At the June Minden City Council Meeting, the council also adopted several updates to city ordinances and celebrated the official transition of Minden’s power supply to LEPA, which is projected to lower residents’ utility bills by 25%.
The council also voted to adopt a resolution authorizing the City of Minden and the State of Louisiana to proceed with the issuance of sales tax revenue bonds.
Last month, the council granted the mayor the authority to hire the services of a Bonding Attorney, Michael Busada, from Butler Snow. As a result of that, the city is now attaching the funding of the REC Center’s enhancement project to a bonding process in order to help the city save money.
“We fund the REC Center through a very unique tax that was passed in the year 2000, and that is a sewer recreation tax. So, that’s how we fund the sewer plant, and that’s how we fund the rec complex,” said Mayor Nick Cox.
“By tying the funding of the REC enhancement project to this bonding process, it gives the city a much better interest rate … It shaved about ten years off of the payment terms, just by tying it to the sales tax we already have in place.
“It’s the sales tax we already had in place for twenty-five years. It’s the sales tax we already dedicate to funding the REC Center, and by tying it to the issuing of bonds, it will save the city a considerable amount of money.”
During this meeting, the council also unanimously accepted some proposed changes to the City of Minden’s Code of Ordinances that were proposed to the council by the City of Minden’s Building Official, Brent Cooley. “All permits and licensing now go through our building official’s office, which is Mr. Cooley. Therefore, he’s trying to implement and carry out our ordinances,” said Mayor Cox.
One of these proposed changes was to Chapter 6 of Minden’s Code of Ordinances, Alcoholic Beverages, which was rewritten by Cooley in order to clean up some redundancies and make it easier to interpret.
“The citizens are trying to understand how to carry out the ordinances, and this particular ordinance had a lot of redundancy, a lot of unclear parts to it, and a lot of things that didn’t apply anymore, so Mr. Cooley rewrote it,” said Mayor Cox.
Another proposed change was an update to the code, adding some definitions to sections dealing with zoning. “It refers to departments and leaders of the city that no longer exist. Also, it refers to customs with lodging that no longer apply,” said Mayor Cox. “It doesn’t change a lot, it basically added some definitions.”
The last change was amending Chapter 22 of the city’s Code of Ordinances, Building and Building Regulations. Essentially, the way it read before the change made it a cumbersome process for people bringing manufactured homes that are older than ten years into local trailer parks. This change made it so the managers of the parks could take in such homes at their discretion. “This ordinance would give the discretion to bring an older-than-10-year manufactured home into a trailer park under the discretion of the park’s owners,” said Mayor Cox.
At the end of the meeting, the council and mayor noted that, over the weekend, Minden’s power supply changed to being officially provided by LEPA. The mayor stated that a conservative estimate of how much citizens’ power bills would be reduced by was 25%. He also stated that citizens would start seeing these savings on their energy bills on the July and August bills. “Your July bill will have half of that on there. Half of that will be the old contract, and half of that will be the new contract,” said Mayor Cox. “The August bill should be fully under LEPA.”
District A Councilman Buddy Myles shared his appreciation for everyone who helped the city bring this change to fruition. “I just want to thank all of the people who had a hand in helping us switch over to LEPA. Everybody knows that we fought hard,” said Councilman Myles. “I’m praying that this is the shot in the arm that our city needs for economic growth, and for residential growth as well.”
District E Councilman Andy Pendergrass also shared his thanks, as well as a Bible verse that he reflected on throughout the process, Matthew 5:14-16. “As a city, I hope that we’re a city on a hill, that our light shines for all to see, and that they would glorify God in heaven,” said Councilman Pendergrass.
The monthly Minden City Council meetings are held on the first Monday of each month at 6 PM at the Minden Civic Center. Meetings are open to the public and are also livestreamed on the City of Minden’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, both titled “City of Minden,” for those who cannot attend in person.