Minden City Council Holds First Meeting With Interim Mayor

It was the first meeting of the Minden City Council since the appointment of Tommy Davis as interim Mayor to finish the term of the late Terry Gardner. The council worked through a light agenda in less than thirty minutes Monday night, approving:

 

• Police Department Promotion of Lt. Ronald Payton to Captain 
• Minden Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board Appointments of Sedric Moody and Jamie Williams as college list board members with terms expiring July 2025.
• Adoption of Ordinance No. 1128, Levying Tax Mills for 2022. 5.46 mills on all taxable property in the city limits and an additional 2.0 mills for the Minden Downtown Development District. It was noted that the rates did not increase for 2022.
• Adoption of Resolution giving Tommy Davis as Mayor, Wayne Edwards as Mayor Pro Tem, Michael Fluhr as Acting City Clerk, Terika Williams-Walker as Council Representative and Melaney Langford as Assistant City Clerk, authority for signing checks for the City.
• Adoption of Resolution authorizing Mayor to execute an Intergovernmental Contract between the City and Department of Environmental Quality of the State of Louisiana for the EVSE VW Settlement to fund 1 new DC Fast Charger Station for electric vehicles. The funding will come from the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust fund.
• Approved authorization for City Clerk to advertise for Request of Qualifications for Engineering Consulting Services for Minden Airport. 

 

The Council also heard from Acting City Clerk, Michael Fluhr, who reported that Sales Tax collections in June were at $639,736 up from $627,954 last year and over the budgeted amount of 550,000. Sales Tax Collections to date total $5.66 million which is over the $4.85 million budgeted amount. Bank account amounts total $19.1 million up from June total of 18.9 million and also up from $16.7 million last year. Fluhr reported that the budget proposal for 2022/23 would be on the council desk for review, with August 10th the deadline to make any changes. Fluhr said that the budget should be available for review by the public on August 15th. Fluhr said that it is a “balanced budget” and would include pay raises for city employees, including fire and police departments. Councilman Wayne Edwards commented that the council had worked hard on making a balanced budget and thanked all the council members for their work. 

 

Minden Police Chief Steve Cropper presented his report for July:

Calls for Service:

862 Total

Dist. A-142

Dist. B-245

Dist. C-107

Dist. D-55

Dist. E-131

9 Out of Jurisdiction (Prisoner transports)

Incident Reports

130 Total

Dist. A-42

Dist. B-39

Dist. C-27

Dist. D-7

Dist. E-17

4 Out of Jurisdiction

Arrests

59 Total

Dist. A-13

Dist. B-16

Dist. C-11

Dist. D-4

Dist. E-2

5 Out of Jurisdiction (outside agency arrests)

8 Bench warrant arrests in July