The Minden City Council meeting took place Tuesday evening where the council voted on various items of city business including opting out of a program from the governor’s office, the adoption of an ordinance to change the pricing on the city’s electric vehicle charging stations, appointments to the Minden Main Street/Downtown Development Board, and new hires for the city’s fire and police departments.
One of the first agenda items voted on was whether to opt-in or opt-out of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness’ Temporary Housing and Shelter Assistance Program.
“This is an item we vote on annually. It’s optional to opt-in or opt-out. You can opt-out and, in the event of an emergency, you can opt-in at any time, so in the past, the city has always opted to opt-out,” said Mayor Nick Cox. The council voted unanimously to opt-out of the program.
The council also voted unanimously to lower the price of the city’s electric vehicle charging stations, hoping to spur more use of the stations by lowering the prices.
“We passed an ordinance last year pertaining to our new city electric vehicle charger. We set the electric rate. They gave us a choice between one and ten. We didn’t know how the charging station would perform so we picked the number five,” said Mayor Cox.
“Since we picked the number five, I’ve received a good bit of feedback that indicated that we were one of the highest charging places in the country. Which I’m suspecting might contribute to the low participation we’ve had on that. So, in an effort to try and get sales up, we’re going to lower prices.”
The council also voted unanimously to appoint and re-appoint, respectively, Kathy Cropper and Claudine Thomas to the Minden Main Street/Downtown Development Board with their terms set to expire on September 8, 2027.
The council also voted to hire Nathan Randle as a full-time firefighter/operator for the Minden Fire Department as well as Erikka Means as a full-time police officer for the Minden Police Department. Both candidates were approved unanimously to fill their respective positions. The hiring of Randle also means that the Minden Fire Department is fully staffed with fifteen firefighters ready to leap to action whenever an emergency strikes.
The Minden City Council meeting takes place on the first Monday of each month, starting at 6 PM at the Minden Civic Center. The meetings are open for the public to attend and, for those who wish to view the meeting live or after the fact, it is live-streamed on the City of Minden’s Facebook page and YouTube channel titled City of Minden – Feels Like Home.