tract 237.00 Block Group 7 , which is a designated Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, said business will employ a minimum of 35% of its employees from the distressed groups targeted by the Enterprise Zone, and

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport states this endorsement is in agreement with the Overall Economic Development Plan for the City of Shreveport, and

WHEREAS, the attached Enterprise Zone map is marked showing the location of the business being endorsed, and

WHEREAS, in accordance with the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program requirements the City of Shreveport agrees:

1. To participate in the Enterprise Zone Program

2. To assist the Department in evaluating progress made in any Enterprise Zone within its

jurisdiction

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City of Shreveport, in due, regular, and legal session convened that PSO, INC. and their project NEW STORE - SHREVEPORT, Enterprise Zone Application # 2003-0112, is endorsed to participate in the Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if any provision or item of this resolution or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this resolution which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications and to this end the provisions of this resolution are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Jackson, seconded by Councilman Carmody passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

INTRODUCTION OF RESOLUTION:

1. Resolution No. 116 of 2003: A resolution authorizing the Mayor to execute grant documents with the United States Bureau of Justice Assistance, and otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Lester, seconded by Councilman Carmody for Introduction of the Resolution to lay over until the August 12, 2003 meeting.

Councilman Gibson: Of the City matching money on this, the $21,000 where is that money coming out of? Is that coming out of the Police Department?

Mr. Dark: That is normally budgeted in the Police Department’s budget as a transfer to the Police Grants fund.

Motion passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCES:

1. Ordinance No. 100 of 2003: An ordinance to amend certain provisions of Section 42-197(a) of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances relative to Licenses Permits and Business Regulations and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

2. Ordinance No. 101 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the east side of I-49, 200 feet south of East 85th Street, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from, R-1H, Urban, One-family Residence District, to B-3, Community Business District and B-1, Buffer Business District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

3. Ordinance No. 102 of 2003: An ordinance Amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on west side of North Hearne, 1000 feet south of Forum Drive, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from B-2, Neighborhood Business District, to R-3, Urban, Multiple-family Residence District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

4. Ordinance No. 103 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on west side of Fern Avenue, 2000 feet north of Business Park Drive, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from R-1D, Urban, One-Family Residence District, to  B-1, Business Buffer District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

5. Ordinance No. 104 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the southwest corner of Meriwether Road & Jewella Avenue Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from B-3, Community Business District, to B-3-E, Community Business/Extended Use District, Limited to "Warehousing, Manufacturing, and Assembly" Only, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

6. Ordinance No. 105 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on east side of Woolworth Road 600 feet south of Shirley Francis Road, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from R-A, Residence Agriculture District, to R-1H, Urban, One-family Residence District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

7. Ordinance No. 106 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the southeasterly side of Buncombe Road, 1070 feet north of Woolworth Road, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from R-1D, Urban, One-family Residence District, to R-1D-E, Urban, One-family/Extended Use District, limited to "an Accessory Building" only and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

8. Ordinance No. 107 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located within the Huntington Park Shopping Center, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from B-3, Community Business District, to B-3-E, Community Business/Extended Use District, limited to "6 rental vehicles as applied for" only, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

9. Ordinance No. 108 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the northwest corner of Norris Ferry Road and Southern Loop, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from R-A, Residence Agriculture District, to B-2, Neighborhood Business District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Read by title and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Lester for Introduction of the Ordinances to lay over until the August 12, 2003 meeting. Motion passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

ORDINANCES ON SECOND READING AND FINAL PASSAGE:

1. Ordinance No. 82 of 2003: An ordinance amending the 2003 Budget for the Water and Sewerage Enterprise Fund and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson adopted by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

2. Ordinance No. 83 of 2003: An ordinance amending the 2003 Capital Improvements Budget and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for adoption.

The Council considered the following amendments:

Amendment No. 1:

AMEND THE ORDINANCE AS FOLLOWS:

In Program D:

Decrease the appropriation for City-Wide Drainage - 2001 Bonds (01D015) by $50,000. Funding source is 2001 GOB.

In Program F:

Decrease the appropriation for Cedar Grove Force Main Rehabilitation (99F003) by $60,200. Funding source is Water and Sewer Revenues.

Increase the appropriation for Zone 4 - 2000 Project No. 1: SSO Control Program - Wastewater Infrastructure Improvements (01F002) by $110,200. Funding sources are $60,200 from Water and Sewer Revenues and $50,000 from 2001 GOB.

Motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for adoption of Amendment No. 1. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

Amendment No. 2:

AMEND THE ORDINANCE AS FOLLOWS:

In Program H (Airports):

Increase the appropriation for Land Acquisition for Security Purposes (99-H002) by $1,000,000. Funding sources are State Grant $100,000 and Federal Aviation Administration $900,000.

Motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for adoption of Amendment No. 2.

Councilman Jackson: Just wanted to ask, you said ‘land along West 70th Street’, I was just wondering where that was. I didn’t see a map attached?

Mr. Dark: Mr. Jackson, I do not have map. I gave you what they provided me. I’d be glad to get your more information, but as I understand it this is a continuation of a program that they have bought some land previously with some federal money and they are getting some more so they can buy some more and that is about all I now about it. But we will get you the map.

Councilman Jackson: And I was just wondering if it was in District G, how much of it was I didn’t now if it started past Bert Kouns or past Pines Road?

Mr. Dark: As I understand it that part of West 70th is the part right off the end of the runway down there, so it is not going to be the part you are talking about.

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

Motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for adoption of the ordinance as amended. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

3. Ordinance No. 84 of 2003: An ordinance to amend Chapter 90 of the Code of Ordinances relative to Traffic and Vehicles and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for adoption.

Councilman Jackson: As on the last meeting and again on yesterday I was concerned and I asked the Administration with reference to a single hearing officer. This is going to change the ordinance from three person panel to a single hearing officer. The question from the Administration on yesterday, some rational if you will, as to why. My question was that I just was concerned about the omnipotence of one individual who is in fact sitting in the seat of a hearing officer as a single individual without necessarily accountability, that was my concern. I understand and I think I’ve had some of the issues addressed and I think there are some pros and cons all the way around.

I wanted to ask the Administration if, before we dealt with this amendment, this ordinance that would amend Chapter 90 that if this Council perhaps would entertain the idea of rather than looking at this, there is a model that is already in place in as it relates to our property standards officers. I don’t really have a big issue with a single individual but the current ordinance talks about a three person panel. If we are going to amend it, I would like to offer that the Property Standards officer and that model that we use in property standards, as you may know it takes only one individual who determines whether or not a house that is a candidate for demolition, it does in fact meet those requirements and that individual has the authority, as a single individual. to pass judgement, if you will on that. But there are three people who are on the group and any one of those individuals has the authority, unless that is not correct, either of those individuals has the authority to do that as a single individual, and I guess that was my concern.

I just wanted to put something in place that took away from any one individual the ability to do what I think more than one person could do. It doesn’t necessarily make them have to work on any particular rotating basis, but they would all be eligible and so my question would be whether or not the Administration would be amenable to the appointment of three people. I know before we talked about not being able to find people, but we didn’t, no one has documented the effort of looking to find individuals because I know there are a lot of people in this community would be willing to volunteer to serve in these capacities particular since that person, the only requirement as I appreciate it is that the individual must not be an employee of the City and they must be a citizen of the City of Shreveport. Those are the only two requirements that I am aware of.

I think the definition and the scope of that person’s job is narrowly defined in such way that it won’t compromise the integrity of the process. I was just asking if I am just concerned whether or not we could have three people rather one person who shoulders the full responsibility by himself or herself.

Councilman Lester: I see Mr. Jerry Jones out there, if I could ask him to come up, I have a couple of questions real quick. Could you help me and maybe some of my colleagues out in terms of what was the impetus for moving away from the three person to the one person. And, one of my concerns is and I think Councilman Jackson has very ably articulated, are we going to be creating, I guess for a lack of a better term, a judge that determines the validity of a parking citation. What exactly will be doing if we pass this particular. . .?

Mr. Jones: It is my appreciation Mr. Lester that what will happen is that the hearing officer will have one job, his job is to determine is that your car or not and that is really, the concern is, is that if I sell my car to you and very foolishly leave my license plate on there and you park in the parking meter and get a lot of parking tickets then I get the notice. I’m hauled in with a lot of parking tickets and I go to the hearing officer and say, but that is not by car, here is the Bill of Sale, he can then void those tickets as far as I’m concerned. But he does not have the ability to hear a hardship cases. The single issue is, is this your car are these your parking tickets. If they are, that money is owed, if they are not, he has the power to do something about it.

Councilman Lester: So this person will not be someone that will hear parking meter appeals, well I almost made it, the guy gave me a ticket and I was putting the money in—it is not one of those types?

Mr. Jones: It is nothing like that.

Mr. Antee: There is another situation whereby the hearing officer may decide that the car does not need to be booted and that is ‘not only it is not my car, but I paid it. Here’s my cancelled check and whatever reason it didn’t get cancelled on the computer.’

Councilman Gibson: Mr. Taft, back in the previous Council which approved the DDA taking over parking citations and making sure that, and one of the things I think I heard from the DDA of why do you want to do this is obviously making sure that people who came downtown had a good experience in terms of at least not having the hassle of finding a parking space and I appreciate you, that previous Council giving the DDA the authority to do this and obviously freeing up our police officers to focus on more serious issues around the City.

Here’s my question to you as the director and representative on your board of directors. How often and I have to assume these citations go on some kind of receivable listing. How often do y’all review that receivable listing?

Mr. Taft: Every week.

Councilman Gibson: And I realize what we are looking at here is to give and I will use the Administration’s words, more teeth for the DDA to be able to do their job because again your efficiency I will not question. Because just this year alone I think I’ve had eight tickets downtown, all of which and I do appreciate you setting up a system where I can pay that at my home with a credit card and move on, but you do a very good job, I might add. But, I guess when this thing hit in terms of the media the $1.7 million dollars obviously is something that all of us up here raised an eyebrow out significantly in the fact that obviously this body has been dealing with a lot of budgetary problems and I think we will continue to deal with that but I was just curious about the policies of that board and now, if we are successful in what we are looking at in terms of this piece of legislation that I would hope that your predecessor or person taking your place will come in and use that to its full extent because looking at some of those list, I think the top offender was 511 citations.

I expect to see several boots being placed on cars out there and if that happens to be me, so be it and I would expect my good friend Don walker to have some people out there taking a photograph of my car if that occurred. But any comments regarding that tied in and I realize that if you don’t have any teeth in the collectio n process than obviously you may be limited in what you can do. But, looking at the top 25 list that I saw early this week, there are some pretty impressive numbers, not impressive from a good standpoint, impressive from a bad standpoint.

Mr. Taft: Yes, we’ve been frustrated by the fact that ultimately payment of citations is voluntarily to a certain extent. We count on good citizenship. And, I want you to know that for the last 10 or 15 years or so we have maintained about the same level percentage of payment, it is about fifty percent (50%.) Fifty percent (50%) of the people know that if they get a ticket they ought to pay it or ultimately something might happen.

The people who are not paying on a chronic basis have decided that nothing is going to happen to them and so they don’t pay. Typically, downtowns and cities, municipalities who run parking organizations and programs have some sort of control over that. They either issue a summons for those people to appear in to court and explain to a judge why they haven’t paid their parking ticket or they have some sort of booting mechanism. And, I have to tell you that as far as efficiency goes, the booting mechanism is the most efficient, most cost effective. Obviously we want people in downtown to have wonderful experience. We don’t want to put the boot on anybody’s car, but there are a few hands full of people who haven’t gotten the message and quite a few people who believe that if they don’t pay their one or two parking tickets nothing is going to happen to them and ultimately you have to decide whether or not you are going to really going to run a parking system.

The people who are scofflaws are taking up valuable parking spaces from people who need them, short-term, they are parking there long-term. They are lining up their tickets on their dashboard, thumbing their nose at the City. And, we’ve been working with the City Administration and the City’s Attorney’s Office to put a little bit more teeth back into the enforcement and collection process frankly, to provide an economic disincentive to flaunt the law.

And all we are asking you to do is change a couple of words in this words in this ordinance, changing the parking ordinance hearing ‘board’ to a parking ordinance hearing ‘officer.’ We would be happy to provide that parking ordinance hearing officer. We are very motivated to treat people fairly. We are on a one year contract with you by virtue of your approving our budget on an annual basis and I can tell you, we are going to be fair and efficient and customer friendly.

Councilman Gibson: How many boots do you currently have in inventory?

Mr. Taft: Well, the DDA bought three a couple of years and the City of Shreveport has more than that. But let me tell you, the first couple of boots that go out on the street is going to generate a lot of ticket payment.

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Taft, you and I had a conversation regarding this matter and I agree with you that it does go toward responsible citizens who pay their debt when they have an infraction.

My concern as I mentioned to you was that this hearing officer I’m sure is going to get some results as soon as the first few cars are booted and it gets out because I am sure the media will pick up, that here, they are actually enforcing it. But my commitment to the DDA regardless to whether you are going to be here or not is that as I appreciate it, the breaking point for the infraction to escalate to, I guess criminal would that be correct or felony would be $300 dollars, I believe that is what Brian Barber had just told me as I walked in here.

And if indeed we can not find the relief that we need at the DDA that if a person infraction meet or exceed $300 dollars, I would give you my personal guarantee that I’ll bring it back up before the Council and change the law to put some teeth in it to require them to appear before a City judge. Because, I think that it is irresponsible on our part as City Council members not to require persons to pay those amounts that are owed and the taxpayers, and we appear to be—those of us as Mr. Gibson mentioned, those of us that get our tickets appear to be fools because we are paying them, we don’t want to get this late penalty. But at the point, we don’t seem to have a mechanism to even get the original amount much less the late penalty.

So, again, I commend y’all, I commend the Administration for trying to go after this money and I think that we will get some immediate response and I am certainly in support of what we are trying to do and where we are going.

Mr. Taft: The first thing I would say is that any kind of help like that we would be very happy to accept and would encourage. And, I would never categorize somebody like you say, like yourself, the people who are paying the tickets, I would never categorize them as ‘fools’, I mean, that is good just good citizenship.

Councilman Hogan: Mr. Taft, I just had a couple of question for you. The $1.7 million I agree with Councilman Gibson, it was a shock for me to see that. And, you said a few minutes ago that generally fifty (50%) of the people pay at the time. How long have you been serving?

Mr. Taft: We took over in January 2000 and you have to understand the $1.7 million grew pretty quickly because we have increased meter rates and fines 80% since we took over so as a proportion, we’ve maintained the same collection rate as a dollar amount. That rate has increased rather dramatically over the last couple of years because of the fee increase.

Councilman Hogan: So once we, I feel pretty certain that we are going to pass this ordinance, but how many years, you may not know the answer to this, but how many years are we going to go back?

Mr. Taft: The current ordinances on the City’s books have us going back only three years and the City has traditionally dropped people off after three years.

Councilman Hogan: So, was anything done in an effort to collect those if it gets past three years it is just automatically dropped off, forever gone?

Mr. Taft: It is gone; that’s right.

Councilman Hogan: So those people are off the hook?

Mr. Taft: That money is gone and every year a certain percent drops off, a third.

Councilman Hogan: Well, someone said a while ago earlier, was kind of a third party, I think the gentleman that spoke. I think we ought to, not just ignore that after the three year period, but it is sort of like collecting bad debts. You now, after a certain period of time, if the people don’t pay after whatever it is, it is different for each company, then it is handed over to a collection agency. If we could get $. 25 cents on the dollar it would probably be worth it to do that.

Mr. Taft: It is currently against the law to outsource collection of parking tickets via a collection agency. We’ve looked into everything, believe me.

Councilman Hogan: It is against the law?

Mr. Taft: It is against the law.

Mr. Antee: That has to be addressed in Baton Rouge. That was one of the first things that we looked at because I know other states allow that. Even if you get a rental car in California and you get parking ticket and think you can ignore it. Then you get a letter from a collection agency; so, I paid it.

Mr. Taft: Everyone who has been on our list for at least 3 weeks, have gotten three letters. As the ten-day period rolls on, so that the people, even if you have one parking ticket that is unpaid over a period of time, you’ll receive three letters and the third one says, you are subject to immobilization and after you hopefully vote in the affirmative today, that line will be–will have a lot more teeth in it.

Mr. Antee: If I may, to show you how efficient our Assistant City Attorney Mrs. Julie Glass is, she just prior to the meeting I think, discovered that there may have been a repeal of that law in the Louisiana Legislature this past session which may allow us to then try it over to a collection agency which at that point, we can sit down and come up with a policy to where if they reach a certain number of days, we can turn it over to them but I think she’ll verify before we do that.

Councilman Walford: Well for the benefit of everybody, we spent a fair amount of time in Mexico City because we have children there and they’ve adopted a system of booting to the point that they have kiosk set around. So, when you get your ticket and you are booted, you can take that ticket to the kiosk and they’ll go take it off your car. It is very efficient. The kiosk is every few blocks and it just works out beautifully.

And as far as the collection agency, honestly believe that we ware going to find out that when a few people go out and find their car booted it is not going to be needed, we don’t need the collection agency, it is gong to work very well here.

But I have a couple of questions for you. First of all would you tell me honestly, is there any chance that the $9,945 dollar one, came and paid today?

Mr. Taft: No.

Mayor Hightower: Their car was only worth $6,000 dollars.

Councilman Walford: If a boot will stay on it, it will look like one on I-10 in New Orleans. The contract that we have with you all in one part provides that you will provide quarterly reports of names and addresses of chronic offenders and I would appreciate it if we could make sure that start coming. I understand that we can’t release it but I think the CAO and I have made a phone call that probably got you some money today, so maybe that will happen again if you would provide us that quarterly report that as I read this, will go to the CAO and then hopefully the CAO will share that with us.

I do hope, more than anything that we find a way that it can be shared with Mr. Walker because I think that it needs to be in the newspaper and all of the media. But I just knew you were going to tell me that $9,945 the top one was collected.

Councilman Jackson: I have three questions. Andy, inherently with what I talked about earlier as it relates to more than one person even though only one individual could have the authority to do it. Inherently do you see problems with that model that is based on the model that we have in Property Standards Office?

Mr. Taft: I am not familiar with that. I am not familiar with that model. I would image that if you had more than one person who is capable of doing that, then it would be better than to having any so I would leave that up to the wisdom of the Council.

Councilman Jackson: What is the jurisdictionally, I guess or is there any geographically restriction? If you have a boot and most of all what we are talking about basically is downtown. If you have a boot downtown and you discover the chronic offender lives at 2120 West 70th Street, do you go to 2120 West 70th Street and put a boot on that car or do they have to be caught again having either disobeyed the law again in downtown or even just parked at a meter with some kind of random search?

Mr. Taft: No I would imagine it would be difficult to find somebody outside of the parking meter area of the City and mind you, we’ve got a few hundred parking meters outside of downtown that we also patrol by contract. If a parking meter, if somebody had a car that was on the boot list and it was in a parking lot somewhere in front of their house, it would require a police officer with access to the boot list to put a boot on that car. Right now the systems are not in place to get that information out to the Police Department although at some point, we could get there.

Councilman Jackson: As we are planning now though, this would really only being in effect, effectively only work if it were in downtown and then we were able to either randomly search or that person becomes again a habitual offender who is caught breaking the ordinance, if you will. And, then that would lead to—am I to believe that because as I appreciate it, your people who are parking (I don’t know whatever you call them, meter readers or what have you) those individuals who walk downtown, do they have a mechanism in place that when they walk up to the car, and they put in this license plate number and they know that that comes up as a habitual offender?

Mr. Taft: That’s right. The computer is updated nightly. The boot list is on the handheld computer and if it comes up, this car is on the boot list, the procedure would be that they would call the office. The office would look up on the computer to see whether or not that person had paid since Midnight the night before to whenever they came across that car again just to make sure that we have accurate real time up to the minute payment data.

Councilman Jackson: Tell me again, what the booting or immobilization threshold? Was it one ticket that hadn’t been paid?

Mr. Taft: Currently, the city ordinance calls for three parking tickets.

Councilman Jackson: Three unpaid parking tickets.

Mr. Taft: That’s right.

Councilman Jackson: Do we have a way, if for example if I have three cars and I have got six tickets, if you, two in each car. Is it only by one vehicle or is my name on the booting list as just a habitual offender in multiple vehicles?

Mr. Taft: The computer doesn’t now the people’s name, all it knows is the license plate; so, we’d go with the license plate.

Councilman Jackson: Do you know and I guess in studying this and we know that 50% of the people have paid which is probably, I guess, you said the national average or standard average, is that correct?

Mr. Taft: It is not atypical.

Councilman Jackson: How many boots are we going to have to purchase? I know that we believe that if you immobilize one or two cars in downtown, then everybody is going to start paying their parking tickets. I would suggest that follow the same logic that if you put a ticket on a person’s car they are going to pay their ticket.

And so I think to some degree while that may serve as motivation, as I said earlier, you put the person’s name in the paper, if they didn’t care if they got $3,000 worth of tickets or they put their license plate because you don’t know their name, but you put their license plate number in the paper and sold that car last year. Big deal and they even know that their license plate.

Nine times out of ten and I don’t now for a fact, but if you published it in the news paper maybe people go outside and check their license plate numbers but I don’t know, I couldn’t quote mine’s right now, is my point.

So, I don’t know if that whole idea of lets shame them to doing the right thing is necessarily the best thing. Maybe it is a factor or maybe they can do in combination with several other things, so I am not necessarily opposed to that. But how many boots are we going to have to buy to be effective, and how much does it cost?

Mr. Taft: I believe a boot is $125/$150 dollars. I can tell you this, I don’t know the answer to your question because there hasn’t been a boot protocol in Shreveport, in quite a long time.

I’m from Tampa. Twenty-five thousand (25,000) people work downtown Tampa, about 9,000 office employees in downtown Shreveport and in Tampa they probably rotated three boots in that entire central business district. It is remarkable efficient form of economic persuasion. I can’t image that we are going to have to buy any more boots.

Councilman Jackson: My final question for this Council maybe to just ponder. One of the problems we have had perpetually in the City of Shreveport is a lack of parking downtown that is not just for visitors who visit downtown, it is also for students who attend class downtown, that is also for people who work in the buildings downtown, people who do different things whether they work in the court system or they work in the private sector, people who have to run out of their office very ‘x’ amount of time and then there is something in place that says that you shouldn’t be there more than a given period of time. We have a lack of parking or a shortage, if you will, of parking and we talk about being customer-friendly.

Yet, I don’t know what position it puts us in as there are people who are working who make $7 or $8 an hour who come down ten minutes late and they got a $15 dollar a ticket and they got to try and run back and forth all day because the employer for whom they work, does not provide for them adequate parking or enough parking, if you will.

I understand where we are going. I support the ordinance if you will. My question was only about more than one hearing person and one omnipotent person who is the hearing officer versus three who have the equal authority, they don’t have to listen to every case but they all are eligible and are available to hear cases and then perhaps we could hear two cases at a time or three cases at a time, to triple the—if we could set three hearings at one time and people could come in to three different locations, and all of them are available and eligible to listen, maybe this is erroneous but it just seems to me it would work three times as fast and that is my concern.

Councilman Gibson: I’d like to commend both the Downtown Development Authority and the Administration in working cooperatively to 1. put a proposal to resolve this problem. 2. And Mr. Taft, I also want to commend you. You and I have known each other for about 6 or 7 years. You came on the scene about the same time that I returned back to my hometown. It has been a pleasure working with you on a variety of issues, and I think you’ve brought a very professional attitude, a very professional image in terms of the Downtown Development Authority. I know you have decided to accept a job in Texas, which I just returned from Texas 6 or 7 years ago. I hope that you come back in the near future and I do appreciate the work in the foresightedness and proactive approach that we’ve enjoyed with the DDA even though it has cost me in the pocketbook since you’ve taken over. [Councilman Gibson called for the question seconded by Councilman Carmody and approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, and Hogan. 4. Nays: Councilman Gibson and Jackson. 2. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.]

Ordinance adopted by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, and Hogan. 5. Nays: Councilman Jackson. 1. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

4. Ordinance No. 85 of 2003: An ordinance to amend and re-enact Section 2-1 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Shreveport to require certain officers and employees to reside and be domiciled in the City of Shreveport and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson for adoption.

The Council considered the following amendment:

Amendment No. 1 by: Councilman Lester [Councilman Lester withdrew the amendment]:

Amend the ordinance as follows:

1. Add a new paragraph (b) as follows:

(b) The requirements found in subsection (a) do not apply to an officer or employee appointed by a mayor who has less than three and one-half (3 ½) years remaining in his term of office and is who prohibited from succeeding himself in office.

2. Renumber the existing paragraph (b) as paragraph (c) and amend and reenact it as follows:

(c) In the event an employee of the city who does not reside and is not domiciled within the corporate boundaries of the city is appointed to a position and is required to meet the conditions set forth in subsection (a), the city shall reimburse the employee's reasonable expenses of moving within the corporate boundaries of the city.

____________________________________________________________________________

Explanation of amendment:

This amendment:

1) exempts an employee who is required to live in the city as provided for in paragraph (a), if the appointment is made by a mayor who has less than three and one-half (3 ½) years remaining in his term of office and who is prohibited from succeeding himself in office; and

2) provides that an employee who is not required to move into the city under the provisions of paragraph (a) is not entitled to the moving expenses provided for in paragraph (c).

Motion by Councilman Carmody, for adoption of the ordinance, seconded by Councilman Gibson.

Councilman Carmody: I would ask that Mrs. Moore come up, please Ma’am.

Councilman Lester: Point of Order.

Councilman Jackson: Point of Order.

Councilman Carmody: I have a question that goes toward my debate.

Councilman Walford: Who called for Point of Order?

Councilman Jackson: I did.

Councilman Lester: I did as well.

Councilman Jackson: I was looking at the amendment that we have there that talked about certain officers and employees to reside and be domiciled and I didn’t think that it spoke to any particular department.

Councilman Carmody: It didn’t.

Councilman Jackson: And I was just wondering, if we were calling her up to discuss this particular ordinance?

Councilman Walford: Councilman Carmody as the maker of the motion has the first ten minute debate. If he wants to call Mrs. Moore up, that is certainly is his prerogative.

Councilman Lester: My point of order is this. What does amending, where we are right now [Ordinance] 85 have to do with this individual, Mrs. Moore that is my point? And, the reason I ask this question I am going to go back to something my colleague Mr. Gibson said.

I want to be clear on what we are voting for. I don’t think that we voting on the individual we have before us, for the record, is Mrs. Bonnie Moore. As appreciate it. . .

Councilman Walford: I am going to rule on your point of order, right now. Mr. Carmody as the maker of the motion is entitled to the first 10-minute debate. If Mr. Carmody, as part of his 10-minute debate, wishes to call Mrs. Moore up that is certainly is Mr. Carmody prerogative.

Councilman Lester: My question is, to what does Mrs. Moore have to do with this ordinance because is not---Councilman Walford: You are out of order at this point. I have ruled on the Point of Order.

Councilman Lester: I would rule that Mr. Carmody’s question to Mrs. Moore is out of order because this is not a Bonnie Moore amendment or anything of that nature. It says, to amend and reenact Section 2.1 of the Code of Ordinance of the City of Shreveport to require certain officers and employees to. . .

Councilman Walford: I’ll turn your mic back on when you get through.

Councilman Lester: And be domiciled in the City of Shreveport.

Councilman Walford: You are out of order, Mr. Lester.

Councilman Lester: My question is, what does this amendment have to do with, Mrs. Moore; that is my question.

Councilman Gibson: I’ll make a Point of Order, Mr. Chair.

Councilman Lester: I mean, earlier in our meeting we got to a point where we asked questions about a citizen that came up and we asked that---embarrassed this individual and said that what is this person up here for. So, my question is, why is it that we are asking this question of this individual right now? I don’t think that that makes any sense. I think this is a deliberate attempt to hold someone up (Councilman Walford: Mr. Lester, you are out of Order. Mr. Carmody, the floor is yours.) a defenseless individual as. . . .)

Councilman Gibson: If I could, I’d like to make a Point of Order.

Councilman Walford: Mr. Gibson, your Point of Order?

Councilman Gibson: My Point of Order being is that if Councilman Lester wants to challenge the Chair on his ruling, he would do under Roberts Rule’s, if I’m mistaken..

Councilman Walford: He certainly can, he has not made that motion.

Councilman Gibson: I understand.

Councilman Lester: Well, I want to challenge that ruling. [Ruling challenged by Councilman Lester, seconded by Councilman Jackson and upheld by the following vote: Nays: Councilman Walford, Carmody, Gibson and Hogan. 4. Ayes: Councilman Lester and Jackson. 2.]

Councilman Carmody: What we are being asked to do today is to clarify the law based upon the recommendation of the City Attorney that there appeared to be some discrepancy as to what the intent of the Council was requiring those persons who are appointed by the Administration and confirmed by this body, to reside and be domiciled within the City limits of the City of Shreveport.

This is not a new law. This is basically to clarify for those persons who may be confused over what the intent of this Council would be, that within 90-days of their confirmation as a head of department that they be required to reside within the City of Shreveport and I would ask for your support.

Councilman Lester: I am going to speak slowly. I think that what we just witnessed is typical of what I think is just wrong with the way we handle our business as a Council. I think it is wrong.

If you are in favor of this amendment, if you believe that City employees need to live inside the City then certainly I would think that you would vote to support this particular ordinance.

But I ask and wonder why it is given the current situation, that my colleague would chose to call Mrs. Moore. There are other people that are in a potentially similar situation and yet to add mockery to the whole scenario---after Mrs. Moore was called up, on an item that does not have her name, her department, or anything that has to do with her, other than the fact that she is an Interim Director, my colleague decides to call her up. And after calling her up, ask her to sit down. I think that is in poor taste and a minimum. I think it shows a lack of respect.

Councilman Carmody : Point of Order.

Councilman Lester: Now, I have the floor.

Councilman Carmody: No, you don’t at the moment.

Councilman Walford: Mr. Carmody, has called for a Point of Order.

Councilman Lester: And what is his Point of Order? What is the basis for it?

Councilman Carmody: Is that it is my understanding under Robert’s Rules of Order that every Council member is suppose to address the merits of the particular legislation and not question the motivations of the individual Council member.

Councilman Walford: Or are there to be personal attacks on other members of the body and I will rule in Mr. Carmody’s favor and Mr. Lester, I would ask you to confine your comments to the merits of the motion on the floor.

Councilman Lester: What I think is so interesting is that in this body, we chose to use the Rules not as a guide. We chose to use the Rules and regulations to beat people about the head and I think that that is absolutely wrong.

Now, certainly I don’t know why my colleague decided to call Mrs. Moore. Certainly, he could have called on the Interim Police Chief; don’t know because the Police Chief’s name is not on this particular ordinance nor is this individual.

In order to get certain things, you have to be willing to give them. In order to get respect, you should be, at a minimum, to give respect. And for any of us to disrespect anyone that comes before that podium, is wrong. It is absolutely wrong. It matters not how delicious the idea is that we have the power to call anyone up. It matters not that we can ask anyone anything. The true mark of an individual that has authority is not what they do those of his colleagues, it is what that person does to someone that can not defend themselves.

Up here, we are big boys. We can take it. I’ve had to take it. That is part of the process. But no one that comes before that podium, has to deal with any one disrespecting them and it is not funny, it is not cute, and I think that that is something that shows a fundamental disrespect for citizens; that’s wrong.

If in fact we are going to be an All American city. I think we have to get to the point where we respect each other and respect people that come before that podium and I think for us to do otherwise I think it is wrong.

Now, to the merits of this issue. In this particular instance, I think this ordinance we should defeat it. I w as not part of the Council that voted on the original issue in terms of domicile or residence. But if we are going to run this City to a certain extent that says that we are going to look for the best people, we should get the best people regardless of where they live.

I think the people that we should be concerned about where they live should be our policemen and our Fire Department, but we don’t have anything that deals with that.

I think we should be concerned about what a person brings to the table, not the color of their skin, not their background, not anything. The only characteristic should be, is this person a good person. Is this person does this person have a good idea and does this person have the ability to do the job, that’s important. I think that that I what we need to deal with.

For us to have this jingoistic scenario where, if you don’t live within the corporate boundaries of the City of Shreveport, then somewhere you are unfit to serve to me is setting ourselves up to a point where if you don’ t belong in Shreveport, we can’t hire you. Basically to vote for this amendment, to vote for this ordinance would be to vote for a set-aside. You would vote to set aside all of the positions of leadership in the City of Shreveport in terms of appointed department heads, strictly for people that live within the confines of the City of Shreveport given the fact that we don’ t’ have those requirements for the people that work here.

One of the things that I thing is most fundamental to any society, is the freedom of expression, the freedom of association and people should be able to live where they want to live. If in fact you don’t think that someone is qualified, by virtue of where they live, I don’t think we live in that day anymore. I think we lie in a day where if someone lives outside of the city limits but they want to work here, I think we should give them the opportunity and test them for what they bring to the table, period.

We don’t have a scenario where when we give out contracts, if you are a New Orleans contractor or you are a Washington D. C. contractor or a New Orleans or New York contractor, we say well, the only people that can bid on this work is someone that lives and has a business within the confines of the City of Shreveport. I don’t see where this is any different from that.

I think for us to move in this direction, I think it is a negative. I think we are losing out on some good people that have a desire to serve and have a desire and bring things to the table.

In my mind, this amendment is no more about the individual that is there or the police chief or anything. I think for us to personalize that, as my Council colleague has done, is wrong.

I would urge my colleagues to vote ‘no’. I would urge my colleagues to lets come into the 21st Century just as we have our employee and other different departments from the City that live inside the City and outside the City, lets extend that same courtesy to those people that are department heads.

I don’t see anything and I don’t think anyone can articulate any reason that says because you I’ve inside the City of Shreveport you have a specialized love or something, you bring something additional to the table. I don’t see that because if we are going to use that argument then that men that the only people that can police and deal with issue inside of Mooretown or Queensborough or Allendale are people that live there and that is not the scenario that we have. And I think that for us to articulate that argument is a speechless argument, is intellectually insulting.

This is the 21st Century. People should be able to leave where they want to live and if we’ve got good people that want to do a good job for the citizens of the City of Shreveport, we should allow this Administration or any future Administrations, to not hamstring themselves by that.

I understand the scenario that we’ve had in the past, that we forced an individual to move inside the City, but I also know at the time we have applied this rule and these rules arbitrarily.

I just think at this stage of the City of Shreveport’s development, we should allow people to live where they want to Iive and the only goal that we should have is to get good, quality people to do a good job and lets run this City like a business.

Councilman Jackson: I just wanted to highlight a few things. I think Councilman Lester spoke to some of them and I won’t question what the motives are. I want to speak solely to the merits and my argument is based on what I think are the merits.

I think that first and foremost when we talk about leaders and we talk about employees, the very first concern for us ought to be excellence. The very first concern ought their ability to do the job, that ought to be the first concern. I am not suggesting there are not any secondary concerns, but the primary concern ought to be excellence.

I think very often when we set up this system of preferences that we will very often border on compromising excellence. Sometimes we simply ‘x’ our excellence to what I consider to be a junk heap of mediocrity and go with someone who will geographically fit, but who perhaps will not necessarily be the most qualified person.

Secondly, to the fundamental argument about this legislation, we are asking individuals who in fact they are capable and competent and happen to geographically reside outside of the boundaries of the City of Shreveport to not only ‘reside’ which I think goes far enough, I might add, but we are ask them—this legislation has domicillary implications which suggest to them as 99% of all Americans who own a home, their largest investment is their home. We’ve asked that only people who are department heads, if you will, would in fact move into the City and make this great investment into the City, but we have not guaranteed them that they can work beyond the term of an elected mayor.

That mayor can not guarantee them that the next mayor will retain them as fire chief, police chief, anything else yet we are asking them to make a solid commitment not only to working for the City of Shreveport but to living in the City of Shreveport even beyond what we are able to guarantee them in form of employment.

I think that it becomes minute and parochial to think that only those folks could do that and I would suggest we are setting up a system of preferences that prefers people who live within the boundaries over people who live outside without any concern for whose the most qualified. We don’t like it in other areas, I don’t see why we can stomach it in this area.

These people who are department heads, really are working on a temporary assignment that is as permanent only as the elected mayor who is their appointing authority.

Why ask those individuals to make an investment like that? If the City is in fact a business and not a bureaucratic machine, if we are a business and we are going to run it like a business can you imagine General Motors, A T & T and even Wal-Mart suggesting to people where you must live if you are going to work here.

I don’t even know that as a public body and maybe since we put it in ordinance before, maybe it has been challenged I don’t even know–it doesn’t sound constitutional. I don’t know whether or not it is. I’m no attorney so I am not going to say that, I may be far off base on that, but to tell somebody where you must live as a condition of working, may even border on being unconstitutional, I’m to sure about that.

We don’t ask people who are far more important, in my opinion, than department heads. In other words, Caddo Parish as a model doesn’t ask teachers who educate our children, where you live? They want to know if you are certified to teach because your investment in the minds of these young people is what is most important, not where you park when you leave this school.

And I would suggest that the same logic ought to hold true for the City of Shreveport. I think, according to the ordinance we are not changing the ordinance by not supporting it. I think that what we are saying is that the word ‘residence ’ goes far enough. We’ve asked people to make a commitment. We’ve got to buy an apartment, you’ve got to rent a house, somehow or another you paying some money to live within the City of Shreveport.

I think the issue could be whether or not that is a legitimate residence rather than whether or not that individual is domiciled. That’s a commitment. If a person will pay $600, $700 whatever amount of money it is to have an apartment, to have a legitimate address within the City of Shreveport plus driving from in and out of the City, that a cost commitment as well to drive in and out of the City.

So, I think having a residence in the City simply in opinion goes far enough. Unless we are able to address for those individuals what our commitment is to them long-term, we’ve asked them to make a commitment to us. Each one of these department heads, make a commitment to us. What is our commitment to them? Please don’t say compensation because then I want to know why firemen, police, DOS workers and others, don’t respond to our commitment to them, compensation, by living and being required to live within the City.

When we initially talked, members of this Council suggested that, there were two similar reasons why individuals who are department heads need to live in the City. I said, what were those: 1. They have to be accessible. Well, I’d rather the fire department and people who are on the fire department be accessible than just the fire chief. Because the fire chief, while is in charge is not the person whose putting out the fire. I know if my house caught on fire, I don’t Kelvin to drive up in his car and come and see me. I’d rather see the fire truck with folks who in fact are accessible; the same thing with the police department.

2. They ought to live where we live and shop where we shop. Well we are not turning down money from people who come from Marshall and spend money over here. And we are not mad when we go to somewhere else and buy something somewhere else. Next thing we’ll know, that we will be checking receipts from Council to make sure you only buy in Shreveport because if you don’ t, you are not really committed. We ought not have a City where you have to put laws and requirements that it gives the impression to the outside world that our City is so sorry, we got to demand people to live here.

It ought to be a situation that our City is such a wonderful City and we walk and sit around with all of this All American City monocles everywhere, it ought to be a City where everybody wants to live, not has to live. I think we send a pretty pitiful message when we suggest to people you have to live here as a requirement and as a condition to employment.

I wish everyone of our City leaders, every one of our department heads would live in the City of Shreveport by choice not by force. I don’t know what that says to me economic development-ly as it relates to economic development, when I go out and try to recruit companies to come to the City of Shreveport and ask them to hire the people who live in the City of Shreveport, ask them to hire people who live in Caddo Parish for years and the Administration you can help me if I’m right about this Mayor.

We have marketed for at least five years that Shreveport, Bossier, Northwest Louisiana , we are a region and we are better together than we are separate. We’ve marketed that, but we sit in the seat of hypocrisy right now because we say, Bossier, Shreveport, everywhere--Northwest Louisiana we are stronger together than we are separate yet we turn around and put in writing what we really believe.

And I would suggest to you that I don’t want to be a part of sitting in the seat of hypocrisy and suggesting that in fact, what we are saying is that the City of Shreveport is the only place you can live if you are a qualified employee. I just reject that notion and would certainly ask of my colleagues to join with me and I have not talked about any individual, but what I think are the merits of this particular or the ‘lack’ of merit in this particular legislation. So, I would ask of all of the Councilmen who would, to consider those things and to join with me in rejecting this amendment to this ordinance.

Councilman Gibson: Two weeks ago, this body chose with a split vote to go with a national search for a police chief. I for one was not one of those people who voted for that national search because 1. I felt that we have a variety of expertise within the Police Department. And, first and foremost I think is any business, one of my colleagues just said that you look to promote within because those aspiring police officers that are trying to work their way up through the rank and file, what kind of message we send.

But when we passed that the Administration was given a directive to go out and do a national search. I guess my thought in that issue being, during that national search if for some reason the Administration and again there is no reason for me to believe that they are going to chose outside versus inside, but if for some reason they chose outside and we bring that candidate into Shreveport to head up our fine Police Department and he says or she says, ‘you mean I can live in Waskom, Texas and don’t live in the City of Shreveport?’

I guess my thought being is what kind of message does that send to someone that does not know Shreveport, but they are coming into town and we don’t have enough confidence in our personnel and again, we are talking about if I understand this, department heads.

I mean, again maybe I am in the minority on that particular thought process but I am proud of Shreveport. I did come back after about 35 years of being away and I am proud to say, I am a proud resident here now.

And for those department heads that are appointed by the Mayor, I think each and every one of them understand the dynamics and the fact that, hopefully they are going to have longevity within their position if they do their job, it doesn’t make any difference who the mayor is in my opinion. if they are doing their job. Which, there is no reason in my mind that our department heads are fine quality citizens with professionalism and due diligence in their day-to-day management jobs, that they will be there for longevity but when they accept that based on the appointment that the mayor at that particular time, does that, they understand that there is a potential, at some point in time that if there is a chance in the political process, they accepted that--no one forced them to.

But, I’ve heard the arguments on both sides and again, I am concerned about the perception of again, we are doing a national search. And, whatever the results are Mayor Hightower has to deal with that and Mayor Hightower makes that choice. And, if it is from New York City and that person comes down here, I would think they have that expectation to live within the City of Shreveport and it would be almost a tragedy and admittance that, maybe there is something less desirable in the fact that the leadership of this community is not looking toward expectations in terms of that.

So, again at the end of the day, is this going to make or break the City of Shreveport, I don’t know. I hope that we can conclude this very shortly and move on because I think that we have other items on the docket and we also have bigger issues within this City.

But, that’s just my thoughts on the issue in terms of again, is that person, if we are successful in a national search, I think they already know if they are applying for the job there is going to be an expectation and if not, they are probably going to be asking themselves, why not?

Councilman Hogan: As someone said a few minutes ago that the previous Council made the ruling which lead to Gary Norman having to sell his house and move into town and I think someone else was involved in that situation there.

I had made up my mind before we came to the meeting today that , this is a personal issue where someone lives, is their business. I think we need to find the best-qualified person; so, I plan to vote against the ordinance; that’s all.

Councilman Carmody: I just want to clarify, I think that less there be confusion amongst the Council members. It is not the intent of this legislation nor is it a requirement that we limit the pool of potential candidates for department heads to only those residents who reside in the City of Shreveport.

Granted, we all ready have a law on the books that as a stipulation and condition of employment in that capacity that you comply with this existing law.

It is not an unknown quantity. It is the same thing, at this point, we now have an Interim Police Chief and an Interim Community Development person, but that they know that the City of Shreveport already will have that requirement on the book. So, I don’t think that we are going to great lengths to clarify the law.

And, I agree with what has been said here by members of this body about the fact that it is incumbent upon the Administration regardless of who is in the mayor’s chair that we seek good, quality people who have the expertise and the professionalism to do the jobs that they are hired to do.

I can tell you that I had been offered jobs and as a condition of taking those jobs, I was told that I would be required to move. Granted, I told them, no thank you. This is my home. This is where I enjoy living. Granted, Shreveport like any other City anywhere has it hills to climb, but I am glad to be a part of making sure that we are climbing in the right direction.

And, I do not feel that this is an encumbrance upon any potential candidates as department heads that they agree and understand that before they offer themselves for that particular position that they understand that they be required to reside and be domiciled within the City and again, I would ask for the support of the Council on this measure.

Councilman Gibson: I would like to ask for a postponement on this particular issue because obviously we’ve got several differing opinions and I would like to ask for a postponement.

Councilman Walford: Would that be in the form of a substitute motion.

Councilman Gibson: Substitute motion

Motion by Councilman Gibson, seconded by Councilman Hogan to postpone the ordinance until the August 12, 2003 meeting.

Councilman Lester: I would be opposed to a postponement. I think we need to deal with this issue. We are here. I think everyone has articulated their position. I don’t think there is a scenario where we need any additional information. I mean, I think we have each said which way we are going to go. I think that we just need to deal with it. Nothing is going to happen in two weeks that is going to change anybody’s mind, I don’t think and I don’t think this is a scenario that we need any additional information; so, I would ask the colleagues to vote ‘no’ on the amendment to postponement.

Councilman Jackson: I would just like to, as well, ask all of our colleagues to understand that we can in fact vote ‘no’ to this postponement and deal with this issue today.

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Walford, Carmody, Gibson, and Hogan. 4. Nays: Councilman Lester and Jackson. 2. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

5. Ordinance No. 86 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the North side of South Lakeshore Drive 500 feet west of Municipal Pier Road, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana. from R-1D, Urban, One-family Residence District, to R-1H(PUD) Urban, One-family Residence (Planned Unit Development) District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Lester, seconded by Councilman Gibson to postpone the ordinance until the August 12, 2003 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

6. Ordinance No. 87 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the southeast corner of South Lakeshore Drive and Willow Ridge Boulevard, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana. from B-3, Community Business District to R-3, Urban, Multiple-family Residence District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Lester, seconded by Councilman Jackson to postpone the ordinance until the August 12, 2003 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

7. Ordinance No. 88 of 2003: An ordinance Amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the East side of Southern Avenue 200 Feet south of Ockley Drive, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana. from B-2, Neighborhood Business District to B-2-E, Neighborhood Business/extended Use District, Limited to "Taxidermy/wildlife Artist as Applied For" Only, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Gibson, seconded by Councilman Carmody adopted by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

8. Ordinance No. 89 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the South side of West 70th Street 1700 Feet east of Raspberry Lane, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from, R-1D, Urban, One-family Residence District, to B-1, Buffer Business District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Gibson to postpone the ordinance until the August 12, 2003 meeting.

Councilman Carmody: Gentlemen, in that this is actually in Councilman Green’s district I think it would be appropriate that we wait for his direction.

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

9. Ordinance No. 90 of 2003: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the southwest corner of Essex Street & Hearne Avenue, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana. from B-1, Buffer Business District to B-3, Community Business District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Gibson, seconded by Councilman Carmody to postpone the ordinance until the August 12, 2003 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

Having passed first reading on July 8, 2003 was read by title and on motion ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Lester to postpone the Ordinances No. 91 through 97 until the August 12, 2003 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

10. Ordinance No. 91 of 2003: An ordinance authorizing the Purchasing Agent to dispose of surplus real property Lot 14, Yarbrough Subdivision and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

11. Ordinance No. 92 of 2003: An ordinance authorizing the Purchasing Agent to dispose of surplus real property Lot 15, Yarbrough Subdivision and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

12. Ordinance No. 93 of 2003: An ordinance authorizing the Purchasing Agent to dispose of surplus real property Lot 26, West Shreveport Subdivision and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

13. Ordinance No. 94 of 2003: An ordinance authorizing the Purchasing Agent to dispose of surplus real property Block 5 of Solo Hood Partition and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

14. Ordinance No. 95 of 2003: An ordinance authorizing the Purchasing Agent to dispose of surplus real property Lot D of Carrie Hood Allen Partition and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

15. Ordinance No. 96 of 2003: An ordinance authorizing the Purchasing Agent to dispose of surplus real property Lot 9, Morningside Subdivision and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

16. Ordinance No. 97 of 2003: An ordinance declaring 740 Stephenson Street to be surplus property; authorizing the donation of same to Volunteers of America of North Louisiana; and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

The adopted Ordinances as amended, follow:

ORDINANCE NO. 82 OF 2003

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE 2003 BUDGET FOR THE WATER AND SEWERAGE ENTERPRISE FUND AND OTHERWISE PROVIDING WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the City Charter provides for the amendment of any previously adopted budget; and

WHEREAS, the City Council finds it necessary to amend the 2003 budget for the Water and Sewerage Enterprise Fund, to appropriate additional funds and for other purposes.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in legal session convened, that Ordinance No. 163 of 2002, the 2003 budget for the Water and Sewerage Enterprise Fund, is hereby amended as follows:

In Section 1 (Estimated Revenues):

Increase Estimated Available Fund Balance 1/1/03 by $1,043,100.

In Section 2 (Appropriations):

Increase Contractual Services by $1,043,100.

Adjust subtotals and totals accordingly.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that the remainder of Ordinance No. 163 of 2002 shall remain unchanged and in full force and effect.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that if any provision or item of this ordinance or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this ordinance which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications; and, to this end, the provisions of this ordinance are hereby declared to be severable.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that all ordinances or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

ORDINANCE NO. 83 OF 2003

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE 2003 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS BUDGET AND OTHERWISE PROVIDING WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the City Charter provides for the amendment of any previously-adopted budget; and

WHEREAS, the City Council finds it necessary to amend the 2003 Capital Improvements Budget to provide additional project funding and for other purposes.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in legal session convened, that Ordinance No. 162 of 2002, the 2003 Capital Improvements Budget, be further amended and re-enacted as follows:

In Program E (Water Improvements):

Increase the appropriation for Twelve Mile Bayou Water Main Bridge Relocation (99E003) by $100,000. Funding source is 1989A Utility Revenue Bonds.

In Program D:

Decrease the appropriation for City-Wide Drainage - 2001 Bonds (01D015) by $50,000. Funding source is 2001 GOB.

In Program F:

Decrease the appropriation for Cedar Grove Force Main Rehabilitation (99F003) by $60,200. Funding source is Water and Sewer Revenues.

Increase the appropriation for Zone 4 - 2000 Project No. 1: SSO Control Program - Wastewater Infrastructure Improvements (01F002) by $110,200. Funding sources are $60,200 from Water and Sewer Revenues and $50,000 from 2001 GOB.

In Program H (Airports):

Increase the appropriation for Land Acquisition for Security Purposes (99-H002) by $1,000,000. Funding sources are State Grant $100,000 and Federal Aviation Administration $900,000.

Adjust totals and subtotals accordingly.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that the remainder of Ordinance 162 of 2002, as amended, shall remain in full force and effect.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that if any provision or item of this ordinance or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this ordinance which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications; and, to this end, the provisions of this ordinance are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that all ordinances or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

ORDINANCE NO. 84 OF 2003

AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 90 OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES RELATIVE TO TRAFFIC AND VEHICLES AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

BE IT ORDAINED that Chapter 90 of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances is hereby amended to add Section 90-272 to read as follows:

Sec. 90-272. Parking ordinance hearings officer.

(a) The mayor shall appoint, subject to the approval of the city council, parking ordinance hearings officer(s) who shall not be employees of the city. The term of each appointment shall be three (3) years commencing from the date of confirmation by the city council.

(b) The duties and function of the hearings officer shall be as follows:

(1) To determine whether a vehicle should be deemed to be eligible for immobilization, towing, or impoundment in accordance with the procedures in this Chapter.

(2) To hold hearings and make determinations pursuant to sections 90-273 and 90-275 of this Chapter.

(3) To establish rules of procedure for requesting hearings, setting hearing dates, the conduct of hearings; and other matters within its duties and functions.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that Section 90-273(c) is amended to now read as follows:

Sec. 90-273. Impoundment or immobilization of motor vehicles.

***

(c) Whenever any motor vehicle has been removed, impounded, or detained in accordance with this section, the police department shall as soon as practicable, send a certified letter, return receipt requested, to the last known owner of such vehicle, notifying such owner of the following:

(1) That the vehicle has been impounded.

(2) The amount or rate of assessed charges for towing, storage or other costs incident to the impoundment, and that the release of the vehicle may be obtained by paying the stated charges and all outstanding parking infraction amounts and by showing proof of ownership of such vehicle.

(3) That in the alternative he may obtain the release of the vehicle by posting an appearance bond which shall be in an amount not less than the amount of all amounts described in subsection (c)(2).

(4) The procedure to be followed in obtaining and posting such bond.

(5) That he has the opportunity for a hearing as provided in section 90-275 of this section if he so requests, concerning the amount and propriety of the fees for impoundment and storage fees under subsections (a) and (b) of this section.

(6) The procedure to be followed in requesting such a hearing.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that Section 90-273 (e) is amended to now read as follows:

Sec. 90-273. Impoundment or immobilization of motor vehicles.

***

(e) Prior to immobilization of any vehicle pursuant to this section, the parking ordinance hearing officer shall:

1) Notify the owner of such motor vehicle that the vehicle will be considered by the hearings officer for immobilization for violation(s) of the provisions of this Chapter. The notice required by this subsection shall be mailed by certified U. S. mail, return receipt requested, to the address shown on the records of the office of motor vehicles of the state department of public safety, or the appropriate office of motor vehicle registration of any other state.

2) Provide the owner of such motor vehicle with a written summary of the adverse evidence concerning the alleged violation(s) of the provisions of this Chapter.

3) Notify the owner of such motor vehicle of the da te, time and place for such hearing and advise the owner that he may appear, in person or by written statement, to present reasons why the proposed action should not be taken.

The owner’s failure to receive delivery of the notice due to a change of address of which no notice was given to the office of motor vehicles of the state department of public safety, or the appropriate office of motor vehicle registration of any other state, or the owner’ s refusal to accept delivery of the notice when properly addressed to the owner at the address shown on the records of the office of motor vehicles of the state department of public safety, or the appropriate office of motor vehicle registration of any other state, shall be deemed to be receipt of such notice.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that Chapter 90 of the City of Shreveport Code of

Ordinances is hereby amended to add Section 90-273 (f) is hereby adopted to read as follows:

Sec. 90-273. Impoundment or immobilization of motor vehicles.

***

(f) Prior to removal, impoundment, detention of a motor vehicle pursuant to this section, the owner of the motor vehicle shall be mailed a notice, at the address shown on the records of the office of motor vehicles of the state department of public safety, or the appropriate office of motor vehicle registration of any other state. Such notice shall be sent by certified U. S. mail, return receipt requested, and shall inform the owner that failure to pay all outstanding parking citations, late fees or other charges in full within ten (10) days of the owner’s receipt of the notice shall result in the vehicle being removed, impounded, or detained by the city or a third party contracted by the city without further notice to the owner. The owner’s failure to receive delivery of the notice required by this subsection due to a change of address of which no notice was given to the office of motor vehicles of the state department of public safety, or the appropriate office of motor vehicle registration of any other state, shall be deemed to be receipt of such notice.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that Chapter 90 of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances is further amended to add Section 90-275 to read as follows:

Sec. 90-275. Hearings by parking ordinance hearings officer.

(a) The parking ordinance hearings officer shall hold hearings relating to removal, impoundment, or detention of motor vehicles pursuant to subsections (a), (b), (c), (d), or (f) of section 90-273 when any person so requests, within three days, excluding weekends and holidays, after receipt of such request. In hearings pursuant to this subsection, the hearings officer ’s determination shall be limited to the question of whether the city had probable cause to tow the vehicle, but the hearings officer shall have the power to reduce or waive the charges even when probable cause is shown, when, in his discretion, it determines that such waiver or reduction is justified. The hearings officer shall also have the power to order the release of the vehicle prior to hearing, upon execution of an appearance bond as provided for in section 90-273.

(b) The parking ordinance hearings officer shall hold hearings prior to immobilizing any motor vehicles pursuant to subsection (e) of section 90-273. In hearings pursuant to this subsection, the hearings officer’s determination shall be limited to the question of whether the criteria for the proposed removal, impoundment, detention or immobilization have been met. The hearings officer shall not hear or determine the liability of the vehicle owner on the merits of the parking citations.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that if any provision or item of this ordinance or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this ordinance which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items or applications and to this end the provisions of this ordinance are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that all ordinances or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

ORDINANCE NO. 88 OF 2003

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 106 OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES, THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT ZONING ORDINANCE, BY REZONING PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF SOUTHERN AVENUE 200 FEET SOUTH OF OCKLEY DRIVE, SHREVEPORT, CADDO PARISH, LOUISIANA. FROM B-2, NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESS DISTRICT TO B-2-E, NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESS/EXTENDED USE DISTRICT, LIMITED TO "TAXIDERMY/WILDLIFE ARTIST AS APPLIED FOR" ONLY, AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO

SECTION I: BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, in due, legal and regular session convened, that the zoning classification of the S/2 of Lot 4 Blk. 13, Fairfield Hts. Subd., located on the east side of Southern Avenue 200 feet south of Ockley Drive, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, be and the same is hereby changed from B-2 , Neighborhood Business District to B-2-E, Neighborhood Business/Extended Use District, limited to "taxidermy/wildlife artist as applied for" only:

SECTION II: THAT the rezoning of the property described herein is subject to compliance with the following stipulations:

1. Development of the property shall be in substantial accord with a revised site plan showing alternate landscaping to be submitted to and approved by the Zoning Administrator, with any significant changes or additions requiring further review and approval by the Planning Commission.

2. Approval is granted for a two year period only, with any extension requiring re-application to the Planning Commission. Request for extension shall be at no fee to the applicant if submitted prior to the expiration of the time period.

3. Standard Operating Procedure shall be adhered to. Said procedure shall include the following:

A. When the specimen is brought in by the customer, the appropriate paperwork for legal possession and billing will be obtained.

B. The specimen will then be skinned, if required, and then the skin will be fleshed for later mounting along with retrieval of the horns or antlers as may be present. The waste products form the skinning and fleshing procedures will then be double bagged and sealed tight in a container and kept inside the facility until scheduled commercial waste pickup. If a large carcass is left after skinning (eg.- a whole deer) this will be returned to the customer after skinning for their own proper meat processing.

C. Next, the skin produced by "Step B", if small, will be pickled in-house using environmentally safe agents such as "Saftee-Acid", citric acid, or Borax. If the skin is large and requires formal tanning, salt will be applied to the hide until it is completely dehydrated and dried such that it can be safely boxed and shipped to a commercial tannery, from which it will be received back as a dry piece of leather with the hair still on.

D. After "Step C", the re-moistened hide will then be stretched over a Styrofoam form, that will be purchased from a 3rd party supplier, after putting on a coat of glue or paste (similar to paper-mache or wallpaper paste) on the form and the skin will then be sewn up and set aside and allowed to dry.

E. Following the drying process, the detail art work will be performed using potters clay or similar product to sculpt with. It will then be painted with watercolor, or acrylic artists paints then sprayed with a spray finish (eg. Krylon Matte Finish fixative.)

F. After "Step E", the finished mount will then be placed on a wooden plaque, piece of driftwood, or artificial base with dried leaves, soil, and grass as desired by the customer.

G. The finished wildlife product will then be delivered to the customer’s possession for their transport to their own home.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that if any provision or item of this ordinance or the application thereof is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items, or applications of this ordinance which can be given effect without the invalid provisions, items, or applications and to this end the provisions of this ordinance are hereby declared severable.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that all ordinances or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

1. Alcohol Retail Permit: Ms. Deborah Hawkins [Employer: 2901 Milam St. (Take-A-Bag Grocery)] (G/Jackson) (Special Meeting scheduled on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 at 3:00 p.m.)

Councilman Jackson: We will not take it off of the table.

2. Resolution No. 85 of 2003: Urging and authorizing the Mayor to execute an agreement with R. M. McCarthy and Associates to conduct a review of the Shreveport Police Department Shooting Incident of March 15, 2003 and to provide other services all substantially in accordance with the Proposal dated May 21, 2003. (C/Carmody) (Tabled on June 10)

Motion by Councilman Carmody to remove the resolution from the table, seconded by Councilman Jackson. Motion passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

Motion by Councilman Carmody to withdraw the resolution, seconded by Councilman Walford. Motion passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

3. Resolution No. 88 of 2003: Amending Sections 1.8 and 1.11 of the Rules of Procedure of the City Council (Public Comments). (A/Lester) (Tabled on June 24)

4. Ordinance No. 40 of 2003: Changing the names of the Shreveport Blanchard Road from the Roy Road to North Hearne Avenue, and of Ford Street from North Hearne Avenue to Pete Harris Drive, and of Caddo Street from Pete Harris Drive to the Clyde Fant Parkway to Hilry Huckaby III Avenue. (A/Lester) Tabled *As Amended on July 8 - *Changing the name of the Shreveport Blanchard Road from the Roy Road to North Hearne to Hilry Huckaby III Avenue. )

5. Ordinance No. 80 of 2003: Amending the 2003 Riverfront Development Special Revenue Fund Budget (disparity study). (G/Jackson) (Tabled on July 8)

6. BAC-39-03, D. Richard Carroll, Jr., 1401 Oden #2: Special Exception Use in a R-3 District - Expanded Home Occupation (home office with one employee). (C/Carmody) (Postponed on July 8 until October 14)

Councilman Walford: Mr. Carmody would you like to make a motion to table that until October?

Councilman Carmody: Would it be more appropriate Mr. Thompson to do that so that we do have a definite time because I have, the agreement between the parties would be that the matter would not be taken up until October 14?

Mr. Thompson: That is listed in the Note and don’t believe that any further action is necessary and it would not be necessary for the clerk or anyone else to ask about that at the next meeting.

NEW BUSINESS:

1. ABO Card appeal: George Spruell. (A/Lester) [Postponed until July 21and granted on July 21 ]

2. ABO Card appeal: Benjamin C. Hagar. [The Oyster Bar (C/Carmody - Residence: B/Walford) Postponed until July 21and Remanded to Police Dept.]

3. BAC-53-03, Wyvornia Decarol Nunley, 4103 Santa Monica Circle, Special Exception Use in an R-1D District, expanded home occupation (bridal consultant). (G/Jackson) (Postponed until July 22)

Motion by Councilman Jackson to uphold the ZBA’s ruling, seconded by Councilman Gibson.

Councilman Jackson: I wanted to just be on record, I had a conversation with Mrs. Nunley and Mr. Nunley just today. I wanted to be on record as saying that, I in fact agree with Mr. and Mrs. Nunley as it relates to expanding their home occupation and that my vote today, my motion today is to solely uphold what happened at the ZBA level. Obviously we put them in place for that purpose.

I would like to enter also for the record that there was nothing in the ZBAs’ ruling nor is it any in my motion that suggest anything would be wrong with what they are in fact intending to do, but this is strictly a vote that represents the desire of the majority of the neighbors who live in that particular area and that is the sole reason for making that decision.

I expressed to them, to both Mrs. and Mr. Nunley that I think that what they were doing was a legitimate scenario and I just was making the decision based on the majority of the folks who actually live in that particular area, who signed the petition, and, Mrs. Nunley will suggest that they were ill-informed and I think maybe that perhaps will be the case. Notwithstanding the majority of the people who were there have decided that, that was the situation and to avoid an insurrection, I will side with the majority of the folks who live in that district on that street.

Motion passed by the following vote: Ayes: Councilman Lester, Walford, Carmody, Gibson, Hogan and Jackson. 6. Nays: None. Absent: Councilman Green. 1.

REPORTS FROM OFFICERS, BOARDS, AND COMMITTEES. None.

CLERK’S REPORT (Letters of Appeal (cased not to be considered before August 12):

1. BAC-57-03, Tina Burch, 4441 Clingman Dr., Special Exception Use in an R-1D District, commercial body art and salon. (C/Carmody)

2. BAC-58-03, Ashley Tridico, 4304 Clingman Dr., Special Exception Use in an R-1D District, hair salon limited to one operator and one employee. (C/Carmody)

THE COMMITTEE RISES AND REPORTS (reconvenes Regular Council Meeting).

ADJOURNMENT. There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting adjourned at approximately 7:40 p.m.

/s/Monty Walford, Chairman

/s/Arthur G. Thompson, Clerk of Council