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Council Proceedings of the City of Shreveport, Louisiana

April 25, 2006

The regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Shreveport, State of Louisiana was called to order by Chairman Calvin Ben Lester, Jr. at 3:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 25, 2006 in the Government Chambers in Government Plaza (505 Travis Street).

Invocation was given by Councilman Green.

The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Councilman Hogan.

Councilman Lester: I’d like to welcome you to this April 25, 2006 meeting of the Shreveport City Council. We’d ask if you have any electronic devices, that you’d turn them off, put them on vibrate or silent. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll.

On Roll Call, the following members were Present: Councilmen Lester, Walford (Arrived at 3:09 p.m.), Carmody (Arrived at 3:27 p.m.), Robertson, Hogan, Green, and Jackson. 7.

Motion by Councilman Green, seconded by Councilman Hogan to approve the minutes of the Administrative Conference, Monday (April 10, 2006) and Council Meeting, Tuesday, (April 11, 2006). Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 5. Nays: 0. Out of the Chamber: Councilmen Walford, and Carmody. 2.

Awards, Recognition of Distinguished Guests, and Communications of the Mayor which are required by law.

Councilman Lester: On yesterday, we had reports.

Reports:

Convention Center and Convention Center Hotel (To include detailed personnel report from SMG)

Councilman Lester: Mr. Antee, are there any questions for - - - well, Mr. Antee is not here, for Mr. Dark on the Convention Center and Convention Center Hotel?

Councilman Jackson: We did get the report?

Councilman Lester: We did get a report on yesterday, but Councilman Jackson, if you have any questions, we will entertain those questions at this time sir.

Councilman Jackson: I didn’t know Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to have to go through it again. I saw that there was a binder at my desk. I don’t know if anybody else received it on yesterday?

Councilman Lester: We did, we did. And as I appreciate it, Councilman Green might have a question as it relates to that binder.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, I will wait until the next meeting. I don’t want to talk about it without having read it. So, I’ll wait, and ask anything I may have- - - I mean any questions that might arise, I’ll wait until the next time.

Councilman Lester: Thank you Councilman Jackson. Any other questions on the Convention Center?

Councilman Green: Thank you. Mike, yesterday I brought it to the attention of the Mayor. It was brought to my attention Saturday. I talked to Don- - -

Councilman Lester: Hold on a second. Mr. Carrier, state your name and address for the record, for those that don’t know you.

Mr. Carrier: Mike Carrier, General Manager, Shreveport Convention Center, 400 Caddo Street.

Councilman Green: Thank you. I talked to Don over at Shreveport Music. And he was saying to me that there was an event this past weekend, I think it was that they needed to have a Baby Grande Piano, but the elevator is not a large freight elevator, and he wanted to know how were we going to address that. I told him I had no idea. I didn’t know we didn’t have one. And then he said that they were going to put up some lights or whatever, but they didn’t have a panel up there, that we only had 110. And so, I didn’t know how to answer him, because I didn’t know.

Mr. Carrier: We - - - two issues. First of all in terms of the elevators, we have service elevators in the back of the building. They are what they are within the structure of the facility. A Baby Grande should fit on the elevators. I will have to check that. If it’s properly dollied. During my college days, I worked for a music company moving pianos. So, I’ve done that. But if it’s properly dollied, it should fit up that elevator, be able to put it in the ballroom or meeting rooms upstairs. We had a Baby Grande in the building Friday night for Habitat for Humanity, during their event, and that was down in the Exhibit Hall. So, I’ll do some checking and see. That’s the first I’ve heard about that particular situation.

Councilman Green: That may have been it. He couldn’t get it upstairs.

Mr. Carrier: Yeah just couldn’t, could not - - - if it won’t fit on the service elevators, there is not really any other way to get it upstairs. As it relates to the electrical, there are some electrical challenges upstairs. We met last week or two weeks ago, Mr. Antee, myself, Kenneth Pittman from Slack Alost, to look at those. We’re in the process of putting together a recommendation on some changes that perhaps need to be made up in the Ballroom so that we can accommodate that. I’ve got a few other things of that nature that I’ll be sending to Mr. Delancy hopefully within the week, so we can begin pursuing that and get that taken care of.

Property Standards Report

Councilman Lester: Are there any questions for Mr. Bowie? I believe we received a Property Standards Report on yesterday from Mr. Bowie. Does any member have any questions for Mr. Bowie relative to Property Standards? Okay. Before we move on, I wanted to tell Mr. Bowie, I appreciate the work on the Abbie Street. I contacted the constituent and she is very happy to know that that eyesore is coming down. Councilman Jackson, do you have any issues for Property Standards at this time?

Councilman Jackson: No, I just want to be sure that I said to Mr. Bowie, Mr. Chairman, to be sure that we get together before the Council Meeting is over or right after the Council Meeting, cause I wanted to take care of an issue on Abbie Street as well. That’s on the other side Mr. Chairman.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, did we pass awards and recognition?

Councilman Lester: Well, I was doing that all incorporately. Is there an award or distinguished guest that you had?

Councilman Jackson: Yeah. I was just waiting, I didn’t know.

Councilman Lester: Okay, okay. Well we’ll backtrack for a minute. Councilman Jackson, you have the floor sir.

Councilman Jackson: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I wanted Mr. Chairman, to introduce a guest who is here. A gentleman who I just had the privilege and the pleasure of meeting actually on today, and who is here from Altadena, CA., but who is a native of Shreveport, graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, and left Shreveport as a serviceman in the military and spent an extensive career in the military, and has received a very astute education, and has a background with just retired from this kind of work, government work in - - - I forget the county in CA., and is moving back to Shreveport to start a business as a member of the local Chamber of Commerce and is trying to make some tracks back in this area, and I wanted to introduce him, Mr. Chairman, and ask him if he’d come. Mr. Gene Stephenson, and his company is E. E. Stephenson and Associates, LLC., and they are a consulting group. And he can tell you a little bit about more about who he is. But I wanted to invite him, so that the rest of the Council Members could get a chance to meet him as well.

Councilman Lester: Good afternoon Mr. Stephenson. If you could please state your name and business address or whatever address you choose to use for the record.

Mr. Stephenson: Thank you Mr. President. My name is Gene Stephenson, my address here in Shreveport is 1640 Caroline Street. I think its 71109 is the zip code here in Shreveport. Thank you Councilman Jackson, Mr. Mayor and members of the Chamber. I had been a life long resident of Shreveport up to the time, I graduated from Booker T. Washington High School, I attended Blessed Sacrament High School also graduated from there. My family has a long history here in Shreveport, and I’ve just recently retired from Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission where I was the Director of Finance and Administration for the Commission. I am extremely pleased and appreciative of the opportunity to just briefly talk to you today. I have had a chance to come back to Shreveport over the past several months. Just driving around the city and observing and talking to a number of persons here in the city whom I grew up with, as well as other individuals, distinguishing individuals here. What I’m hoping to do is establish myself as a management consultant here in the Shreveport area taking 30 years plus of experience I had in a range of all kinds of occupations, both military and for the public service. And officer business and management services here in the city. I recently had a chance to join the Chamber and I’m being learned about the many, many kinds of opportunities that exist here in Shreveport, and many kinds of exciting projects that are available to get involved with, and that’s what I’m hoping to do. What I brought with me today is some information or informational packets that I hope that I can provide to each one of you that gives more specifics about myself, my background, and the services that I believe that I can provide that will be of great benefit to the business development, and economic development climate here in the city. And also, some information about my background and preparation for that kind of work. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and looking forward to some many exciting opportunities here in the City of Shreveport. Thank you.

Councilman Lester: Thank you and we’re glad to have you back home. Thank you Councilman Jackson for inviting him to the meeting. Any questions?

Councilman Green: Did you get a good Church home yet?

Mr. Stephenson: Well, I like to think of myself as a lifelong member of Blessed Sacrament Church, since that’s where it all started and that seems to be where it’s all going to continue.

Councilman Green: Okay, I was just checking.

Mr. Stephenson: Although, I’m open to attending all churches in the area.

Councilman Lester: Thank you. That takes us to Reports, Item C, 2006 Narcotic Operation Plans. Is there someone here to make a presentation on that?

2006 Narcotic Operation Plans:

Councilman Green: Mr. Chairman, as they come, I asked the Chief and his staff to put together this presentation because it’s getting hot summer. People in my district ask different questions, and I just basically wanted the folk that who could tell ‘em to tell what ‘s going on. So, with that - - -

Chief Campbell: Absolutely. Thank you. I’d like to introduce Capt Mark Holley, who is going to basically going to go through the power point presentation, kinda give you an update on what we’ve been doing over the past three years. We’ll go into the future and where it looks like the narcotics trade is going in the near future. After his presentation, we’ll be glad to answer any questions the Council may have.

Capt Holley: And what we want to present today to the Council is a brief snapshot of what the Chief said, of what we’ve done for the past three years, to give you an idea of what we see as the drug threats and the current trends in Shreveport right now. Right here shows total narcotics arrests by Shreveport, and this is by all officers, not only by narcotics agents, but by every officer in uniform. Starting back in 2003, this first category here is a primary charge of narcotics. This is where somebody was arrested for narcotics charge only. And as you’ll see, in 2003, we had 837, but in 2004, we jumped up and increased to 35% and again in 2005, increased up to 35%. The second column over here is primary-secondary chart. And that means that the people arrested in this may have been arrested on a theft charge, on assault charge or some other charge was the primary charge, but they also had narcotics on them at the time and was also followed up with a narcotics charge. In 2003, we had 1,187 people arrested for a charge plus a narcotics charge, and in 2004, it increased 14% and in 2005, it increased 40%. Now, it should be noted that in 2004, from April 1^st to October 17^th , we were in the process of building our new jail and stuff, and we did not book people into the city jail for narcotics or felony charges, they were direct booked into Caddo. So, those people arrested between April and October would not be reflected in those 2004 numbers. So, those numbers in 2004 would be slightly higher if we had those numbers. This slide here shows total narcotic arrests and seizures made by the Narcotics Bureau on it’s own. In 2003, we had 492 arrests, 2004 you see it jumps substantially to 684 arrests, and in 2005, we topped out at 744 arrests. The narcotic seizures, now this is the street dollar amount of the seizures made. In 2003, a little over $6,000,000 worth of drugs taken off the street. We dipped in 2004 to a little over $4 (million), then in 2005, we tripled, a little over tripled, and seized over $15,000,000 worth of narcotics off the streets of Shreveport. The currency seizures, as you’ll see, they’ve steadily gone up over the years. A little over $174,000 in 2003. We jumped up to $237,000 and in 2005, $673,000 in cash seizures made here in our jurisdiction. The primary drug threats that we see in Shreveport at this time, No. 1 it’s going to be cocaine, primarily crack cocaine. A close number to and you’re going to see some slides later on that’s going to reflect this nationwide is methamphetamine, primarily methamphetamine ice. This has made a substantial comeback in the last couple of years. Primarily all of the methamphetamine ice or the methamphetamine we’re seeing now is methamphetamine ice form. Ice is what crack cocaine is to cocaine. Your methamphetamine ice as compared to crack cocaine, your crack cocaine, you’re going to get like a 20 minute high, and your methamphetamine ice, you’re going to get a 9-12 hour high, and this has really taken Shreveport by storm right here, this one right here. Marijuana has always been a threat and it’s going to continue to be a threat, and the majority of all marijuana comes from out of state, typically down around south Texas and New Mexico. This is how the drugs get to Shreveport. Other than some of our homegrown stuff here, primarily the drugs is coming up through the Caribbean, up through Florida, but the vast, vast majority of the drugs we got comes up through Columbia, up through Mexico, and comes in across the border of Texas. That is where the vast majority of our drugs come from. That includes marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Cocaine just got to start down here, and be brought up this way, we do not grow it here. Methamphetamine used to be primarily the source was labs within the U.S., but what we’re seeing is the Mexican drug traffic organizations have taken that over, and they’re making it here along the border where it’s easier to get the chemicals they need. They’ve already got the routes that they’ve been working for years, bringing cocaine across. So now, they’re controlling the methamphetamine, that’s what we’re getting here in Shreveport. Drug corridors - - - after the drugs cross the borders here, then primary drugs are going to follow throughout the United States, and follow the interstate system. We’ve got I-20, we’ve got I-49, they’re talking about doing the new interstate here years down the road. These are nothing but conduits to get drugs from this area here all through the United States. The vast majority of the drugs that we’re seeing comes across here at Laredo, and through El Paso. Will make its way to Dallas, make its way to Houston, and then it comes up through Shreveport. Okay, this was I think a 2005 comparison of cocaine versus methamphetamine nationwide. The red is methamphetamine, the blue is cocaine. Five years ago, this would have been totally reversed. You wouldn’t have seen methamphetamine, and cocaine would have been up in the 90%, and as you’ll see methamphetamine nationwide is overtaking here, here, here, probably this is just my guess, within five years, we’ll be 50-50 if not methamphetamine will overtake crack cocaine. We don’t have a heroin problem here like they’ve got in some of the places. Okay, now what are we doing? We’ve got our Narcotics Division broken up into three separate and distinct groups. Our first one is the street level interdiction unit. Commonly known as our jump out boys. In 2003, the manpower was at 10 personnel. This year, we have increased that to 15 personnel. This increase was done by not only reassigning some people, but we joined forces in 2004 with the Caddo Parish Sheriff Department, and we joined - - - we’re all working together now. This increase allows for more street operations and one of those operations was conducted yesterday. This is street operations only. Just hitting drug corners. These guys went out and in about a 15 hour day, made 10 felony drug arrests, seized 4.3 pounds of cocaine, that’s $192,000 worth in one day. 83 grams of processed marijuana. This morning, we took off 33 marijuana plants. We seized a little over $12,000 cash, one assault weapon, and one vehicle. That’s just what we got off the street corners yesterday. The unit mission - - - we’re going to identify the street narcotics dealer where open air sales take place. Identify the houses and other structures where the sales are conducted out of public view. Conduct tactical narcotic operations to disrupt this illegal activity. Buy bust operations, (inaudible) take off operations, undercover purchases, search and arrest warrants. Our next up the food chain of narcotics is what we call our mid level operation, mid level narcotic investigative units. These guys are going after the dealers that are responsible for bringing the dope to the crack houses and other locations where it’s sold. They’re not actually out there on the street corners. They have tried to identify the major organizations. They conduct long term investigations. These investigations can last from a matter of a couple of weeks, to several months, even a year or more. They work in close proximity with our federal taskforces. In 2004, they took off four such major organizations is what we call ‘em, and one of the most noted one that we worked with, our DEA/FBI counterpart was the “Big Mook” operation. That operation was responsible for dealing hundreds of kilos within this area. We got a supplier that supplied this area directly out of Dallas. We’ve identified his supplier, he’s in Texas, and the person that supplies that individual is a Mexican drug trafficking organization, and we’ve turned that over to our federal counterparts, and they’re looking at that. We work in conjunction with our federal task forces. We are members of - - - and we have HPD and Caddo members assigned to DEA, FBI, and ATL. The investigations conducted by these task forces target violent offenders, and organizations that transport narcotics into Shreveport from other cities and states out side our jurisdiction. These task forces work routinely along with our street level and mid level investigative units. The beauty of working with these task forces is that defendants charged in these cases go to federal court, where the sentences are very substantial. You can get up to the death penalty for dealing narcotics in the federal side. What we’re finding is if we can get more defendants in the federal system that’s less we have to deal with. And that pretty much gives you a snap shot of what we’re looking at. If you have any questions, I’d be glad to try to answer them.

Councilman Green: Thank you for the presentation. My first question would be when you talk about the basic drug population versus a 15 member team, would you say that we’re actually out-matched?

Capt. Holley: Well, there’s no doubt that there are more drug offenders than we have police officers on the police department. I’ve got a 15 man street team, but the entire department if 500 men plus, and every one of those officers out on the street, they’re geared toward checking these corners and the same thing. Same thing that my street level guys do, but are we out-matched? Yeah.

Councilman Green: In years past, we used to have operations in different parts of the city called operation something and operation whatever, where you would go in and basically clean up an area. Is there anything on the scope to do operations like those. I can’t just off the bat remember the names of some of them, but like for an instance, I remember years ago, we went down and we had a deal called the “Bottom Boys,” and we cleaned out the Bottoms of course. That enabled people to get ready to build high rises and so forth and so, but we cleaned it out Is there anything on the horizon that you all see, that we will be going into different areas, and cleaning that area up more than just hitting the corners and arresting them because you know and I know that once you arrest them off the corner, by the time you all get down to the jail, then a new crop is back up again. So, is there anything on the horizon that you go into an area whereas, whatever area, and just work that area until it’s clean.

Capt. Holley: We’ve got a couple of long term investigations that’s going to have some major impact on the city itself. Now as far as going into those areas and having a real strong police presence, we’ve got some grants that’s going to allow us to do that, and I don’t have anything on the drawing board today, but I’ve got a major investigation that we’ve got going right now, that’s going to have a major impact city-wide. And we’re hoping that it will conclude in the next couple of months.

Councilman Green: Okay, and the reason that I’m asking this is because everyday, basically when I go to my neighborhood meetings, I mean there is not a meeting that I don’t go to that drugs don’t come up. They say they call, they tell you where the house is, tell you what’s going on. And basically, it takes anywhere from sometimes 12-14 months to basically bust a house, because of whatever. So basically, I’m just trying to give them some hope as to what will happen as far as getting it cleared out or cleaned up.

Chief Campbell: Absolutely, and I think one of the things in which you’re referring to is the old operations where they used to go in and do a “zero” tolerance in the community, and there were several type deals like that where it’s basically an occupation force. You set there for 30 days. What we found is in some cases, are good for the time that we’re there, but generally speaking, once we leave it gradually works back in. They do mini operations on a monthly basis. Probably two or three times a week on specific areas that we have a lot of problems that we can get in and deal with. When you talk about the number of resources, and I think one of the things that may be a misconception is the total number of personnel assigned to the narcotics bureau. It’s not just those 15 people. There’s - - - in fact, it’s grown quite a bit. With the addition of the task force from the Sheriff’s Department, and the total numbers I guess at this point would be close to about 30 people working specifically narcotics type complaints. But then again, patrol officers have the same ability. A lot of times, you look up there and you saw those huge numbers in comparison to the numbers that they generate, were actually done by patrol officers in the normal course of their duty. Yesterday, another prime example of an operation that we conducted, and I’ll be quite honest with you. One of the issues that we have is not necessarily they being replaced by new people, it’s being replaced by the people coming back out to people that we arrested. And there’s some obvious concerns coming out of there. Give you a prime example. Guy yesterday, three pounds of cocaine, both powder and crack cocaine, and the guy had two or three prior felony convictions on narcotics. And what is he doing? He’s out there doing it again. We can put people in jail, we can’t necessarily keep people in jail. Talk about Big Mook. Here’s an individual that had somewhere between 12 and 13 felony arrests before we got him on this last operation. Okay? And we’ll hear this from the prosecution side is that well, didn’t have the case there. Well, the law of averages, you would figure we got it right at least one time. In fact the law of averages say, we got it right about six of the 12 times at a minimum. But we got him, in fact everybody in that organization, has recently pled guilty in federal court. And not only will I not have to deal with them in my career, but most likely in Capt Holley’s career down here. And what we’ve found when we have the opportunity to do that, to do a federal prosecution, we get more bang for our buck. We get them off the street for a longer amount of time, and that’s what we’re going to have to try to do, and that’ what we’ve been doing, and that’s what we’ll continue to do. I think Mark without going into a lot of detail, there is a couple of investigations that are ongoing, that I think will make major impacts, but it’s something that we’re going to have to stay on top of everyday. The unfortunate thing is there is a lot of money to be made in the narcotics trade, and that’s the issue that drives it. But of course again, I think if you look at the flip side of that, that narcotics trade also affects all other crime. It’s a primary probably 70% of the crime, total crime, whether it be residential burglary, armed robbery, those things are related to the drug trade.

Councilman Green: And I guess my - - - two other questions. One is if there is a guy doing a burglary, we don’t let him do burglary, once we catch him I mean, he’s gone. In my district, and I’m just speaking for mine, I’ve got people that sell drugs night and day. Day and night. And my constituents call me, I call the police, and they figure, my constituents figure that I’m not doing my job, because they say when they call the police, the police don’t come. And then when the police don’t come, they say that there is a priority call. And if in fact, there is a deal going on over here, and you call over here about this, and they don’t come. So, when the police don’t show up, then they’re upset with me because they say, I’m not doing my job and basically, I’m just glad that you’re here today Chief, so that you can explain to the people that once a call is made, then there is nothing that I can do as a councilman, but try to do my best to give you my support to give you wherewithal to do it. For an instance when an officer rides through the community on patrol, what is their responsibility? Is it just basic cosmetics, or when they drive through? Because I have some complaints that when the officer drives through, if the speed limit is 35, they drive through at 35 and zoom on out and they’re gone. What’s the responsibility of a patrol officer when they drive through, because basically what’s happening is the folks that’s selling drugs, sell drugs while they passing through, and it’s not like they notice or whatever, they just drive through and keep on going. So, what’s the basic responsibility as when an officer drives through a neighborhood that, that officer supposed to do?

Chief Campbell: Well, I think the question can be answered very simply. If there’s things that they can do, if they can make a case or have probable cause to make a case, that they’re going to stop and investigate that. Sometimes all they can do, based on the lack of that, is have people move on or cite them for other possible (inaudible) often times, the narcotics investigation is a little bit more difficult to do. So if it’s a process of going through an investigation, making the case so that we can actually get a conviction in court. I think and if you look at the numbers, I think they’re reflective of what emphasis that we have on narcotics. They’re steadily growing, we’re steadily having an emphasis on doing that and addressing those things. If there’s a particular instances and I think we’ve been very - - - every time that you’ve called, we’ve been out there, and we’ve tried to address the issues that you’ve brought to our attention. As far as with not knowing the specific incident, or a specific thing, I really couldn’t comment.

Councilman Green: No, what I’m talking about, for an instance, the officers on patrol. Say if they’re patrolling, coming down Broadway, coming down Broadway, are they just to driver through, and keep going, or are they to observe whatever is happening. Because what I’m getting throughout my district, is that officers come to the neighborhood, but they just drive through, and basically, the people that’s there in the neighborhood are like, why they won’t stop at the house? I mean, they see ‘em, so why they don’t. So, my question is the responsibility of the patrol officer if in fact, they could basically be on the look out that they could call the narcotic folks to say we observe this going on at such and such a house, or whatever, whatever, that some attention would be given there. Or are the patrol officers wbasically as one of my constituents would say, they’re in too big a hurry to stop.

Chief Campbell: Well, I would hope not. And they’re trying to do that. They’re trying to look for crime that’s occurring and to deal with that. Whether it’s something that they can deal with, with the resources that they have or if they have to involve narcotics. And I think if you look back and I guess we should have brought from District 11, the efforts that we had in particular this past year, a lot of arrest were made that, unfortunately sometimes depending on how the narcotics are being dealt, it may take a more in depth investigation, that may require the resources of our narcotics bureau. But I think what we have been very successful in doing, those individuals who work closely with us and addressing the issues and problems that we have, we’ve been very successful in getting people in jail. What we haven’t been very successful in doing is keeping people in jail. And therefore we deal with the same people over and over again, as with the example yesterday, with the individual who has three felony convictions all on drug charges, and yet he’s out with nearly $200,000 worth of narcotics with him yesterday. How many times do we have to arrest this individual before we get him some time, and he’s in jail for a long time. It’s a difficult job. I certainly understand the self proclaimed war on drugs. Lost two of my close friends to this. I know what it does to the community. And I can assure you that we will make every effort to enforce the law. But I think it also has to be said that, that is what our duty is. Is to enforce the law, to make the cases and to put people in jail. And that’s where our job ends at that point. We’re going to need some help, and what we’ve done, we’ve had to seek alternative courses to do that, and we’ve been very successful in doing that in the federal system. Getting people off the street for long periods of time, so that we don’t deal with the same people over and over and over again.

Councilman Green: Okay. One last question Chief. On the speeding, basically how many officers are basically doing the speeding radar a day?

Chief Campbell: There would be - - - we probably would have a total of about 30 officers in our traffic bureau. But at any particular time, there could be as many as five dedicated to the speed enforcement. We have some grants which we’re working which we’re using up on I-49 right now to expand on that, and work on that. But you know it gets back to the issue of how many resources, and how many police officers are enough. And I think just recently one of the concerns that you had, lets see if I can find the exact address, but one of the locations that we talked about, I think your last meeting when Sgt Shaw went out there, and wrote 49 citations as a result of that. And we do that. We monitor that, we look for the problems, and we try to stay on top of that. One of the things that I remind you of on the Bellmio Study, one of the things that we want to try to attempt to get to is that 35% proactive time. And we talked about, that’s the time that the officer is not on a call for service, that he can dedicate to time in that community to deal with that specific issues that are addressing. That you don’t need a specialized radar unit or you don’t need a specialized narcotics unit. It’s freeing that patrol officer up for that time to be proactive in that neighborhood that he rides to address those specific quality of life issues we discussed.

Councilman Green: Is there a way to have a what you’d call, I guess a floating officer that if in fact, Grandmamma James called about whatever, that, that particular officer would be able to go. And say she heard something in her house, or she thought she heard something in the back yard. Well, she don’t understand that there is a priority or whatever over here. But when she calls the police and they don’t show up, and then when she comes to the meeting, and as many of your officers explained in the community meetings as to the priority calls, she don’t understand why she can’t get a police. So, is there a way for a floating officer that can answer minute calls in whatever district or whatever area, so that everybody would feel basically safe?

Chief Campbell: Well, the answer to that question is how many police officers can you afford to hire? That’s the bottom line. Calls for service are based on, and maybe it’s an understanding of how we go about doing our funding. First off, if we call an officer, and an officer doesn’t show up, you let me know. Cause there’s a problem. Cause an officer is coming. The only difference is, is between the priority calls, and obviously our Priority I calls which we consider emergency, whether there is a threat of death, or injury or those type things, we’re going to respond to first. And those are the calls we make in less than seven minuets. The other calls that we make are - - - you have Priority II calls, which is a little bit longer response time, and Priority III calls which would be kinda your nuisance calls. But if there is an incident where the police were called and we didn’t come at some point, I would ask you to call my office and let me know, because there is something wrong with the system. That should not happen.

Councilman Green: And to answer your question on how many police officers am I willing to hire? I voted for the tax.

Chief Campbell: Well I appreciate that.

Councilman: Walford: $600,000 worth of currency seizures, what happens to that?

Chief Campbell: Some of it’s used in our system. In some cases, we split it with the seizing agency which would be if it’s a joint operation, maybe split between the Shreveport Police Department, and say the Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office, and the DEA. Depending on who did the seizures. Those come back in enrichment (inaudible) our portion of those funds come back into the enrichment fund. There’s two of them, a state enrichment fund, and a federal enrichment fund, that has some limitations on what you can spend that money for.

Councilman Walford: The main thing is it comes back to us.

Capt Holley: I think it was in 2005, it showed that we seized that, it may be as late as 2008 before we actually get our hands on some of it.

Councilman Walford: Just as long as we get our hands on it. And I want to thank y’all. I’ve been sending you some - - - we won’t go into where, but some addresses that constituents have sent me. And Capt Holley emailed me back, that one of them you already had in your system.

Capt Holley: We’re working on a couple of things on a couple of them.

Councilman Walford: Yeah, and I appreciate that. But it shows that the public is also watching. So, I certainly appreciate the response on that. I know like Councilman Green said, that the public doesn’t understand they can’t report this today, and it be gone tomorrow, but obviously, you’d have to build a case. But I do appreciate what you do on mine. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Councilwoman Robertson: I have a couple of questions, and I know I’ve done the same (inaudible) citizens that were out, and had some problems in a couple of neighborhoods. But one of the things, and I don’t know if it’s a matter of how they call it in, or maybe how I relay it to y’all. If they see a marked police car and there is someone that is doing a transaction, of course, it scatters. If they start at the front of the street, and go down, and it’s midway down the street, well phones have already rung, and people have already taken care of whatever they’ve got. How do the citizens need to let you know it’s going on now, so watch how you come in, or I’ve got a lady that’s video taping- - - so.

Chief Campbell: Yeah, and actually we’ve been very successful and I think I commented towards that a few minutes ago. We’ve been very successful in neighborhoods where people have either video taped or let information know. I would ask you to get that information to Capt Holley or somebody in narcotics bureau. We can take that information and perhaps enhance or quicken the pace that we can make the investigation. It’s simple thing of recording. It goes back to basically the concept on neighborhood watch. The citizens are the best defense for their community that they live in. And what we ask and everybody’s got ‘me, the Mrs. Kravits, if you see something. Cause you’re going to know a lot quicker than I will if there is something amidst in your neighborhood. Or if there is a vehicle that you suspect of some suspicious activity, whether it be narcotics trafficking or any other type of crime, in getting that information and there are several ways, depending on what it is. You call straight to narcotics, there is a narcotics hotline, and those type of things that we can get that type of information in. I’ve actually worked cases when I was in narcotics, when we went out and the person let us use their house for us to video tape and run an operation. And all these things help us, and it depends on the information we have as to how long it’s going to take us to actually make the case that hopefully will get us an conviction in one of the courts.

Councilwoman Robertson: Can they request like “don’t come to my house, because I don’t want somebody to know I’m telling.” Can they tell the officer that?

Chief Campbell: Absolutely, and there’s a 101 ways and it’s one of the things we try to do as far as educating the public. Often times, people don’t want to get involved, and there’s things that you need to let the operator know that. You need to - - - there’s anonymous hotlines that you can talk to. Often times, though what people don’t understand is what information we need to make the case. And they may call in anonymously and what causes us a problem (and there’s an answer for that too), they may call in anonymously, they may know the piece of information we need to make the case, but they don’t tell us that, they really don’t know what it is that we’re looking for, and then at that point, we have no way of contacting them back. You can call through Crime Stoppers, you can give - - - whether you’re interested in getting the reward or not, but at least we have a number that we can identify to you, and ask you ‘hey, call us back,’ because after we get the initial information that you give us, we’re going to look at it, see what pieces, see what other information, and it’s important that we have a correlation or - - - not a correlation, but a transfer of information back and forth, that could save us some time in making that case that we need to make. Another place to do that is establish a working relationship with the community liaison officer who works in that particular district. One of the things that we’re looking at in the reorganization, and as we build up to full strength, we’re fixin’ to - - - we have basically four CLOs that cover the whole city. And those are those guys that are kinda the floaters that you were talking about that can go out there, and I think Jimmy Thomas in your particular area, great for taking care of quality of life issues that occur, works out there on an everyday basis, has a good rapport with the people, get the information, and actually get on top of it real quickly. Well, as - - - in fact, we’re fixin’ to increase our CLOs by two at some point, probably at the hiring of the next class, we’ll fill the final two positions which will give each area two CLOs in stead of one. And those guys do a great job of dealing with the issues that you speak of.

Councilman Lester: And before I go back to Councilman Green, I do want to ask, because Councilwoman Robertson hit on it. I think it’s an excellent question. Could you just again reiterate to our constituents and our folks in the community that when they do call and make a report, that the officers are not going to go to Joe Blow that’s engaged in the illegal activity, and say well “Mrs. Johnson just said it was you.” When you go on the knocks and talks, that’s the thing that kept coming up over and over that people were really concerned that officer is going to go and take that information and say well, the lady across the street in the green house just said that you guys were (inaudible).

Chief Campbell: Well, I think there is a generally on a normal call, police officer calls in, I mean, not a police officer, but police officer is dispatched to a location. If you don’t specifically request, you’re going to be listed as the complainant. The complainant at such and such address, called in reference to loud music at this location. And unless you specifically request that, that they not do that. I don’t know of any case (inaudible) of who provided the information on the house. So that would be a - - -

Councilman Lester: I think that it’s just a negative perception that’s out there. I just wanted for those people that listen hear it from the Chief say - - - ‘that’s not standard operating procedure.’

Chief Campbell: And does it happen? Yes it does happen. But I think - - - and again, I think it’s something that we’ve spent a lot of time and effort on, trying to educate the public. In particular, if you don’t want your name known, there’s other ways to get that information to somebody through all the different systems that we have. But to me, I think it’s an educational problem of knowing how the system works, how to get in there, and it’s one of the things that comes up in fact we just had a citizen police academy class, and the understanding of the - - - how to get into the system, and how to make it work for you. And it’s something that we try to really push at our neighborhood watch, and encourage those neighborhood watch groups to form so that they can get that training, and those issues about here’s what you do in this case, if you don’t want your name used and those type of things there.

Councilman Jackson: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Chief, I know we have a general phone number that people call whenever something goes on. I guess since Councilman Green had brought up the whole idea of narcotics, and we talked about drugs, do we currently have a hotline for example that is just drug related if something in my community or something on my street is an issue, I’ve got a hotline number that like Crime Stoppers does not request or necessitate any other information about me, but gives tips about addresses and activity that goes on in these particular neighborhoods?

Capt Holley: Yeah, if you’ll have them call our main number, 673-7040 and actually talk to an agent. We’ll have one available or I’ve got somebody that can take that information. Also, we started last year to go to the police department website, and you can link onto how to contact myself, or Lt Lane, and Lt Terry directly through email. And we found that this has been really - - -

Councilman Lester: Could you repeat that phone number again.

Capt Holley: 673-7040. But if they would contact us through email, they don’t have to leave their names or anything, but if we have some questions, we can turn around and email ‘em back. And we can get a correspondence going and on that tip hotline, or on that web page, it’s got exactly what we’re looking for. It answers a lot of questions that before they send us an email, they can look down and say, ‘okay, they want to know this, this, and this; and a lot of times, they give it to us. And those tips have worked out real well.

Councilman Jackson: And I guess the 7040 number, I don’t know if that’s just drug hotline, or if it’s a general number.

Capt Holley: That comes to the narcotics office.

Councilman Jackson: Okay, and it’s 24/7?

Capt Holley: No sir, that’s - - - we’ve got people up there up till about 3:00 in the morning.

Councilman Jackson: Okay, that was my concern. You know a number where a person could call at whatever time, whenever activity takes place, and directly, if it’s the narcotics officer off the 7040 number, then I think that’s a good thing to have. I just think again that if people don’t know it exist, writing the number or something like that, we don’t know it exist, it may as well not exist in a sense. And so, I think it’s about telling the people about where to be able to call, where to be able to contact, so that people - - - to me, I just think it’s empowerment, and information. And use this information to empower citizens, so that they can feel like there is a number that they can call. It’s a lot easier to call a number from inside your house, than it is to make a call and say I’m so and so, and again as Councilman Lester said, what people repeatedly say to me is ‘I don’t have anything to say, because I know what’ll happen. They drive up to my house and say now which house did you say it was?’ And they feel like, then gee, I’m on the spot kinda scenario. So, I think people are reluctant about the whole cooperating from that perspective. But I do think that if in fact, there were some anonymity involved much like Crime Stoppers, that at least if people got a sense - - - one of the things about Crime Stoppers from it’s very inception, it has allayed the fears of people to say, we don’t need your names, don’t need any information, I mean excuse me, don’t’ need any names about you personally, just give us what you know. And it’s the same kind of scenario would work if we had a dedicated line, that’s targeted toward narcotics trace, which is again one of the foundational criminal elements that spends off other kinds of crime, as the Chief has said. If we have a targeted line where they’re able to call, and then we promote that. We promote that line, we continue to just say in a PSA or whatever the case may be, that we have a campaign or a promotion that specifically targets people and empowering them with this information and much like Crime Stoppers, it catches on, so that people know that they can call this STOP line, or whatever the case may be, this information number with regards to this drug trafficking and trade. And I think we’ll never be able to hire enough police officer to be able to do what citizens can do as it relates to informing the police department. So, I would encourage us to try to go that direction, if we could as well, or even if we’re doing it to start marketing that, you know a lot better than we do.

Chief Campbell: And I think that a good thing to point to Councilman Jackson is the success that we had last year in reducing the overall crime rate. That was not done just by the police department, I think it was done with the cooperative effort between the citizens that we serve, and the efforts of the police, the men and women who serve this city. And I think that that’s where we should go, that’s what really community policing is all about, is working that relationship with the communities for the citizens help us help them. And I think we can be way more successful using that philosophy in what we’ve typically done in the past.

Councilman Green: Yes Chief, I’ve been reluctant to bring this up, because I got a nickname because of it, (Butterbean Green), but how successful has the camera been?

Chief Campbell: It’s been very successful. In fact, it played a part in the “Big Mook” operation. The I think, I don’t remember the exact totals, I think the last time I looked at it, there was over 49 felony arrests that were made off the camera. It’s been a very successful tool that we’ve been utilizing. Capt Holley has used them numerous times, and continues to use them in numerous investigations.

Councilman Green: And with that, Mr. Mayor, during the budget, we budgeted some money for some other cameras. Is there a certain time, when that initiative will be started? Or what is that we need to do to get more at a reduced cost?

Mr. Dark: Councilman, I just had a conversation with one of Chief Campbell’s assistants the other day about where we were going with that and reminding them that we needed to get going. I think they were waiting to see, there is some additional Homeland Security Money, they were going to try to match that, that they thought they would get sometime in the middle of the year, and I think that was when they were going to try to get going.

Councilman Lester: Thank you Councilman Green. This advertisement brought to you by - - -

Councilman Green: Butterbean Green.

Councilman Lester: Did you approve this message?

Councilman Green: Yeah.

Councilman Carmody: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Chief, I’ve listened to y’all’s report, and I know it’s got to be frustrating especially when you’re dealing with repeat offenders that you’re picking up over and over again. I mean your offices will know them by sight when they’re out there doing their business on the street. During my term on the council, there’ve been a number of very visible neighborhood representatives who made it a point to let those persons that they knew were doing illegal activities know that they were not welcomed. And I think all of us remember that Bessie Smith had an unfortunate situation where somebody retaliated against she and her husband. But it did not stop Bessie, and in essence she said ‘if that’s the best they can do, I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, they can go.’ But many constituents contact this Council Member to say that their concern is that they don’t want their name brought into it. And that they would like to report suspicious activity, and I always refer them back to the police department and advising them that it’s best if they ask specifically that their names not be brought in, and I guess many of them - - - this is an ongoing thing, and maybe some of them are the Gladys Kravitz of their neighborhoods, but did they point out ‘I do not want an officer to come to my residence. I don’t want to have a police car pull up in front of my house, and then them go down to the house,’ could they just make sure they look into what is going on down there. And I think the Chairman started to talk about these knock and talks, or walk and knocks that y’all do, that the police department in the past has gone by and done basically a courtesy call on reported residences to ask if the occupants of that structure, you know, if anything appears to be amidst, or if they wouldn’t mind taking a look around, and I think that a lot of times, that that is a very effective thing to let people know that you’re under our watchful eye at this point. And whatever you’re doing, is not welcome here, but we’re watching you. And I would think that that is a good deterrent to keeping those people at least aware that the police department is on to ‘em. And if not, is suspicious of what they’re doing. As I say, I watched the report on television before I got here to the meeting, and was thinking about that. And in driving here, I had noticed, and this is not having to do with narcotics, but this has to do with obeying the law that about four cars ran a red light after it had turned red, at the intersection of Youree and Kings, as I was trying to come here. And what my question is, does the police department monitor the number of accidents that occur in an intersection, specifically with people running the red lights, and if so, what do we do to try to put a police presence there to deter people from just basically - - - I mean, it’s amazing. It’s almost as if - - - I mean when I went through Drivers Ed, they told us that, that yellow light means you apply the brake and you get ready to stop, that it’s going red. And some of these people look like that they think it’s gonna go back to green cause they accelerate. But what my fear is that after the light has gone red, the people keep going. That somebody that’s not paying any attention to the other three directions is gonna ease out into that intersection and get popped. But I didn’t know if we did anything to try to direct - - -?

Chief Campbell: Right, we look at that on a monthly basis. They look at the number of accidents, your high accident intersections, your high accident streets, Bert Kouns being one of the primary ones. Look for issues that relate to the accident, whether it was caused - - - the causing factors, whether it be speed, alcohol, or whatever, and then they direct their resources based on where the issues are or where the problems are.

Councilman Carmody: But do we track people running red lights and that kind of violation. Because I don’t know how if somebody does that and they cause an accident, do you ticket them for running a red light, because you really don’t have a witness, other than the people that they hit, saying that I had the green - - -?

Chief Campbell: No, but it would be listed under contributing factors on the report. But it also would be again, like I said, we track the number of accidents, communications, try to determine what the cause is and we can enforce some actions at the locations that are identified, as well as our regular CCAR complaints, which generally are your neighborhood speeding, and those type things, we address those as well.

Councilman Green: Chief, let me ask you this question. What if there was a case, that say for an instance, the police officers work on other jobs after they get off their jobs. Say if there was an initiative put forth that basic neighborhoods that we’re having trouble with drugs, violence, gunshots or whatever, that we would come up with some extra money that we could basically have an officer just to be present in that particular neighborhood as to - - - he’s not answering calls, he don’t have to go see about the this. He’s just basically driving through taking notes and observing and doing whatever. Would that be something that would be - - -

Chief Campbell: There have been some things I think there is some issues that you have to address. But we have done that on a limited basis for special things where actually that neighborhood association has actually - - - I think one of them, I think last year during the Christmas season, they were having a lot of vandalism done and they were opening their neighborhood for everybody to come in and see the Christmas decorations. And in that particular instance, they hire a police officer to basically ride their neighborhood during that special event. I think the thing obviously that you have to look at there, would be some probably some discrepancy on who could afford that kind of service, and who could not.

Councilman Green: No, I’m saying the city paying for it, I’m not talking about the neighborhood.

Chief Campbell: Yeah, I think that’s something that you can dedicate funds, that that could be looked at. Absolutely, but almost the same way we do our grants now to address specific problems.

Councilman Hogan: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of quick comments. I appreciate y’all coming today as well. It’s been real interesting to hear the statistics. A few weeks ago, I turned in a request for suspected drug activity at 863 Belden, and so, if you could check on that, maybe one day later this week, call me and see if there’s anything that was discovered on that. And the only other thing I just want to tell you, kinda not on the subject of drugs, but I believe your efforts to slow people down on I-49 are working. So, I just wanted to commend you on that and say to you keep up the good work. Thank you.

Public Hearing: 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 (Agenda Items to be Adopted)

Mr. Alphonso Williams: (Williams Enterprise Trucking) And I’m here because of the rejecting of the emergency dirt haul.

Councilman Lester: Okay, well lets do this Mr. Williams. Can you - - -? Well, you can make your comment. State your name and address for the record. We’ll just get you to fill out one of these comment cards, if you could. Just state your name and address:

Mr. Williams: My name is Alphonso Williams, and my address is 2711 Beasley Place, Shreveport, LA 71104.

Councilman Lester: Okay, go ahead sir, the floor is yours and you have three minutes.

Mr. Williams: Okay, how this all came about., I’m a Fair Share client. Ms. Karen Barnes, and Mr. Sam Gilliam gave me a call, and told me about a project that was going on, and they thought that I’d be interested in or my company would be. I’m a start up company. I made the bid on this particular project. I talked with Anthony Mitchell, I talked with Vicki Mullican, Mr. Tommy Mattox about it. After receiving this award, I went through the process, well I was awarded the contract for the bid, whereas I went out and purchased a lot of equipment, because they said it was an emergency. This is something that had to be done. But when I bid on this particular contract, it was for 45 days. After being awarded, since I won it, they changed it and say okay, we need you to do this in 15 days. I agreed. Okay, at this time, I’d like to give the rest of my time to Sheva.

Councilman Lester: Okay. Attorney Sims, please come forward please ma’am.

Ms. Sims: I apologize for my delay, (inaudible) please forgive me.

Councilman Lester: That’s alright.

Ms. Sims: I’m here on behalf of - - - excuse me, I’m going to catch my breath.

Councilman Lester: Yes. State your name and address for the record after you take your breath.

Ms. Sims: I’m here on behalf of Alphonse Williams, my name is Sheva Sims, my address is 1960 Milam Street, Shreveport, LA. Good afternoon Council, how are you all doing today?

Councilman Lester: Great.

Ms. Sims: I don’t know how far he had gotten. Mr. Williams had submitted his bid to remove dirt. I don’t know if you all have received a copy of any documentation?

Councilman Lester: Yes, we do have copies of the deal.

Ms. Sims: And as you’re aware, I’m sure you all have read it and you’re well aware of whatever transpired with regard to offer and acceptance. This is a simple law school thing that I learned in 101 in law school in contracts. There was an offer here for Mr. Williams to submit his bid, the offer was accepted. He came in as the lowest qualified bidder. The offer was accepted by the city. Subsequent to the offer being offered and accepted, the city decided to unilaterally modify the initial document. It would take 45 days for it to be completed. The city unilaterally to augment that and decided that it must be completed in 15 days, which is the first problem. Mr. William decided to although there was unduly burdensome to him, he accepted it and decided to complete the task in 15 days as opposed to the initial 45 days. It’s very hard and difficult for him to do that. He incurred additional supplies, additional trucks, additional employees to complete the job within the task. After he had incurred those additional personnel, the additional equipment, the additional trucks, then the city decided to withdraw the offer, which was amazing to me. That an individual for the city can unilaterally decide to do that. And subsequent to that, made the decision to submit it to board for you all to remove it based upon his unilateral request. Any questions?

Councilman Lester: I do have a question, and since this is the next item that we’re going to get into very shortly. I guess this would be to Mr. Mattox maybe? Come on up Mr. Mattox. Explain to me, Ms. Sims has indicated that her client was the low bidder on this particular project and her - - - she has indicated that he was told that he was awarded the contract, and then that the contract was amended either verbally or through some process, he was told that he was going to have to complete the project in 15 days as opposed to 45 days. What is your - - -?

Mr. Mattox: He was the apparent low bidder, and the original bids said 45 days. The department had requested that we consider awarding the bid based on 15 days, so we asked him that if we did award it, and let me remind you a contract was never signed, that we asked him if he would like to finish it in 15 days or would he like for us to split the contract? We gave him the option if we were to award it, but the contract was never awarded.

Councilman Lester: Let me ask this question. When that conversation was held, I’m assuming between you as the purchasing agent, and Mr. Williams as the contractor, was that after the bids were opened?

Mr. Mattox: Correct.

Councilman Lester: Okay, and at that point, he had been declared the apparent low bidder.

Mr. Mattox: Apparent low bidder. Yes.

Councilman Lester: Okay, how long after he was declared the apparent low bidder did we have this, or did you have this conversation with Mr. Williams as it relates to changing from 45 days to 14 days?

Mr. Mattox: It was in about 4 or 5 days.

Councilman Lester: 4 or 5 days. Okay. And I guess what I’m trying to understand. He was the apparent low bidder, and for 4 or 5 days he was the apparent low bidder, he was approached by you and you said, - - - you gave him the option of either performing the work in a shorter period of time or splitting the contract for the same price that he bid. Is that correct?

Mr. Mattox: That’s correct.

Councilman Lester: Okay. So he had to maintain his price, but he had the option of doing it either in 14 days or if he could not, splitting that with someone else.

Mr. Mattox: That is correct.

Councilman Lester: And to split it with someone else, would that have required that, that portion that could not have been completed be placed back out for bid?

Mr. Mattox: We had enough bidders where it wouldn’t have been necessary to put it back out for bid.

Councilman Lester: Okay, he would have just gone to the next person.

Mr. Mattox: Next lowest bidder.

Councilman Lester: Next lowest bidder, okay. So in an effort for him to, and I’m not putting words in his mouth or yours, but apparently he made the decision that he wanted to maintain the contract at the price, and just perform at a shorter period of time?

Mr. Mattox: That’s correct.

Councilman Lester: Okay, now after that transpired, how much longer was it before either you or someone from the city communicated to Mr. Williams, that you were not going to enter into a contract with us?

Mr. Mattox: It was probably - - - I don’t remember the exact time, but it was probably a week or two.

Councilman Lester: Okay, okay.

Mr. Mattox: When the department told us that job was no longer going to be required to be performed by the city.

Councilman Lester: Okay, now that department is?

Mr. Mattox: Operational Services, DOS.

Councilman Lester: Okay. Mr. Strong, could you join us real quick please? But before I get to you Mr. Strong, Mr. Mattox, I’m sorry. Don’t go far Mike. The letter - - - the bids were received February the 28^th ?

Mr. Mattox: I’d have to check.

Councilman Lester: Well, that’s what our fact sheet says. Our fact sheet says February 28^th. And as I appreciate it, looking at this, a letter was sent to Mr. Williams on April 19, 2006.

Mr. Mattox: That sounds about right. Yes.

Councilman Lester: Okay, this is basically a month after the contract or the bids were opened, saying that we were going to reject it. Let me ask this question. And maybe, if you could answer it, if not Mr. Strong can answer. If the work would have been commenced, what was the scope of time that we were looking to commence the work. In other words, if the bids were opened on February 28^th, and we sent a letter to Mr. Williams on April 19^th, saying his services were not required, lets say for the sake of argument, that he was going to commence the work and we’re talking about 30 days, about a 30 day window. Would the work had been completed if we had not issued him this letter to saying that we don’t need your services? I don’t know if you can answer that or Mr. Strong can answer it.

Mr. Mattox: We would not have given him the okay to start the work until the contract had been signed by the Mayor of course. And Mr. Strong had given us the word to put that on hold because of some legal situations. Okay?

Councilman Lester: Okay, I guess my question is, and maybe Mr. Strong can answer this. At what point did we, did the city decide to put a hold on the contract in terms of asking the Mayor to sign it and move forward?

Mr. Mattox: That would be a question for Mr. Strong.

Councilman Carmody: I have a question too.

Councilman Lester: Well, I’m going to finish my litany and then I’m going to turn it over.

Mr. Strong: I think it was what Mr. Mattox was saying is that somewhere in the neighborhood of about two weeks. In that neighborhood. I don’t know the exact date, but we were dealing with the attorneys and everything that was coming there. We had had the bids that were submitted, and then somewhere shortly thereafter, maybe in a two week period is where we said, hold up on everything, we don’t want to move forward on it at this time. So, that’s where we kinda of put a hold on everything before - - - that we would have awarded any kind of award on that.

Councilman Lester: Okay, let me ask this question. It was two weeks after the communication had been sent from Mr. Mattox to Mr. Williams, that instead of performing a contract in 30 days, you would now, he was expected to perform the contract in 14 days. Is that correct?

Mr. Strong: Somewhere within that two week period that was in there when we were talking about 45 days of how long it was going to take to do it, versus some conversations that were going on with DEQ and the attorney, whether to be done in 15 days, and that’s where we started talking about that conversation.

Councilman Lester: Okay, at the point where you or the city had made the decision or someone in the chain of command had made the decision to hold up on the contract, at what point was that communicated to Mr. Williams? Because it appears the only official, and I’m going by the packet that we were provided by Council Staff, that the only communication officially to Mr. Williams was April 19, 2006. Did we communicate with him in another way, shape, or fashion, to let him know that there was going to be a hold?

Mr. Strong: I know there was some communications because I know with even our contract person that was told that - - - she was getting conversations from Mr. Williams, and I think somewhere along the line that during that period of time, he even spoke with me. But I’d let Mr. Mattox say how he (inaudible)

Mr. Mattox: That was my understanding that he was in communication with Mr. Strong’s contract people, and he was instructed that they were holding the contract. And that’s why it didn’t move forward.

Councilman Lester: Okay, was that communication in writing or verbal, or what?

Mr. Mattox: As far as I know it was verbal between Mr. Williams and the contract personnel.

Councilman Lester: Okay, okay. Alright thank you. That’s all the questions that I had. I will turn to other Council Members.

Councilman Green: Mr. Mattox: The way that this was handled, is this the way we handle normal business as to here is the lowest bidder. When there are low bidders, do you normally four days later call and say to them look, you got the bid, but got somebody else. You can either split the job with them, or back out, or let them do it. Is that normal how we do?

Mr. Mattox: That’s not normal situation, but this wasn’t a normal bid per se, as it was contaminated soil.

Councilman Green: So, did you all know it was contaminated before you all started the bid process?

Mr. Mattox: Yes.

Councilman Green: So knowing that it was contaminated, knowing that it was not a normal process, you still went through with the bidding process?

Mr. Mattox: We went through the bidding process to give everybody a chance to bid on it. But we did it in a very short turn around.

Councilman Green: So, you’re saying that it didn’t matter whoever got the bid, you were going to go and ask them to split it with somebody? Is that normal procedure?

Mr. Mattox: No. Only when there’s certain circumstances involved and this was - - - there was legal issues, there was DEQ issues, and the department made the request because of other issues that came up.

Councilman Green: And my question is, was this a surprise? Did you all know there were DEQ issues before this happened, or once y’all finished bidding, then somebody dropped a bomb and say well, there are DEQ issues involved and whatever, so we need to go to this guy and say, listen, somebody needs to help you with the job?

Mr. Strong: Councilman, during the bid process, one of the things that we had asked in there because we didn’t know, we knew what the minimum and the potential maximum would be on the amount of dirt that would be hauled off. So, we had submitted not knowing what all could be bid is how many that we could use. So, we were going to leave it open, as the option that we could use more than one hauler that was in the bid process. Cause we did not know everything that was there. So, what we were doing that’s in here, this is being done at a fairly fast pace because we were dealing with different environmental companies, and also with environmental regulatory agencies on there. But we did bid it out. We knew that what we were going to be dealing with. We didn’t know whether we were going to have the dirt that was going to be piled in a certain area, or it’s going to have to go over areas of this 10 acres that we were dealing with. So, there were some unknowns as we were dealing with it, but at the same time, we were going to be able to give access to the site, that they would be able to get into.

Councilman Green: So, knowing all of that, when you all got this bid day come up, everybody that was bidding, did you all explain to them - - - we’re going to go through with this bid, we don’t know what all is going to go on, but this is where we are and whatever. And the lowest bid whoever is the lowest bid, you’re going to have to split it with somebody?

Mr. Strong: The document itself said there are others that could be involved, I believe is how- - -

Mr. Mattox: Correct. It said that one or more awards could be made (inaudible)

Councilman Green: Could be made?

Mr. Mattox and Mr. Strong: Right.

Councilman Green: So, once Mr. Williams comes out to be the lower bid, Mr. Mattox, you said you went to him or you called him four days later?

Mr. Mattox: Several days later. Yes.

Councilman Green: To say what?

Mr. Mattox: At that time, I reminded him that the bid document did say that the project could be awarded to one or more bidders, and I told him that the department had requested that we check to see if he could do the job within 15 days instead of 45 days or would he prefer that we split the award just like the bid said that we could do?

Councilman Green: So, if say to you, I can do it in 15 days, it’s going to push me or whatever, then what happens next?

Mr. Mattox: He said he could do it within 15 days and at that time, the contracting personnel from DOS was on the line with us, and she said she would prepare the contract and get it ready. But the contract was never approved on the city’s part.

Councilman Green: Okay, but here again I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t want to have to go to the Bar, but a contract is actually the meeting of the minds, and of course you got a couple of lawyers here, that would say a contract, whether it’s on paper or whether it’s the meeting of the minds, if in fact you’re on the phone with Mr. Williams, and you say, can you do it in 15 days because our contract personnel is on the phone, if the minds met that you could do it in 15 days, then once he gets off the phone then with the way I’m thinking, his mind would be set that I’ve got the job and I’ve got 15 days to do it, so I need to be doing what I need to do. So, before I do that, is our City Attorney here? Oh, I’m sorry. Julie is the contract- - - I mean, I didn’t go to law school but two days, but a contract from my understanding, the contract is actually the meeting of the minds. Am I real far off - - - or?

Ms. Glass: Mr. Chairman, that’s what I think I was just saying.

Councilman Lester: Right. That’s what we were discussing.

Ms. Glass: The Chairman thinks the city’s position was that both parties intended that there would be a written contract. And so there was no meeting of the minds until there would be a written contract, which it was my understanding, had not happened.

Councilman Green: Let me ask you this. Did you tell him that once the contract personnel is on the phone, and you all talking, and he says yes, I can do it in 15 days. Okay, did you tell him specifically, or did they say specifically, okay understand you say you will, but we’re going to have to do a written contract, and then we’ll go forward.

Mr. Mattox: Basically yes.

Councilman Green: Basically, or did you say that?

Mr. Mattox: Right. And all of our documents say that - - -

Councilman Green: No, I’m asking you a question Mr. Mattox. You say basically. I’m saying when you left the phone, did you specifically say to him, you got the contract, or you don’t have the contract, or we don’t know what’s going to happen?

Mr. Mattox: No. Basically Vicki Mullican in contracts said, “I will prepare a contract for signatures.”

Councilman Green: So if you say, lawyer if he say “I will prepare a contract for your signature,” does that mean we got a deal, or does that mean, we may have a deal, or what does that actually mean.

Ms. Glass: I think if we go back to as Ms. Sims said, our freshman contract law, if the parties intended there would be a written contract, a contract is not complete until it’s executed.

Ms. Sims: Pardon me, but that’s not what I said.

Ms. Glass: No, I’m sorry. I was just kind of adding on, jokingly to what you said.

Ms. Sims: But basically the contract has nothing to do as you know with the reduction to writing. You can have a contract, as you know, once the parties agree, and in this case, they agreed. There was no intent for that agreement not be completed once there was or was not a subsequent reduction to writing.

Ms. Glass: Mr. Chairman, it’s getting to the point, where I’m not sure we need to be having a debate on the legal issues during this meeting. I will say that I disagree with that, and I think all of the documents said that there would be a written contract, but we may just have to agree to disagree at this point.

Ms. Sims: But when they made the augmentation, my client detrimentally relied on that change, whereby he incurred a substantial loss. He lost bids, he lost other jobs, he incurred additional equipment, he incurred additional personnel to complete it in a shorter amount of time. So, when there was augmentation to an agreement that was in writing, it was an additional augmentation that was orally, and that was accepted by the parties.

Councilman Walford: Mr. Chairman, I’m going to call point of order.

Councilman Lester: Let me say this, and I was going to go there. But let me say this. 1) Councilman Green does have the floor. And he is free to ask any question that he needs for informational purposes, although technically we are in Public Comment. I have allowed this discussion to move forward because the very next item that we’re going to be considering is that. So, if your point of order is to form and substance, that’s why I’m allowing this conversation. Because the very next item after Public Comments is this. That’s no. 1. My second issue is to what Ms. Glass said, and I do think that we need to be circumspect although we may want to empathize with Mr. Williams, and the positions that Ms. Sims is advocating, we do have a fiduciary duty as the board of the city not to put ourselves in a position where there is the clear intent, more likely than not that litigation will proceed. So, I would just caution any of the Council Members in the comments that you make to understand that for us to go further in discussing that issue on certain things, we could be putting ourselves in legal jeopardy. But for what it’s worth, I just want to give that information to the Council. But that’s my ruling on your point of order. Now having said all of that, Councilman Green still has the floor, and after that Councilwoman Robertson, Councilman Carmody, and then Councilman Jackson.

Councilman Green: Mr. Chairman, my comment would be that since we’re at this point with this particular item and since this will be the next item on the agenda, my request would be to postpone this particular item, and that we would be given the opportunity to talk about it in another setting to come to a reasonable conclusion as to - - - instead of either voting Yeah or Nay today, that this particular item would be postponed until we can get in a setting that we can ask the questions that need to be asked.

Councilman Lester: Okay, and at that time that we get to item 61, I will give you the first opportunity to make that request and your suggestion in the form of a motion Councilman Green. Having said that, Councilman Green do you have any other questions or comments?

Councilman Green: With what our legal has said, no.

Councilwoman Robertson: I have a question. In reading the contract, there’s two items that I have a question about. 1) Was there ever a notice to proceed that was ever formed or given?

Mr. Strong: No.

Councilwoman Robertson: Okay, so there was never one?

Mr. Strong: No.

Councilwoman Robertson: Okay, the other question I have is that it states that the solicitation does not commit the City of Shreveport to award a contract, to pay any cost incurred in the preparation of a bid, or the procured (inaudible) or contract for the articles or goods or services. So, is that one of your questions or contentions?

Ms. Sims: I’m sorry. Would you repeat it again? I’m sorry.

Councilwoman Robertson: It states that the City, the solicitation because there is not a contract awarded does not commit the city to award a contract to pay any costs incurred in the preparation of a bid or the procured or the contract for the articles of goods or services. So, your contention is that he has procured trucks or items necessary for this particular bid, is that - - -?

Ms. Sims: The initial bid was for 45 days which was reasonable. The augmented change to the document was 15 days, which I don’t know if you know anything about hauling dirt, but that’s a very tight parameter to meet. And in doing that, he had to obtain additional products, trucks, and personnel to accomplish it in 15 days as opposed to the initial window of 45 days. If we were in the 45 day window, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Councilwoman Robertson: Okay, and he was asked if you were given the contract, could you perform the contract in 15 days or would you be willing to split the time of the 15 days of the contract with another bidder?

Ms. Sims: Actually, he wasn’t asked. He was rudely told that, and I was told the same thing, when I spoke to Mr. Mattox myself. It was either you take it or we split it. He wasn’t asked.

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Mattox, could I ask you to come back to the dais? Councilwoman Robertson actually quoted 6.1 of the solicitation under rejection. This solicitation does not commit the City of Shreveport to award a contract, to pay for any cost incurred by the preparation of a bid, or to procure or to contract for the articles of goods or services. That is basically I think where y’all are now coming from as far as the fact that since there was no actual contract put together, that this body did not grant the Mayor the authority to award the contract that Mr. Williams really does not have a case with the city as far as us having to reimburse him for goods that he purchased or personnel that he’s hired for this job.

Mr. Mattox: Well, let me say this. That is part of our standard terms and conditions in every bid.

Councilman Carmody: Fellow Council Members, I’ve learned a lot more about dirt hauling since I’ve been on this council, that I ever wanted to know about it. But I think this does go to the point that those persons that wish to contract with the City of Shreveport really need to be very wary. And the reason I say that is, if I take Mr. Williams at his word, which I will at this point, it appears that our Fair Share Office contacted him, and said this looks like something that you could very well get involved with, and you ought to consider bidding on it. He did take the initiative and did bid. And then in good faith, he was trying to negotiate in order to do the job. But remember that we can make statements that a contract is a meeting of the minds, but I guarantee you that I’ve never received payment of commission based on the meeting of the minds. It’s got to be in writing and it’s got to close. And without two parties having contracted, I’m not sure that we can go ahead and postpone this, if that’s the desire of the Council when we move on to this part of the agenda. But I’m really not sure that at the end of the day that we’re going to have a position here in order to try to move to compensate Mr. Williams for whatever loss he may have incurred. I’m sorry for him having received a phone call from our Fair Share Office to bring him in and take him away from potentially being able to earn a living at what he was doing otherwise. Because it looks to me like indeed it’s cost him probably dearly. But I’m not sure it’s within our authority to make him whole, if that’s what he thinks he needs to be made.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, I’d originally wanted to make comments, but after the last several comments, maybe Councilman Walford had maybe called for a point of order, but didn’t really know exactly what it was. But I do think that we have been to some degree out of order in this junction, and I’ll reserve my questions because I think that the person who was speaking who was on the floor to speak was Ms. Sims. And all questions were questions that should have been related to her commentary, and as we called up other individuals, I think the appropriate time to do that was when we were undertaking 61, and we could have written our questions down and I have done that. And I’d ask Mr. Chairman, if you would, certainly if it please the Council, I certainly think that it would conform to order that we would proceed to item 61, and I think that’s the appropriate time to have this discussion.

Councilman Lester: If you’re asking a point of order, my - - - I will rule that particular point of order correct. And I will say that you are correct, and if anyone else wants to ask a question of Ms. Sims, then I will entertain that. I would just again - - - from the Chair’s perspective and in the interest of timely (inaudible), the reason why the Chair entertained these questions is because quite obviously, Ms. Sims has a position, the City has a position, and all of these things are wrapped up together, and might I add the very next item for consideration is item 61. If item 61 was not the very next agenda item, I would not have entertained this. It just makes sense to the Chair, dare I say for judicial economy, to have all of this discussion at one particular time, as opposed to having her make a three minute statement and then break that up, and then have other people coming up and doing what they wanted to do. But your point of order is accurate as it relates to the form and substance of our rules. And I will rule that on point. Now having said that, Ms. Sims, please come forward. If you have any other statements that you would like to make ma’am, you do still have the floor.

Ms. Sims: Thank you Councilman. I did open myself up for questions after I finished initially, and I’ll do that again at this time. If anyone has any questions of me.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, I’m assuming that Ms. Sims intends to stay even as we have the next discussion.

Ms. Sims: Absolutely.

CONSENT AGENDA LEGISLATION

TO INTRODUCE RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES:

RESOLUTIONS: None

ORDINANCES: None.

TO ADOPT RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES:

RESOLUTIONS:

The Clerk read the following:

RESOLUTION NO. 61A OF 2006

A RESOLUTION REJECTING BIDS RECEIVED ON IFB #06-038, EMERGENCY HAULING OF DIRT CONTAMINATED WITH OIL AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, eight (8) bids were received as a result of solicitations for Emergency Hauling of Contaminated Oil, IFB #06-038; and;

WHEREAS, the City has rejected these bids in accordance with La R.S. 38:2214 B, the City has determined not to proceed with the proposed project.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport in due, legal and regular session convened that the bids received on IFB #06-038 be rejected.

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 declared repealed.

Read by title and as read, motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Walford to adopt.

Councilman Lester: Is there any discussion as it relates to item 61? Are there any questions that any members have of Ms. Sims, Mr. Williams, or any city personnel as it relates to item 61?

Councilman Carmody: Mr. Chairman, having been the maker of the motion, I’ll just go ahead and again, my comments I made them previously, so I think the other council members understand where I’m coming from.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Mattox, I just wanted to be sure, based on all the things I listened to you say just a few minutes ago. Whenever the bid to place, whenever you looked at, opened the bids, and then decided to - - - you contemplated splitting the bid, was it because there was an issue of capacity?

Mr. Mattox: There was an issue of capacity based on the fact that the number of days changed from 45 to 15 days.

Councilman Jackson: Okay, and what was the impotence for changing from 45 to 15?

Mr. Mattox: That would be Mr. Strong’s - - -

Mr. Strong: The issue was where we were getting with the regulatory agency DEQ, and also with the situation with the property owner at that time.

Councilman Jackson: And so, from 45 to 15 days, we felt that there was some degree of urgency or was that timeframe thrust upon us?

Mr. Strong: It was being thrust upon us, some issues of rain. What it would be, how we were going to get it contained, were we going to build a levy, or were we going to leave it laying on the ground, until we could get it pulled up. There were some unknowns at that time. So, that’s where one of the time periods of looking at going from the 45 to the 15.

Councilman Jackson: Okay, so once the time changed, then it became an issue of capacity. If it were 45 days, you had no issue with the capacity of the contract?

Mr. Strong: With what he - - - the hauler had, yes sir.

Councilman Jackson: And at 15 days, I’m assuming you still really had no major issues with capacity, since one of the choices was (inaudible) do it in 15 days?

Mr. Strong: Yeah, or if he could handle it in 15 days.

Councilman Jackson: Okay, now I don’t know who, if Mr. Lafitte, or whomever will have to answer my next question. And I guess when we have a situation, did we ever know in this process Mr. Mayor or whomever that this process was, or who the responsibility for who would clean this up, was ever in controversy?

Mayor Hightower: Yes.

Councilman Jackson: Why then did we bid the work ourselves without knowing that we had full responsibility or assurances that we had full responsibility? Because even if we bid the project, we incur some cost for bidding.

Mayor Hightower: That’s correct.

Councilman Jackson: For a process. And I guess my question would be why then would we incur any cost, if we legitimately feel that it’s not our responsibility or if there is any controversy about whose responsibility it is to clean that up?

Mayor Hightower: Initially, and Mike correct me if I’m wrong on this, but initially when the spill was discovered, we - - - a blowout cap on one of the sewer lines had blown out and spewed this oil on private property. The Department of Operational Services came and they said, you know we’ve got a problem, and we’ve got to address it right away. The first thing we need to do is get someone out to assess it, and obviously, we’re going to have to get this cleaned up. It came out of our lines. They came, and they looked at what the substance was. They started investigating immediately to find out where it came from, knowing that the City didn’t discharge it into the line, but that a customer had obviously done it. A subsequent investigation, I think pointed the finger at one company heavily, but that company was in denial. And still to this day, as to my understanding, has not admitted any wrong doing. Correct? So we did feel like we had to do something. We couldn’t leave a property owner with oil contamination on his property, and us just sit back and raise our hand, and say we didn’t do it. It did come from our system. As we continued to investigate, there was some discussion about who actually owned the line that the oil was discharged out of. So there was another issue there. But at the same time, we went and hired an environmental company to contain this spill. Mr. Strong came to me and said we need to get somebody to get going to haul this off. And I said not without bidding it, we’re not. So, that’s the reason we put it out for bid. We knew that we had to get the stuff contained and hauled off and disposed of properly, as quickly as we could, to satisfy the private land owner, and that’s part of the reason. And we knew that it would either be one or two large truckers, or 15 small truckers that would do the job. That was part of the reason that Mr. Mattox and nem said in the bid packet, that the bid could be split if we got a low bid from a one truck guy. It’d take him a year to haul it off in one 8-yard truck. So we knew we couldn’t have that, and I think Mr. Williams said today, and his attorney said today, that whether he was asked nicely or rudely, or ask or told, it didn’t matter, he was offered the opportunity to either do the job in 15 days of if he couldn’t do that, we would move to another contractor and have them help. And he stepped up to the plate and said, I can do it. Don’t take any of these numbers from me. And if in fact the city would have had to actually clean it up as time has gone on, as time has gone on, we have tentatively at least, reached an agreement with who we believe is the perpetrator of the spill, and in the mean time, we also found a state fund that could help pay for the clean up. So, we don’t need to expend city funds for it. If we were going to expend city funds to clean up that field, Mr. Williams would be out there cleaning up the field now. That was our intent all the long. But a couple of things have happened. We’ve had two people that say, we’re paying to clean it up. Did we bid it with the intent of doing the job? We absolutely did. But circumstances since then have said, it’s not our problem to clean it up. So, Mr. Williams as far as I’m concerned, did everything that he wanted to do. The system worked perfectly from a Fair Share standpoint. We did contact Fair Share applicants, had a number of bidders. And again, had we had to do the project, he would have been out there doing the project. I’m certainly apologetic if he spent any money, but that’s part of the public bid process. If it cost you something to put your bid together, or you know those type things, they just happen from time to time. It does take time to put bids together and prepare yourself to be sure you can do it and be bonded to be able to bid in the first place, and all those things that are a part of doing business. Certainly I commend him for stepping up to the plate and bidding and sharpening his pencil, and we were going to get the best deal we could. And we were looking for to working with him, but as I said, the circumstances are that we’re not paying to do the job. If we were, his trucks would be rolling. And that’s just the bottom line. So, it ‘s not a matter of how it went down, or any of those things. The bottom line is with his nodding of the head that yeah, he could do it, we would have been doing business with him, had we been required to do the job. But that’s not the case. We’re not required to do the job, so no more city funds will be expended.

Councilman Jackson: I guess my question Mr. Mayor was, I guess we spent the money that we did spend because we somehow assumed that we would have responsibility for it or we acted out of concern for public safety.

Mayor Hightower: That’s true.

Councilman Jackson: So, we did in fact expend some dollars doing it.

Mayor Hightower: We did. We did.

Councilman Jackson: I guess my other concern is and maybe this question is hypothetical at this point, but I wondered if we intended, even though we acted from the perspective of stewardship, we acted out of a concern for public safety, that we intend to pursue any remuneration since we were going out not sure that it was our problem, but yet acting on behalf of public safety. And if it had turned out to be this private company’s issue, was it just something that we would have taken care of ourselves, or were we going to pursue remuneration for the money that we had expended for the purpose of cleaning up the spill?

Mayor Hightower: No. We hired an attorney - - - how quick after that? Within a couple of days after that had happened, to take a look from a legal standpoint at what we were obligated to do. Do we have an expense in it? We sure do. Like you said, we did the bids, we hired an attorney. Mike and the Department of Operational Services have spent untold hours out there. We hired an environmental engineer to go out and actually contain the spill. So, we’ve spent some money in this deal too, that we don’t think was our problem and we are looking at our possibilities are to recapture some of those expenditures.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, I think the other questions I had were answered. Because I wanted to know if perhaps Ms. Sims had spoken to it. But one of the questions I had, was did Mr. Williams ever receive a document or anything that they considered a contract of any type that would cause him to believe that he in fact had a contract, and I guess based on what we’ve been told today, it’s the position of Mr. Mattox, that he did not receive that?

Mr. Mattox: That’s correct. There was never a contract signed by the Mayor.

Councilman Jackson: Okay, but was there a contract that started somewhere, that was drawn up, and then perhaps he hadn’t signed his signature, but never did receive the Mayor’s signature?

Mr. Mattox: I’m not sure how far along the contract and DOS got that far.

Councilman Jackson: Did he get a contract and then turn it back in?

Mr. Mattox: He may have.

Ms. Sims: I can answer that. Yes he absolutely did, and I notarized his signature.

Councilman Jackson: So, he did sign something and sent it back to us?

Ms. Sims: Right, and Mr. Mattox has it.

Councilman Jackson: Ms. Glass, maybe you can tell me, and I think Councilman Carmody had spoken to this a few minutes ago. I recognize that from a contractual perspective, that if I’m the person in the contract, you know I’d like to think that particularly, if I’m paying something, that it’s done whenever the final ink dries if you will, on that. But at what point in the bid process is an offer, is there considered to be an offer being made in the bid in an award process?

Ms. Glass: As I said earlier, and Mr. Lafitte be happy to jump in, but I believe we have said that the specifications of the bid documents and the intention of the parties was that there would be a written contract signed by both parties.

Councilman Jackson: But my question is this. As I appreciate it from having listened to (inaudible), in this room, you all are suggesting just a few minutes ago that while the contract was in 101 was an offer and acceptance?

Ms. Glass: No, I did not say that.

Councilman Jackson: I mean somebody said that today. That it is an offer and acceptance or something like that. So, I guess my question was if that’s what it is, and if that’s not the definition, then perhaps that’s where I’m messed up. Because is that’s the definition that’s agreed upon, then my question was simply at what point is in the bid and award process, is it legally considered an offer?

Ms. Glass: What I was trying to say is normally, you could have a verbal contract. But if the intention of the parties is to reduce it to writing and have it signed by both parties, then it’s not finalized. It’s not a contract until that is done, because that was the intent of the parties.

Councilman Jackson: Well maybe you can simplify this. Did we ever make an offer?

Ms. Glass: I guess you could call the bid documents, the offer.

Councilman Jackson: What about the contract that had his signature, but not the Mayor’s signature?

Ms. Glass: What I’m saying is that it was not a complete contract because it did not have the Mayor’s signature.

Councilman Jackson: Right. But I guess I was just trying to clarify whether or not we felt like we were in a position where we never made an offer, because I just wanted to know that. I wasn’t sure, but it seems as if we’d given someone a document, then we’ve made an offer. That doesn’t mean the deal is closed because he’s got to accept the offer, and then I think we’ve got to accept the fact that he’s accepted the offer by signing off that we both mutually agree. Is that correct?

Ms. Glass: Well, it’s not a simple offer and acceptance.

Councilman Jackson: Right. Because in the document I’m assuming within the body of the document the reason we couldn’t just shake hands and say it’s done is because there are some specifics in the documents that speak to different things that he’s got to agree to. And his signature says that if he’s receiving the offer, his signature says I agree to all these things you’ve got in here. And so, really at that point, that’s it for him, and then he’s just waiting on us to say okay, we asked him to do all these things, he signed off on it, now we have to sign off on it to finalize the deal. Would that be correct?

Ms. Glass: But it’s not a complete contract until it’s signed by the Mayor.

Councilman Jackson: Right, that’s what I’m saying. We have it back, and it’s then our responsibility to finalize the deal, or to close it if you will.

Councilman Green: Mr. Mattox, why did you send him the contract?

Mr. Mattox: I did not send him the contract. DOS contract section does that.

Councilman Green: So, who is the person sending the contract?

Mr. Mattox: Vicki Mullican.

Councilman Green: Why did she send it?

Mr. Mattox: That’d be a question for Mr. Strong.

Mr. Strong: The process was still going at that time.

Councilman Green: And how long after the bid did he receive the contract?

Mr. Strong: Are we talking about what? A couple of weeks? A few days after that. Some time in that neighborhood. Not knowing exactly.

Councilman Green: So - - -

Mr. Strong: I don’t think there is a (inaudible) when we sent the contract or anything like that.

Councilman Green: No. My question is if in fact, how many days was it Mr. Mattox that you ask him, if he was willing to split the deal with somebody else?

Mr. Mattox: It was at about a week.

Councilman Green: So, in about a week, you called him and asked him say, ‘are you willing to split the deal with somebody else?’

Mr. Mattox: Yeah, as soon as we found out that the requirement was going to be 15 days instead of 45 days, we asked him if he wanted to split it, or take the whole job.

Councilman Green: So, once you said to him, would you split it or take the whole job, he answered okay, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take the whole job and I’ll do it in 15 days. Who did you call to get the process going for the contract?

Mr. Mattox: Vicki Mullican was on the line with me at that time, and she was the one preparing the contracts.

Councilman Green: So now Vicki, does Vicki need anybody to say go on and prepare it, or she has that authority?

Mr. Mattox: Mr. Strong.

Councilman Green: So, did she talk to you about the conversation? So you said to her what?

Mr. Strong: Proceed.

Councilman Green: Okay, so then proceed with the contract. So now we’re proceeding with the contract. Once it’s finished, she has the authority to just mail it to him, or he come pick it up or what?

Mr. Strong: She’s already given that authority. Yes sir.

Councilman Green: But I’m just saying did they mail it, or did he pick it up or - - -?

Mr. Strong: I’m not sure.

Councilman Green: Mr. Williams, did you pick it up or was it mailed to you?

Mr. Williams: I picked it up.

Councilman Green: Okay, he picks the contract up, says yeah, zap, I’m for all of this. Then where does it go?

Mr. Strong: The normal process it would come back to us, and then onto - - -

Councilman Green: So, it came back to you?

Mr. Strong: Yes sir.

Councilman Green: And then it went?

Mr. Strong: From that point, it stopped. Because in between that period of time is when we stopped the process. So then it’s set and it’s staying with us in our contract office. I do not think it’s gone to - - - .

Councilman Green: So, once it gets back to you, and once you have this information, how long after that did you call Mr. Williams to say look, a deal is not a deal.

Mr. Strong: I know that my contract office would have in some time in the period of time of a day or two after we would have gotten it back when we stopped it, she would have let him know that it was on hold. And then I think when it was totally final that the city was not going to be involved in the hauling at all, was when we sent it out, which would have been the 19^th of April.

Councilman Green: Okay, but nobody know exactly when he was notified to say a deal is not a deal before the April 19^th letter?

Mr. Strong: Councilman I can get my contract office person here to give you a date. She’s probably got it written down when she would have notified him.

Councilman Green: Okay, so once he has the contract, I don’t know who can answer this, thinking that a deal is a deal, how do we say to him other than just apologizing that we discovered that it was not a deal, and whatever we did was null and void, so have a great day?

Mr. Strong: Councilman, he did not receive a signed contract. He did not receive a notice to proceed. On all projects, that we do, they receive a signed contract with a notice to proceed. We set down, we negotiate the date on the time that they’re to start the project and begin the project and where they will end it. None of that came to pass.

Councilman Green: Okay. Sometimes like once a month or whatever, me and the Chairman have an opportunity to go to the meeting, we go to a meeting where contracts are signed. Contracts are awarded. When those contracts are awarded, basically about how many of those say in a period of a year, that we basically cancel and we told them at the meeting that such and such had the award or whatever, but we canceled them?

Mr. Strong: On the cancellation you will see everyone of them that comes through the City Council because they are thrown out at the City Council. I’m not sure of exactly how many comes through, but there are a rarity when they happen. Some happens that changes that. So you see everyone of them that are thrown out.

Councilman Green: One last question Mr. Mattox. Are you familiar with any other situation that happened like this?

Mr. Mattox: Not exactly, but we do have rejected bids before because of sometimes they’re over budget and sometimes they may cancel the job because of unforeseen circumstances.

Councilman Green: Right. I understand that. I mean a situation similar to this?

Mr. Mattox: No.

Councilman Lester: I just want to add my two cents in. Just for what it’s worth, so that we can finish beating this dead horse. I understand where Councilman Carmody is coming from in terms of the necessity for things to be in writing. And I think it’s clear from what the four corners of the document said in terms of the form of an acceptance being in writing and the whole nine yards. I think what it comes down to in this particular instance is the concept of whether or not detrimental reliance applies. You have a scenario, we’re not going to say the city, we’ll say we have a scenario where Sam Citizen decides to bid with XYZ Corporation. Sam Citizen has a contract with XYZ Corp. to provide widgets. XYZ Corp tells Sam Citizen that you need to perform this contract in 30 days. Sam Citizen says fine. Sam Citizen is dealing with the business manager of XYZ Corp. Everything is fine. Sam Citizen does not know the CEO, has no reason to know the CEO. He relies on the fact that the person he’s dealing with has implied or expressed authority to enter into the negotiations in good faith. At a certain point, the business manager for XYZ Corp says to Sam, I know you won this bid at $5 to provide these widgets. My question is this. Can you provide me widgets at the same price, but I need them in 10 days, versus 30 days? Because I have an emergency order to fill. The whole nature of XYZ Corp’s need to get these widgets is an emergency situation, so time is of the essence. As the process with XYZ Corp becomes fluid, Sam Citizen does not know, cannot know, has no reason to know how fluid XYZ Corp.’s process is. He’s dealing with the business manager that comes to him after he’s been awarded in his mind, or he’s been told that he’s been awarded this bid at X price for 30 days, now you have to do the same job faster for the same price, and oh by the way, the entire nature of this particular need is an emergency. Time is of the essence. Sam Citizen has told XYZ Corp through his business manager and his business manager is very aware of what Sam Citizen’s capacity is to complete the order. And the business manager tells Sam Citizen, not only do - - - I’m wondering whether or not you can do it at all. I’m wondering if you are big enough to handle this job? Sam Citizen says I’m big enough to handle the job, give me the job. Well, the business manager and Sam Citizen both know that in order for Sam Citizen to do the job in half the time at the same price, Sam Citizen is going to have to expend some extra funds. Sam Citizen expends the extra funds to get the capacity in order to fill the order for XYZ Corp, but XYZ Corp at a certain point tells him, I’m sorry, I don’t have to deal with this. I don’t know. I don’t know. And that’s all I’m going to say, because I’m dangerously close to the line.

Councilman Carmody: I think your point is well made and that is that there is a risk involved in doing business with the city. We have another item that follows this one that basically if there are no four votes to grant the Mayor the authority to exercise this contract, this provider for this service for the kitchen equipment, if he’s ordered it, his risk is - - -

Councilman Lester: Right, but there is this beautiful concept called detrimental reliance. That says if you as a bidder, Joe Blow, Sam Citizen, or anybody else have done what you’re supposed to do in good faith, and you detrimentally relied on someone that had the impressed, expressed, implied, or actual authority to grant what you were suppose to be doing and you followed the processes and it was reasonable for you to rely on the inferences made by persons of authority, if you do not and do not get to fulfill the terms of that contract, anything that you did in detrimental reliance on that promise that was well justified, is actionable and can be compensated.

Councilman Carmody: I agree with you 100%, but I don’t think it’s within our sphere of influence to basically determine that. It’s not for us today. All that we’re being asked to consider and again, I think it’s very proper to hear this out to know the actions of the city, to know the actions of our potential business partners to do these things. But I think this is not the appropriate court of jurisdiction - - -

Councilman Lester: No, it’s not.

Councilman Carmody: That this gentleman to receive satisfaction.

Councilman Lester: No, and I don’t think he’s necessarily coming down here for us to solve his problem. I think what he and his council are down here to let us know that this, 1) has happened, that this is something that we as a council might need to be aware of particularly as it relates to small and emerging businesses that have very little margin for error. And so, if we are as the Mayor has said, going to engage our Fair Share in small and emerging business partners in things like this, we need to make sure that there is a certain level of protection for them so that they don’t have the scenario before. But I’ve got a dark suit on, but I think it’s another group of people in black - - -

Councilman Carmody: I was going to say, it’s going to be up to the judge at this point.

Councilman Green: Mr. Chairman, that was my request that when we got to this point, we don’t have the jurisdiction to say Yea or to say Nay, my request was to postpone this until all of our question were answered, whether they were over the line or not. Because this is not the setting to ask or answer those questions. So that was my request to simply postpone this, not that we have jurisdiction to award anything, but just to say until this - - - everything was clear, that we would just postpone it. And that was my recommendation. That was my request not saying that we were going to award him or we were going to come to the final conclusion. We’re just basically talking so, that was my request that we would just basically postpone it as we postpone other stuff that we are not clear about.

Councilman Hogan: Mr. Chairman, I call for the question.

Councilman Walford: Second.

Motion by Councilman Hogan, seconded by Councilman Walford to call for the question and end debate. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Hogan, and Jackson. 5. Nays: Councilmen Lester, and Green. 2.

ORDINANCES: None.

Councilman Lester: And let me make this comment for the Council. I don’t know if you got the email, but I got the email today. It’s an anonymous caller. I don’t know if it’s a senior citizen, or what, but there is and there are several of our constituents that are following us, not based upon the agenda electronically, they’re following us based upon Mr. Thompson. And this citizen has asked and I’ve been guilty of this before and might be guilty of it before the meeting is over. If we could just allow Mr. Thompson to finish reading the items, before we chime in. I know it helps us to move the meeting along, but apparently we’re losing a lot of our loyal listeners for what it’s worth, and we do want them to follow along. So, I would just pass that message along to the council.

REGULAR AGENDA LEGISLATION

RESOLUTIONS ON SECOND READING AND FINAL PASSAGE OR WHICH REQUIRE ONLY ONE READING

RESOLUTION NO. 56 OF 2006

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT FOR FOOD SERVICE EQUIPMENT FOR THE CONVENTION CENTER HOTEL AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO

BY:

WHEREAS, Section 3 of Ordinance No. 166 of 2005, the 2006 Capital Improvements Budget, states that the Mayor is not authorized to execute contracts or other legal instruments to expend the funds appropriated for the Convention Center Hotel project without first obtaining the City Council’s approval by resolution; and

WHEREAS, the Mayor desires to have the authority to execute a contract for the purchase of food service equipment for the Convention Center Hotel, pursuant to IFB-06-029, to National Repair Service, Inc./Pendleton Products, LLC, who was the low bidder and met all City requirements.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport in legal session convened, that the Mayor be and is hereby authorized to execute said contract for food service equipment on behalf of the City.

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 to be 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 Green, seconded by Councilman Walford to adopt.

Councilwoman Robertson: I appreciate that I received today. On last council meeting, I had asked for some type of documentation that stated that the signature on a contract that we have is a correct signature, and I received a document today, but the document is to be effective as of April 24, 2006. And that the contract was signed way prior to this date. It is stating that he, Mr. Salpietra is authorized to sign it, so I don’t know how we need to - - - if it’s acceptable this way or if we need to make any changes.

Mayor Hightower: Mr. Chairman, I think I can answer that, and Julie may want to chime in. First of all, I don’t think it was anything initially or originally that said that he could not or was not authorized to sign. But secondarily to that, we almost go back to the same discussion we just finished having. We don’t have a contract with them yet. Although we do have all of the necessary motion in action to initiate that contract on the City’s behalf with the exception of two things. Approval by Council, and signature by the Mayor.

Councilwoman Robertson: Well, my question was - - -

Mayor Hightower: So- - - I understand with the dates that you’re talking about, you asked that question yesterday, today, they submitted the authorization for him to sign the contract which is again not a done deal contract until the Council approves and the Mayor signs. So, Julie if you read it any different than that.

Councilwoman Robertson: Okay, he had just signed it as a member and I didn’t see where he was a member, but this is authorizing him to do it so.

Councilman Lester: Any other questions?

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: Councilman Carmody. 1.

Resolution No. 57 of 2006

Second Supplemental Resolution

A Resolution amending and supplementing the General Bond Resolution being Resolution No. 211 of 1997 of the City of Shreveport, State of Louisiana with respect to the Shreveport Airport Authority and other matters in connection therewith.

WHEREAS, on December 9. 1997 the City Council (the “Governing Authority”) of the City of Shreveport, State of Louisiana (the “City”) adopted Resolution No. 211 of 1997 (the “General Bond Resolution”) with respect to a financing for the Shreveport Airport Authority (the “Authority”); and

WHEREAS, on December 22, 1997, the City adopted Resolution No. 212 of 1997 being the First Supplemental Bond Resolution (the “First Supplemental Bond Resolution”) providing for the issuance of $7,390,000 Airport Systems PFC Revenue Bonds, Series 1997A and $18,610,000 Airport Systems PFC Revenue Bonds, Series 1997B (collectively, the “Prior Bonds”); and

WHEREAS, the City with the consent of the Authority gave preliminary approval for the issuance of not to exceed $23,000,000 of the City of Shreveport, State of Louisiana Airport System Revenue Refunding Bonds (the “Bonds”) in order to realize interest cost savings; and

WHEREAS, the City is prohibited under federal tax law from issuing the Bonds prior to October 4, 2007; therefore, the City entered into a forward starting swap agreement with Morgan Keegan Financial Products, Inc. (the “Counterparty”) and the Authority received an up front cash savings of $858,583.45; and

WHEREAS, CIFG Assurance North America, Inc. (the “Bond Insurer”) agreed to insure the Bonds upon issuance; and

WHEREAS, one requirement of the Bond Insurer was for the Authority to obtain an investment grade rating from Fitch Ratings (“Fitch”); and

WHEREAS, Fitch has agreed to provide an investment grade rating provided the City adopts this amendment to the General Bond Resolution; and

WHEREAS, the Authority has requested the city to adopt this amendment;

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City of Shreveport, State of Louisiana, acting as the governing authority of the City that:

SECTION 1. A new Section 6.13(c) is added to the General Bond Resolution to read as follows:

6.13 Rate Covenant

(c) The City in connection with management of the Authority shall review airline rates and charges every six months commencing July 1, 2006 and revise such rates and charges should it appear the Authority will miss financial budget projections by a margin of 10% or greater.

SECTION 2. Except as amended and supplemented herein, all terms and provisions of the General Bond Resolution and the First Supplemental Resolution remain in full force and effect and have not been modified or repealed.

Read by title and as read, motion by Councilman Green, seconded by Councilman Walford to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

RESOLUTION NO. 58 OF 2006

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO ACCEPT A DONATION OF THE MEDIANS IN BUSINESS PARK DRIVE AND FERN AVENUE IN THE BUSINESS PARK OF SHREVEPORT-BOSSIER SUBDIVISION, PHASE I, AND OTHERWISE PROVIDING WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, Ordinance No. 15 of 1987 authorized an encroachment onto medians in Business Park and Fern Avenue in the Business Park of Shreveport-Bossier Subdivision, Phase I, by the Business Park of Shreveport-Bossier Partnership (see Exhibit A, attached hereto); and

WHEREAS, the Business Park of Shreveport-Bossier Partnership desires to give, grant, convey, donate, assign, set over and deliver unto the City of Shreveport these medians in the centerline of Fern Avenue and Business Park Drive right of ways at their intersections with East Bert Kouns Industrial Loop in the Business Park of Shreveport-Bossier Partnership, Phase I, together with all improvements located thereon, more particularly described in the Act of Donation attached hereto as Exhibit B; and

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport desires to accept this donation.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, legal and regular session convened, that Keith Hightower, Mayor, be and is hereby authorized to accept this donation from the Business Park of Shreveport-Bossier Partnership.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, legal and regular session convened, that Keith Hightower, Mayor, be and is hereby authorized and empowered to execute an Act of Donation, substantially in accordance with the document filed along with the original copy of this resolution in the Office of the Clerk of Council on March 6, 2006, attached hereto as Exhibit B.

BE IF 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 provision, 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 Robertson, seconded by Councilman Green to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

RESOLUTION NO. 59 OF 2006

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE GRANT

DOCUMENTSWITH UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

AND OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO

WHEREAS, the U. S. Department of Justice has invited the City of Shreveport Police Department to apply for grant funds for reducing community gun violence: PSN Gun Crime Reduction Program; and

WHEREAS, the award, if approved will be for a total of $ 40,000, and requires no cash match by the City of Shreveport and

WHEREAS, these funds will be used to enhance PSN task force efforts to seek and execute outstanding warrants for gun related felonies and misdemeanor crimes. Partnerships between federal, state, local and community organizations will serve as the basis for a coordinated approach that will address the problem of gun violence through various enforcement initiatives for the project.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, regular and legal session convened, that it does hereby authorize the execution by Keith P. Hightower, Mayor, those grant documents necessary to apply and receive funding established within the program administered by the United States Department of Justice.

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 affect 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 Carmody, seconded by Councilman Robertson to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, I wondered if when we voted on No. 60, if that was the gun reduction?

Councilman Lester: No, we just finished 59.

Councilman Jackson: I’m sorry. When we talked about the grant documents to the U.S. Department of Justice, is it possible - - -, obviously we haven’t been awarded the grant, we’re just looking to submit it. Is that correct?

Councilman Lester: Capt, on item 59 are we making application for a grant, or are we receiving a grant.

Capt Jeter: My understanding of this and I don’t have a real deep understanding of it, but I believe it’s an extension of the project Safe Neighborhood Grant. It’s a spin off from it. I can find out and email you tomorrow if you’d like for me to be sure. But I believe that’s what it is, an extension of some type, or a continuation.

Mr. Dark: Councilman, as a matter of practice, they normally provide different resolutions when they’re asking to be authorized to apply . This one says they’ve invited us to apply. That’s what the resolution says, so I’m assuming that we’re getting fairly close to actually getting the contract with DOJ signed.

Councilman Lester: Okay, is that satisfactory?

Councilman Jackson: I was just wondering Mr. Chairman, if maybe there is an executive summary or something as simple as that, if we could get a copy of the executive summary?

Councilman Lester: I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.

Mr. Dark: I’m sure we can get through Police copies of the grant documents as soon as we get them from DOJ.

Councilman Jackson: That’s fine. That was my request.

Capt Jeter: You need anything further from me at the Police Department, in have anyone contact someone or - - -?

Councilman Lester: Well, I think what Councilman Jackson’s request is to get an executive summary of the grant documents. If you could provide that to our Council office, they will make sure that we get that in due course.

Capt Jeter: I’ll pass the request on to Lt Ray Goeckel. He handles our grants.

RESOLUTION NO. 60 OF 2006

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE GRANT

DOCUMENTS WITH UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

AND OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO

WHEREAS, the Department of Justice has invited the City of Shreveport Police Department to apply for grant funds for reducing gang violence through the PSN Anti-Gang Initiative Program; and

WHEREAS, the award, if approved will be for a total of $ 82,000, and requires no cash match by the City of Shreveport and

WHEREAS, these funds will be used to enhance PSN task force efforts to combat gangs by building on effective PSN strategies and partnerships. Partnerships between federal, state, local and community organizations will serve as the basis for a coordinated approach that will address the problem of gang violence through various enforcement initiatives for the project. The City of Shreveport and the Shreveport Police Department will coordinate and administer the project, and agrees to provide personnel in an overtime capacity for work on the project.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, regular and legal session convened, that it does hereby authorize the execution by Keith P. Hightower, Mayor, those grant documents necessary to apply and receive funding established within the program administered by the United States Department of Justice.

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 affect 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 Green, seconded by Councilman Robertson to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, the same request on No. 60.

Councilman Lester: Thank you sir. Duly noted.

RESOLUTION NUMBER 62A OF 2006

A RESOLUTION DECLARING THE CITY’S INTEREST IN CERTAIN ADJUDICATED PROPERTIES 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:

Lot 26, Block F, of the Ingersoll Heights Subdivision Geographic Number 181435-060-002600

Municipal Address: 1618 Ford Street

Council District “B”

Lot 24 Block F, of the Ingersoll Heights Subdivision Geographic Number 181435-060-002400

Municipal Address: 1624 Ford Street

Council District “B”

Lot 17 Block G, less and except the South 45 feet Geographic Number 181435-061-007800

thereof, of the Ingersoll Heights Subdivision

Municipal Address: 1667 Ford Street

Council District “B”

Lot 18 Block G, of the Ingersoll Heights Subdivision Geographic Number 181435-061-008000

Municipal Address: 1669 Ford Street

Council District “B”

Parts of Lots 18 and 19, Block G of the Geographic Number 181435-061-007300

Ingersoll Heights Subdivision

Municipal Address: 1671 Ford Street

Council District “B”

Parts of Lots 19 and 20, Block G of the Geographic Number 181435-061-007000

Ingersoll Heights Subdivision

Municipal Address: 1673 Ford Street

Council District “B”

Lots 5 and 6, Block 2, Subdivision of TAL 3 Geographic Number 181437-009-001900

Municipal Address: 905 Travis Street

Council District "B"

Lot 4, Block 2, Subdivision of TAL 3 Geographic Number 181437-009-000400

Municipal Address: 410 Douglas Street

Council District "B"

East 35 Feet of Lot 614 and West 5 Feet of Lot 615 Geographic Number 171421-016-062700

Coleman College Addition

Municipal Address: 4244 Carver Street

Council District “F”

Lot 8, Block 6, Holmesville Subdivision Geographic Number 171306-052-000800

Municipal Address: 6903 None

Council District “B”

Lots 10 & 11, Block H, Replat of Geographic Number 171409-008-007000

Forest Glen Subdivision

Municipal Address: 3723 Hardy Street

Council District “G”

Lot 48, Western Hills Estate Geographic Number 171514-024-004800

Municipal Address: 16111 None

Council District “G”

Lot 164 of the E-Z Living Subdivision Geographic Number 181418-001-016400

Municipal Address: 20731 None

Council District “A”

Lot 7, Block15, Parkview Subdivision Geographic Number 171402-017-000700

Municipal Address: 1627 Caperton

Council District “A”

Lots 35 & 36, Woodhaven Subdivision Geographic Number 171426-034-011300

Municipal Address: 602 Ray Avenue

Council District “F”

Lot 59, Woodhaven Subdivision Geographic Number 171426-033-005900

Municipal Address: 8316 Linwood Avenue

Council District “D”

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 Walford, seconded by Councilman Green to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

RESOLUTION 63 OF 2006

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT FOR THE EXTERIOR SIGN PACKAGE FOR THE CONVENTION CENTER HOTEL AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO

BY:

WHEREAS, Section 3 of Ordinance No. 166 of 2005, the 2006 Capital Improvements Budget, states that the Mayor is not authorized to execute contracts or other legal instruments to expend the funds appropriated for the Convention Center Hotel project without first obtaining the City Council’s approval by resolution; and

WHEREAS, the Mayor desires to have the authority to execute a contract for the installation of exterior signs for the Convention Center Hotel, pursuant to IFB-06-036, to Gable Signs and Graphics, which was the low bidder and met all City requirements.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport in legal session convened, that the Mayor be and is hereby authorized to execute said contract for the exterior sign package on behalf of the City.

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 to be 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 Green, seconded by Councilman Walford to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

RESOLUTION NO. 64 OF 2006

A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING DEDICATION FOR BERNADETTE LANE AND BUSHNELL LANE IN CEDAR SQUARE PHASE II, AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, legal,

and regular session convened, that the dedication for Bernadette Lane and Bushnell Lane in Section 5, (T16N-R14W), Caddo Parish, Louisiana, and as shown on the plats attached hereto and made a part hereof, be and the same is hereby accepted as dedicated to the public for public use in the City of Shreveport.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the original plat reflecting the dedication for Bernadette Lane and Bushnell Lane be recorded in the official records of the District Court for Caddo Parish, Louisiana.

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 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 RESOLVED that all ordinances or resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

Read by title and as read, motion by Councilman Hogan, seconded by Councilman Green to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

INTRODUCTION OF RESOLUTIONS (Not to be adopted prior May 9 , 2006)

1. Resolution No. 65 of 2006: A Resolution authorizing the Mayor to enter into one or more Swap Agreements, all in connection with certain outstanding bonds of the City or the Authority and providing for other matters in connection therewith.

Read by title and as read, motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Walford to introduce Resolution No. 65 of 2006 to lay over until May 9, 2006 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCES (Not to be adopted prior May 9 ,2006)

Mr. Thompson: Mr. Chairman, No. 39 I believe needs to be removed.

1. Ordinance No. 39 of 2006: An ordinance authorizing the donation of city-owned property to Volunteers of America, North Louisiana, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Motion by Councilman Carmody, seconded by Councilman Hogan to remove Ordinance No. 39 of 2006. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

1. Ordinance No. 40 of 2006: An ordinance amending the 2006 Capital Improvements Budget and otherwise providing with respect thereto.

2. Ordinance No. 41 of 2006: ZONING C-23-06: An ordinance amending Section 82-42 (b) and (e) and 82-44 (b) and (3) of the Shreveport Code of Ordinances, the Subdivision ordinances relative to application deadlines for preliminary and final plat approval.

3. Ordinance No. 42 of 2006: ZONING C-17-06: 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 Freddie, 2000 feet west of Caldwell Street, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from R-1D, Urban One-Family Residence District to R-1D-3, Urban One-Family Residence/Extended Use District, Limited to “a leasing office and computer center for the community”, only, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto. (A/Lester)

4. Ordinance No. 43 of 2006: ZONING C-19-06: Amending Chapter 106 of the Code of ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, by rezoning property located on the north side of Bert Kouns Industrial Loop 560 feet east of Kingston Road, Shreveport, Caddo Parish Louisiana, from B-2, Neighborhood Business District, to B-2-E, Neighborhood Business/Extended Use District, Limited to “automotive repair” only, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto. (E/Hogan)

5. Ordinance No. 44 of 2006: ZONING C-22-06: 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 Interstate Drive, 1105 feet west of Monkhouse Drive, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, from I-1, Light Industry District to B-3, Community Business District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto. (F/Green)

Read by title and as read, motion by Councilman Green , seconded by Councilman Jackson to introduce Ordinance No(s). 40, 41, 42, 43, and 44 of 2006 to lay over until May 9, 2006 meeting. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

ORDINANCES ON SECOND READING AND FINAL PASSAGE (Numbers are assigned Ordinance Numbers)

1. Ordinance No. 33 of 2006: An ordinance amending Section 10-44 of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances relative to alcoholic beverages and to otherwise provide with respect thereto. (Postponed April 11, 2006)

Having passed first reading on March 28, 2006 was read by title, and on motion, ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Jackson, seconded by Councilman Green. The Clerk read the following:

Amendment No.1 to Ordinance No. 33 of 2006

Delete the Be It Ordained paragraph and substitute the following:

BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, legal and regular session convened, that Section 10-44 (a) (10) (b) is hereby amended and reenacted to read as follows:

b. If the applicant is a limited liability company, corporation, or a partnership, any member of which is a corporation, all officers and directors and all stockholders owning in the aggregate more than five percent of the stock shall possess the qualifications required of an applicant. Each shall furnish the same information to be shown by the affidavit accompanying the application. Also, persons who shall conduct or manage the business shall possess the qualifications required of an applicant. However, when applying for retail permits only, the requirements as to residence and citizenship do not apply to officers, directors, and stockholders of corporations as stated below:

(1) The residence requirement does not apply.

(2) The citizenship requirement does not apply to applicants who are already established and operating with a valid alcohol permit in a state other than Louisiana.

The corporation shall be either organized under the laws of the state or qualified to do business within the state.

Motion by Councilman Walford, seconded by Councilman Carmody to adopt Amendment No. 1 to Ordinance No. 33 of 2006.

Councilman Jackson: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to be sure that we recognize that, I guess with this amendment that the only material change is that the officers, and directors, and the stock holders may be non-Louisiana residents? Is that correct?

Councilman Walford: Yes, that is correct.

Councilman Lester: To answer that question we’ll turn to Councilman Walford, and if he wants to bring Ms. Glass or Cpl Collins up.

Councilman Walford: You can, but I think the significant other change is that we left the citizenship requirement in the ordinance.

Cpl Collins: What Councilman Walford said is correct. The initial ordinance proposal was for a citizenship change in there. And we took that out. You showed some concern over that, so the only one we actually left in there is basically what he said is about the members themselves, the stockholders, of the LLC that don’t have to meet that residency requirement.

Councilman Jackson: I intended to ask this the last time. There are businesses and someone brought up the last time a business on Youree Drive, or something. Clearly not necessarily a local businesses who move here whether they be a chain for Krispy Kreme, whomever or somebody who may have moved here, what was the difference? I mean Krispy Kreme doesn’t apply but I mean someone who sells alcohol.

Councilman Lester: Maybe that’s why those donuts are so good.

Councilman Jackson: Yeah, clearly it doesn’t apply, but you know smoky bones and one of these other places that are national outfits if you will, what was the issue with that. I mean, how did they get it done?

Cpl Collins: Basically what the ordinance stated before, if you had a license in another state, operated with a license in another state, then you would qualify here. So basically you had the license in the other state, (inaudible) residency or the citizenship requirement.

Councilman Jackson: So now all this really does is say I can live in Texas and not have a license in Texas, we just start a business in Shreveport without having a business license somewhere else.

Cpl Collins: Correct. Without having an alcohol license somewhere else.

Mr. Thompson: Mr. Jackson, one of the points that was made yesterday is that all persons who actually manage and conduct the business must meet the citizenship and residency requirements. Even though the LLC members may not have to meet certain requirements.

Councilman Jackson: So, all managers and employees, is that correct?

Mr. Thompson: Be basically the managers.

Councilman Lester: Thank you, and I would say this was the subject of much conversation, and I want to thank Cpl Collins as well as Ms. Glass for helping to craft what I think is a good amendment to this ordinance. I think it’s definitely going to help us with the LLC situation where people form these LLCs, for the purpose of getting around some of our situations. And I think this is definitely tightening up that loop hole. So that’s a good thing. Any other questions?

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

Motion by Councilman Walford, seconded by Councilman Carmody to adopt Ordinance No. 33 of 2006 as amended. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

2. Ordinance No. 34 of 2006: An ordinance closing and abandoning the 10 foot-wide X 240 foot long sewer servitude located in Summer Grove Retail Subdivision in the NE /4 of Section 6 (T16N-R14W), Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto. (E/Hogan)

Having passed first reading on April 11, 2006 was read by title, and on motion, ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Hogan, seconded by Councilman Green to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

3. Ordinance No. 35 of 2006: An ordinance declaring the City’s interest in a certain adjudicated property as surplus and otherwise providing with respect thereto. (C/Carmody)

Having passed first reading on April 11, 2006 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 Walford to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

4. Ordinance No. 37 of 2006: An ordinance amending Section 24-42 of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances relative to the Department of Community Development and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on April 11, 2006 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 Walford to adopt.

Councilman Hogan: Mr. Chairman, I didn’t notice yesterday. I had heard about this, before. But I was just curious to know, the Mayor might can answer my question. Will this be an appointed position or hired position?

Mr. Dark: This is an appointed position , that’s why this is coming to the Council. Because this is the only way you can create an appointed position, and you will subject eventually be asked to confirm someone if it’s filled.

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 6. Nays: Councilman Carmody. 1.

5. Ordinance No. 38 of 2006: An ordinance repealing Section 74-58 of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances relative to the Comprehensive Solid Waste Board of Appeals; to amend Chapter 2 of the Code of Ordinances to add provisions relative to the creation, duties and responsibilities of the Comprehensive Environmental Board of Appeals; and to otherwise provide with respect thereto.

Having passed first reading on April 11, 2006 was read by title, and on motion, ordered passed to third reading. Read the third time in full and as read motion by Councilman Walford, seconded by Councilman Lester to adopt. Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

6. Ordinance No. 36 of 2006: ZONING C-4-06: An ordinance amending Chapter 106 Of The Code Of Ordinances, The City Of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, By Rezoning Property Located On The Northerly Side Of Dee Street At Its Intersection With South Pointe Parkway, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, From R-3, Urban, Multiple-Family Residence District To B-2-E, Neighborhood Business/Extended Use District, Limited To “All B-2 Uses-By-Right And The Listed B-3 Uses”, Only, And To Otherwise Provide With Respect Thereto. (C/Carmody)

Having passed first reading on April 11, 2006 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 Jackson to adopt.

Councilman Hogan: Mr. Thompson, you said No. 36. I’m missing it. It’s not on my hard copy, and I’ve refreshed my screen, it’s not on there.

Councilman Jackson: That’s it there, C-4-06, at the bottom.

Mr. Dark: Look after 38.

Councilman Hogan: Excuse me. Okay. I stand corrected. Thank you.

Motion approved by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmen Lester, Walford, Carmody, Robertson, Green, Hogan, and Jackson. 7. Nays: 0.

The adopted ordinances and amendments follow:

ORDINANCE NO. 33 OF 2006

AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND SECTION 10-44 OF THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT CODE OF ORDINANCES RELATIVE TO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, legal and regular session convened, that Section 10-44 (a) (10) (b), and now reads

If the applicant is a limited liability company, corporation, or a partnership, any member of which is a corporation, all officers and directors and all stockholders owning in the aggregate more than five percent of the stock shall possess the qualifications required of an applicant. Each shall furnish the same information to be shown by the affidavit accompanying the application. Also, persons who shall conduct or manage the business shall possess the qualifications required of an applicant. However, when applying for retail permits only, the requirements as to residence and citizenship do not apply to officers, directors, and stockholders of corporations as stated below:

(1) Residence requirement does not apply

(2) Citizenship requirement does not apply if the applicant has been a permanent resident of Louisiana for at least two years prior to making application.

(3) Both the citizenship and residency requirements do not apply to applicants who possess a valid alcohol permit in a state other than Louisiana or possess a valid gaming permit issued by the State of Louisiana.

The corporation shall be either organized under the laws of the state or qualified to do business within the state.

****

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.

Amendment No.1 to Ordinance No. 33 of 2006

Delete the Be It Ordained paragraph and substitute the following:

BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, legal and regular session convened, that Section 10-44 (a) (10) (b) is hereby amended and reenacted to read as follows:

b. If the applicant is a limited liability company, corporation, or a partnership, any member of which is a corporation, all officers and directors and all stockholders owning in the aggregate more than five percent of the stock shall possess the qualifications required of an applicant. Each shall furnish the same information to be shown by the affidavit accompanying the application. Also, persons who shall conduct or manage the business shall possess the qualifications required of an applicant. However, when applying for retail permits only, the requirements as to residence and citizenship do not apply to officers, directors, and stockholders of corporations as stated below:

(1) The residence requirement does not apply.

(2) The citizenship requirement does not apply to applicants who are already established and operating with a valid alcohol permit in a state other than Louisiana.

The corporation shall be either organized under the laws of the state or qualified to do business within the state.

ORDINANCE NO. 34 OF 2006

AN ORDINANCE CLOSING AND ABANDONING THE 10 FOOT - WIDE X 240 FOOTLONG SEWER SERVITUDE LOCATED IN THE SUMMERGROVE RETAIL SUBDIVISION, IN THE NE 4 OF SECTION 4 (T16N-R14W), SHREVEPORT, CADDO PARISH, LOUISIANA AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, today the Property Management Section of the Department of Operational Services has received a request to close and abandon the above sewer servitude; and

WHEREAS, Water and Sewerage Engineering has reviewed this request and has no objections to this closure and abandonment.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport in due, legal and regular session convened, that the 10 foot-wide X 240 foot long sewer servitude located in the Summergrove Retail Subdivision in the NE/4 of Section 4 (T16N-R14N), Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana and as shown and as indicated on the plat attached hereto and made a part hereof, is hereby closed and abandoned.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that a certified copy of this ordinance be filed and recorded in the official records of the District Court for Caddo Parish, Louisiana.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that if any provision of this ordinance or the application thereof is invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of this ordinance which can be given effect without 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 resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

ORDINANCE N0. 35 OF 2006

AN ORDINANCE DECLARING A CERTAIN ADJUDICATED PROPERTY TO BE SURPLUS AND TO AUTHORIZE THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT TO SELL THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT’S TAX INTEREST IN THIS CERTAIN SURPLUS ADJUDICATED PROPERTY, AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport has a tax interest in the herein below described property which has been adjudicated for the non-payment of City property taxes; and

WHEREAS, the herein below described property is not needed for public purposes and should be declared a surplus property; and

WHEREAS, the City of Shreveport has received offers to purchase the tax interest in the herein below described property as indicated below.

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

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED, that the City Council of the City of Shreveport does hereby authorize the sale of its tax interest in the herein below described property for an amount not less than the offer as indicated below

Property No. 1 Legal Description - Lot 10 & N/2 of Lot 9, Blk. 14, Dixie Place Annex, a subdivision in the City of Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, as per plat thereof recorded in Book 50, Page 575 of the Conveyance Records of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, together with all buildings and improvements located thereon.

(GEO#171424-081-0010-00) Municipal Address - 6300 Willard Avenue

AMOUNT OFFERED: $250.00 APPRAISED VALUE: $600.00 DISTRICT C

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED, that the Mayor of the City of Shreveport shall be authorized to do any and all things and to sign any and all documents, including Acts of Cash Sale, in a form acceptable to the City Attorney necessary to effectuate the purposes set forth herein.

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 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. 36 OF 2006

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 106 OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES, THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT ZONING ORDINANCE, BY REZONING PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE NORTHERLY SIDE OF DEE STREET AT ITS INTERSECTION WITH SOUTH POINTE PARKWAY, SHREVEPORT, CADDO PARISH, LOUISIANA, FROM R-3, URBAN, MULTIPLE-FAMILY RESIDENCE DISTRICT TO B-2-E, NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESS/EXTENDED USE DISTRICT, LIMITED TO “ALL B-2 USES-BY-RIGHT AND THE LISTED B-3 USES”, 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 property located on the northerly side of Dee Street at its intersection with South Pointe Parkway, Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, legally described below, be and the same is hereby changed from R-3, Urban, Multiple-Family Residence District, to B-2-E, Neighborhood Business/Extended Use District, limited to “all B-2 uses-by right and the listed B-3 uses” only,

A portion of Lot 2, Shreve City Unit 4, and being more particularly described as follows: Beginning at the front common corner between Lots 1 and 2 of Shreve City Unit 4, thence N46˚43’34”E along the SE’ly line of said Lot 1 a distance of 150.00 feet to the NE’ly corner of Lot 1; thence N43˚14’12”W along the NE’ly line of Lot 1 a distance of 100 feet to the NW’ly corner of Lot 1; thence N46˚43’34”E along the NW’ly line of Lot 2 a distance of 460.10 feet to the SW’ly corner of Lot 3 of Shreve City; thence run S43˚17’46”E a distance of 232 feet; thence run N46˚42’47”E a distance of 539.69 feet to a point on the S’ly R-O-W line of Clyde E. Fant Memorial Parkway; thence S36˚46’15E” along said R-O-W line a distance of 578.86 feet; thence S6˚39’17”W a distance of 368.71 feet to a point; thence S46˚43’00”W a distance of 802.86 feet to a point on the NE’ly line of Dee Street; thence N43˚17’00”W along said line a distance of 485.00 feet to a point; thence continue along said line N43˚11’05”W a distance of 459.50 feet to the P-O-B. Said tract containing 1,121,688 sq. ft. or 20.51 acres +/-.

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

1. Development of the property shall be in substantial accord with the site plan submitted with any significant changes or additions requiring further review and approval by the Planning Commission.

List of recommended B-3 Uses:

A. Animal Hospital or veterinary clinic provided no outside kennels are maintained on the premises.

B. Apartment – Hotel.

C. Auditorium.

D. Auto upholstery shop; auto glass, including installation. Automobile filling station and/or service and repair, but not including commercial wrecking, dismantling, or auto salvage yard; need not be enclosed within structure provided the unenclosed part shall comply with the requirements for maintenance of off-street parking facilities; pump islands shall be located at least 15 feet from the property line; canopies anchored or supported in pump island may extend to within five feet of the property line; canopies shall have a minimum height of ten feet above driveway.

E. Beverage manufacture (not including alcoholic).

F. Business College.

G. City Hall, Police Station, Courthouse, Federal Building.

H. Dairy Equipment Sales.

I. Drug Compounding and Manufacturing, with the building for such use not to exceed 15,000 square feet.

J. Funeral Home, Mortuary, or undertaking establishment.

K. Glass Store.

L. Landscape garden sales; need not be enclosed within structure.

M. Marine Store.

N. Mini-warehouses.

O. Motorcycle sales and service.

P. Newsstand.

Q. Optical Goods.

R. Pet grooming facility; no outside kennels.

S. Pet Store.

T. Police Station.

U. Printing, Publishing, and Allied Industries.

V. Radio and Television Broadcasting, Transmitter, and Studio.

W. Radio and Television Store and Repair Shop.

X. Restaurant, including indoor and outdoor dining areas, drive-in, drive-thru, pick-up window, delivery service operations or other exterior service facilities.

Y. Sporting goods store, retail.

Z. Tire store.

AA. Tool and equipment rental (inside display only).

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. 37 OF 2006

AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND SECTION 24-42 OF THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT CODE OF ORDINANCES RELATIVE TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport in due, regular and legal session convened, that Section 24-42 of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances is hereby amended to now read as follows:

Sec. 24-42. Offices created; appointments.

The offices of director, assistant director(s), bureau chief(s), and assistant bureau chief(s) are hereby created in the department of community development. The mayor shall appoint, subject to confirmation by the city council, the director of community development. The mayor shall appoint the assistant director(s) of the department, the bureau chief(s) and assistant bureau chief(s) after recommendation from the director of community development. The offices of assistant director(s), bureau chief(s) and assistant bureau chief(s) shall be subject to confirmation by the city council.

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 resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

ORDINANCE NO. 38 OF 2006

AN ORDINANCE TO REPEAL SECTION 74-58 OF THE CITY OF SHREVEPORT CODE OF ORDINANCES RELATIVE TO THE COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE BOARD OF APPEALS; TO AMEND CHAPTER 2 OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES TO ADD PROVISIONS RELATIVE TO THE CREATION, DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMPREHENSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL BOARD OF APPEALS; AND TO OTHERWISE PROVIDE WITH RESPECT THERETO.

WHEREAS, persons aggrieved by rulings, orders or decisions on environmental matters issued by the City of Shreveport pursuant to the city’s administrative authority are entitled to due process; and

WHEREAS, the creation of an objective board to hear and decide upon appeals filed by those so aggrieved would ensure that such due process requirements are satisfied.

WHEREAS, the creation of a comprehensive environmental board of appeals will ensure that due process is afforded persons aggrieved by administrative rulings, orders or decisions of the Department and provide a comprehensive process for all environmental appeals.

WHEREAS, this ordinance will also consolidate and streamline the environmental appeals process by creating the Comprehensive Environmental Board of Appeals and repealing Section 74-58 of the Code of Ordinances relative to the Comprehensive Environmental Board of Appeals.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Shreveport, in due, legal and regular session convened that Section 74-58 of the City of Shreveport Code of Ordinances is hereby repealed.

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED that Chapter 2 of the Code of Ordinances is hereby amended to add provisions relative to the creation, duties and responsibilities of the Comprehensive Environmental Board of Appeals to read as follows:

***

Sec. 2-91. Comprehensive Environmental Board of Appeals; Created.

(a) There is hereby established the Comprehensive Environmental Board of Appeals,

referred to in this article as the board, which shall consist of five (5) members who shall each be a resident of the city. Board members shall be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council. Members shall serve without compensation and shall include the following:

(1) One individual who is considered technically proficient in the area of environmental regulations;

(2) One engineer with a proven background in the field of environmental design, environmental operations, or environmental regulatory matters;

(3) One person with proven experience in the environmental field; and

(4) Two registered voters.

Sec. 2-91. Term of membership.

Except as otherwise provided by subsection 5.02(b) of the Charter, the term of each board member shall be three (3) years. Upon the expiration of their term, board members shall serve until their successor are appointed and qualified.

Sec. 2-92. Power, duties and responsibilities.

(a) The board will hear appeals of rulings, orders and decisions issued by the

Department of Operational Services with regard to violations of any environmental regulation or regulation established by this Code of Ordinances.

(b) The board may administer oaths, issue subpoenas for the attendance of witnesses

and the production of books, papers, accounts and documents, and examine witnesses and receive testimony at any proceeding or hearing conducted pursuant to the provisions of this section.

(c) The board shall adopt rules of procedure in accordance with applicable provisions

of law.

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 resolutions or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

1. Ordinance No. 93 of 2005: To amend and reenact Section 3.01 of Ordinance No. 96 of 1980 relative to exemptions and exclusions from sales and use taxes and to otherwise provide with respect thereto. (Introduced – June 14, 2005 - Tabled on July 12, 2005)

2. Ordinance No. 220 of 2005 - ZONING APPEAL – C-95-05: Amending Chapter 106 of the Code of Ordinances, the City of Shreveport Zoning Ordinance, to rezone property located on the Southwest corner of Cleveland and Jewella Avenues, from R-1D, Urban One-Family Residence District to B-3, Community Business District, and to otherwise provide with respect thereto. (F/Green)(Introduced – Dec 27, 2005 – Tabled January 10, 2006)

Mr. Thompson: I don’t believe either of these items are ready to be removed from the table.

NEW BUSINESS: None.

REPORTS FROM OFFICERS, BOARDS, AND COMMITTEES: None.

CLERK’S REPORT: None

Councilman Walford: Mr. chairman, I’ll back this up to new business if I may. And I’m not sure if this is appropriate place, but yesterday, we discussed bringing back Legends Bar and Grille which we had postponed in someway indefinitely, and I would like to ask at this time that that be added back on the agenda, and that the Staff notify them.

Councilman Lester: At the next council meeting, on the next agenda.

Mr. Thompson: We’ll do that.

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 6:06 p.m.

__________________________________

//s//Calvin Ben Lester, Jr., Chairman

__________________________________

//s//Arthur G. Thompson, Clerk of Council