WEBVTT

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Good morning, good morning, good
morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

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It's time now for city matters.
If it matters to you, it matters

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to the city. We have councilor
Lauren was only in here. It's been

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a while. You been good.
How have you been doing? I got

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more sleep than you did. Good
to see you back in the chair.

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Well, it was a long meeting
last night with the city council. A

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lot of things were discussed to water
zoning, something about a whale, the

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blue whale. That was the last
meeting. Yeah, yeah, and just

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a few things going on here.
Let's let's dive into the water issue of

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where where are we here with the
water? So last night we passed and

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talked and had a lot of discussion
about some new water ordinances that kind of

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regulate and try to moderate people's behaviors
to conserve water. So there's some new

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regulations about what people can and can't
do and what the billing rates will be

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if we decide to institute some great
heights to try to influence people to use

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less water. Now, this should
just be during a water so this is

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during our drought stage. Okay,
I thought there's gonna be forever here no,

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no, no, no, this
is just during our drought stages right

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now, according to ordinances and our
water supply, we're in a stage two

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of the drought ordinances. So we've
the city council voted last night to implement

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a stage two and to do some
things, and and to ask the citizens

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of our community to do some things. So the splash plads are closed.

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We're asking people not to wash their
vehicles, bikes, boats, or other

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equipment at their house. And I
only use vehicle wash stations and car washes

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to do that. No washing outside
services. Where our goals here are try

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to reduce our consumption to about five
point five million gallons a day. If

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we can do that, it's a
lot. I mean, I don't think

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it's a it's a big ask of
the community to get down to five point

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five million gallons a day. We're
just a little over that right now,

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I believe. I think at five
point seven was the last number I heard.

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So if we just do a little
conservation, I think we can keep

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from having to institute rate hikes that
would be you know, that would that

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would affect people and their bills.
Wow, we that's that's good. Now

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they're like subsections here about uh,
swimming pools and water rates. And I

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understand that you you kind of questioned
a little bit of I pushed back a

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little bit just for the mere fact
that I think city government needs to be

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within its mandate of what it does
and doesn't do with ordinances. I don't

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want to I want to affect people's
behavior, of course, to conserve water.

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I want to. I want our
community, our citizens to realize the

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seriousness of the issue that we have. And as we go into each stage,

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I think, you know, ordinances
where we ask people to limit the

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number of days they water outdoors with
irrigation systems, uh number, you know,

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asking them conserve water and a lot
of ice, that's great. I

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just feel like, you know,
when you start raising people's rates and affecting

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their pocketbook and already tight and squeezed
economy, that we have to do that

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very carefully, and we have to
do that and measured and considered way that

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we aren't harming people. But these
ordinances are good. They've we've a lot

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we've kept people being allowed to like
hand water their gardens, so if they're

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they're depending upon vegetable gardens to feed
their family and everything. They can still

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hand water them with hoses, flower
gardens and pots on your porches. You

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can still water with a can by
hands. We're just not asking you to

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use your use your drip hoses and
your sprinklers and your automatic irrigation systems.

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Just don't wash your outside services,
don't wash your vehicles in your driveways.

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So I think, you know,
I know our citizens are really good about

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conservation efforts. They helped us the
last time we went through this. Uh,

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they conserved water and they did what
was necessary to help each other.

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And I really have a lot of
faith in our citizens that they'll do this

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without us having to try to raise
rates. The rate. The rate implementation

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this time is a much higher scale
we'll be raising. If we do institute

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rate rate heights, it'll be much
more drastic than we did last time.

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And that's kind of where I'm concerned, is you know, I don't think

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a higher rate impacts is a higher
impact on people's behavior. Is asking them

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and kind of giving them the guidelines
to follow. Okay, moving on to

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be the light mission. Yeah,
we've got Keith and Christy McPhail trying to

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set up a homeless shelter and get
people kind of reintegrated into the community.

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Sure, that's the old Nipper Complex. So tell folks where that is so

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down on Virginia and the West side
here, I think the old Assents in

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Saint John Annex building is where that
is down. So they came to us

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last night and asked us to rezone
that for the use for the purpose of

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the use of being a homeless rehabilitation
and training and ministry. So that is

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a great use. I love that, and not everybody on the city council.

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It was absolutely board. They do
a great job. They'd provide a

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great benefit to our community. They
help the homeless in our community, the

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most vulnerable among us. They take
in and they help and they also try

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to re educate them and lift them
up. Rather than giving them a hand

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out, they give them a hand
up and that's what people really need.

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So we love that that ministry and
we want to support it, and rezoning

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that was a no brainer for us
so that they could do that. Well,

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you know, City councilor Billy Rone
was really a big proponent of these

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folks. During the icy cold temperatures
that we had. She was the one

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that was calling us and saying Hey, look, you know that we've got

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a place where folks can keep warm
and what have you, and she sounded

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the alert. Yeah, well,
I think we probably saved a few people's

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lives during those icy cold days.
Absolutely, and in fact, BE the

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Light Ministry also had a cooling station
during the summer as well as a warming

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station during the winter, just to
help people out. There was also another

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organization in town that was running a
warming station of the Disciples Christian Church.

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So there's a lot of there's a
lot of organizations here in our town.

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A got a mission and others that
are just really focused on helping helping our

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community. BE the Light Ministry is
one of those, and we value them

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and we're glad to be partners with
them and helping them start that up.

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Oh wow, that is cool other
businesship, because I know that took a

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lot of time last night, both
those two issues. Those two issues took

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quite a bit of time last night. Yeah. I know that we've got

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a special city election coming up here
in just a matter of early voting starting.

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I tell us about that. What
is the issue? So we have

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asked voters to decide some general obligation
bond issues. So We've got four general

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obligation bond issues slated to be voted
on by our community and our city citizens.

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Early voting starts Thursday. You can
vote early in person down at the

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County Election Board on the on the
fourth floor of the City how you can

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vote in person early Thursday and Friday
in person. Normal regular voting is Tuesday

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at your regular polling place. So
you'll be voting on a bond issue for

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streets. That's the biggest of our
bond issues. We're asking voters to approve

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twelve point three million dollars to do
street replacement, repair and improvements. This

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is the one that we've really worked
hard on. We've got a large list

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of projects. Our streets need work. Our streets need improvement, repair,

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replacement. Our Streets Committee did a
great job of putting together a list.

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We had our Pavement Condition Index that
we did here a couple of years ago

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to give us data on which streets
need the most work and should be repaired

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first. And we've got a plan
on how to improve our streets by accomplishing

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these projects that are named in this
streets bond issue. So we're asking we're

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asking voters to approve twelve point three
million dollars to get our streets back up

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to the condition we need them in. We've got we're asking two point four

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million dollars on a public safety bond
issue. That public safety bond issue is

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going to help us rebuild a fire
station that has needed some work out here.

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The trucks are bigger than the Holy
Drection. Yeah, if they needs

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some foundational work and the foundation is
not up to snuff, and when you

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look at it, it is better
to build a new station than try to

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repair that foundation. So we would
like to the voters to approve this bond

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issue so that we can build a
new fire station for our first responders out

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there on the west side. And
then we've also got a park and recreation

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we're asking two point two million dollars
for some improvements along pathfind Or and other

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park improvements. That's a lot lesson
we've asked in previous years, but this

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will really help us get Pathfinder.
We're also going to do some greens replacements

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on Adam's golf course. Our greens
are green should be replaced, you know,

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fifteen to twenty years our our greens
are twenty to twenty five years old.

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There, Yes, especially with the
Big Phillips and Conico. With the

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United Ways. The United Way is
a great They just had their twentieth anniversary

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or the United Way Golf. They
raise over a million dollars. They that

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tournament brings in over two million dollars
of revenue for our city. The golf

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course brings in revenue for our city. So we need to marry take care

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of it. We need to take
care of it. We need to maintain

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a replace and those greens are valuable. This will be the first stage of

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green replacement. So we're looking forward
to getting that accomplishing game that done.

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We're asking voters of our vote on
that and we're asking them to vote for

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point seven million, about seven hundred
thousand dollars to do some equipment replacing in

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city Hall, up grade some servers
and switches, and some IT equipment at

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city Hall. So all in total, we're looking we're asking voters to vote

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on four bond issues totaling seven team
point six million dollars. That's our bond

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capacity that we can service that debt
with no issues. We've got a good

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credit rating, we can we can
sell. We can sell that debt with

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no issues so we're asking the people
and the citizens of Barsville to vote yes

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for all four of those bonds so
we can get some streets repaired, we

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can do some facility replacement and build
a new fire station, do some parks

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and golf course repairs and improvements,
and upgrade our I equipment. That's what

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it boils down to. So go
vote either in person early Thursday and Friday,

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or in person at your regular holding
place on Tuesday, October tenth.

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Very good, Very good. Now
we had a new business come into town

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and I haven't really good chance to
talk to you about it. It's a

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whale of a deal. Yeah whale. We even had the governor come in

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and say, how do you do? Do you welcome to town? Yeah,

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well the government will be. The
governor even got excited about this one.

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This is a great opportunity for Barsville. This is a new industry,

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it's a growing industry. This would
be the first facility of its kind in

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North America. Here. Blue Whale
has come in and said we're going to

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do some lithium ion battery recycling.
So they're basically taking lithium ion batteries processing

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them to a material called black sand
that black sand is then used by refining

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of refining process to create new lithium
ion rechargeable batteries. So this is a

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processing center that's not it's not trying
to refine or the products. What it's

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doing is as actually crushing, grinding, and making a common called no emissions.

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There's very little environmental hazard to this
process. Just a little electricity to

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run the machines in the lights and
Nancy, yeah, there you go.

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So this is going to be great. It's this is a growing industry.

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Lithium ion batteries are going to be
more and more used as we evolve into

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a more mobile community, more mobile
society with electric vehicles and rechargeable batteries needed

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for everything now. So this is
going to be a really great opportunity.

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Is going to bring work jobs to
our community. Originally, initially it'll bring

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about forty five jobs to our community, and hopefully within the next two to

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five years we'll bring ninety to one
hundred jobs into our community. So this

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is a really good opportunity. The
Governor's excited about it, City Council is

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excited about it. BDA, our
Barsville Development Authority is excited and we appreciate

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them working with Blue Whale to get
this deal done and give them some in

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cities so they're in Barnesville. We're
excited to have this industry in Barsville.

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That is way cool. What else
we got on the agenda? What else

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we need to tell the folks?
What do they need to know about their

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city and how there is any conserve
you and you conserve you city? Well,

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last night one of the things I
wanted to kind of bring up a

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couple of things. First, we've
got a lot of openings on our boards

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and commissions. We've got an opening
on our Ambulance Commission. We've got an

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opening on Library Trust Authority. We've
got a library board position open, and

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a park board position open. We've
filled some position last night and made some

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recommendations, but we're still looking for
some volunteers to set on those boards.

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It is a great way to serve
your community, to get involved, to

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help your community, to move forward
some initiatives that we need to do in

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the city. This is a really
good way. So if you're interested,

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please go online or see Elaine Bains
down at City Hall. Get an application.

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She knows everything. Get an application, sumend an application. We'd love

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to have you serving on one of
those boards and commissions, that'd be great.

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One of the other things we did
last night that we're really I'm really

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excited about is that we have agreed
to a contract and commissioned a comprehensive plan

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study for the City of Bartsville.
That's really going to be valuable to us

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as we go forward over the next
year. There's going to be a lot

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of work done with this comprehensive plan. We've got our next next Vision for

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Bartlesville, which is our strategic plan
that our city staff is put together.

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This comprehensive plan is going to help
us identify needs in our community. It's

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going to help us prioritize projects.
It's going to look and say, as

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we move forward, how you know, what do we need to do with

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economic development, what do we need
to do with the housing development, What

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do we need to do in all
these different areas. And it helps us

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drive an actual strategy to grow and
to maintain our city and to kind of

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move it forward in the direction that
our citizens want to move forward. And

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so they're going to get a lot
of citizen input into this comprehensive plan.

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This comprehensive plan will feed into our
next strategy. As we outline goals and

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priorities and objectives and projects in our
next strategy, the comprehensive plan is going

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to help us prioritize and kind of
know where what the vision is we're driving

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forward here in Barsville. It sounds
good, all right, thank you very

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much. By the way, people
want to know a little bit more.

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Perhaps they got a question for their
city councilor which district do you serve?

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I serve in Ward two, so
that's my ward. If you want to

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contact me, go into the City
of Barsville website to click on government and

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City Council. You'll see my email
address, my phone number all published as

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well as if you live in a
different ward, your city councilors contact information

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is published out there. Don't hesitate
to reach out, email me, call

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me. I'm always communicating with citizens
either by phone or email, answering their

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questions, addressing their concerns, and
getting their input on what we need to

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be doing for to move the city
forward. So go out to the City

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of Barswell website and the contact information
for all of our city counselors is out

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there, all right. Thank you. Lauren Roselle, City counselor for Greek

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two right here in Barnelsville, and
you've been listening to our City Matters program

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on K one