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Regular Council Meeting July 14, 2014 Page 4 see the City take over mowing just the safe sidewalks, so the children would not be in any danger. Council Member Lancaster reported that they seemed to be developing a large snake population, and that she did not want children running into snakes. She thought it would be very beneficial for the City to handle the sidewalks. Mr. Godwin said Public Works Director Jerry McDaniel would take care of it. 12. Discuss and /or action on the proposal to clear drainage ditches in the city. These include areas in District 5 — 3rd SE through 81h SE — District 2 — 3rd SW — 7th SW, District 2 — 12th NW through 15th NW, District 1 — 3rd NE, 4' NE and 5th NE. These are only a few. There are also some in District 3. Council Member Lancaster said she brought this forward, because there was a problem with the drainage ditches before the ice storm and afterwards they were considerably worse. She said if the City gets heavy rains there was going to be water in a lot of homes, and that two houses had already gotten water in them. Council Member Lancaster said those drainage ditches were put there for a purpose and Paris has flooded. She strongly urged that all of the drainage ditches that had been there for quite a long time, be cleaned out so they did not have to worry about flooding. Mayor Frierson agreed and said there would be an agenda item on the next agenda to specifically discuss the progress of those ongoing projects. Council Member Lancaster asked if there was any history of when these were built. Mr. Godwin said he did know, because he was not here during that time. He said there were many and it was difficult to track them all down citing some were underground. Council Member Lancaster said while driving around in her district on Sunday and when on Henderson Street, she noticed not only was there a really snaky looking bad drainage ditch, but a horrible smell of sewage. Council Member Plata asked if there was any work going on with cleaning drainage ditches. Mr. Godwin answered in the affirmative, and said during this time of year most of the parks peoples were spending time spent on parks. He said that two weeks ago he mentioned that staff had not been able to do a lot during the winter, because they had been cleaning up from the ice storm and had gotten behind. Mr. Godwin said a report would be brought back in two weeks. 13. Appoint two board members to the Paris Economic Development Corporation. Mayor Frierson said last time they did all their board appointments and were successful, with exception of the PEDC Board. He said there were two vacancies and both of those terms were three year terms. Mayor Frierson opened the floor for nominations. Council Member Pickle nominated Don Wilson and was seconded by Council Member Plata. Motion carried, 4 ayes — 3 nays, with Council Members Jenkins, Lancaster and Hashmi casting the dissenting votes. Council Member Hashmi said he thought they had broken policies and procedures in that board appointments were suppose to be done by the 30th of June. He inquired why this item was not placed on the June 30th agenda when they had a quorum present. He said Council talked about not breaking the rules, but they did not follow their own policies and procedures. Mr. Godwin said it did not occur to him to add this item to the June 30 agenda, because it was a