Highlights from November Jackson city council meeting

JACKSON, TN (WNBJ) - The city of Jackson held its November city council meeting this morning.

In Jackson, the city council held its November meeting this morning where they discussed several topics. A few were the police department raises, possibly hiring a recycling coordinator, and plans for the historic train depot.

This year the city of Jackson wanted to increase pay for its public safety departments.

“We had a couple of meetings with fire and police and went through some neighboring countries. Went through some other municipalities within our state and outside of our state and looked at what their compensation levels were,” said Paul Taylor, the city of Jackson councilmen.

In October, the council passed a budget amendment to raise pay for the fire department.

Another step in that process happened this morning when the city approved raises for the police department as well.

“These people risk their lives every day for us and if you can make just as much as a first-year employee on an assembly line. It’s apples and oranges for the responsibilities those guys have so we want to make sure they are compensated appropriately,” said Taylor.

During the meeting, the council heard a proposed budget amendment on hiring a recycling coordinator with Solid Waste Management.

“We have to be able to pivot and shift the focus on being more sustainable providing recycling options and so this person is going to look at programs, how to do it, a timeline to get it implemented, what materials we can recycle and how we can educate the public on that,” said Mayor Scott Conger, city of Jackson.

A new lease agreement with The CO for the historic train depot was discussed at the meeting.

The mayor talked about potential future plans for the space.

“Working with The CO for a kind of incubation to focus on minorities-own business and female-owned businesses. It gives us an opportunity to do that and has that focus so it going to be exciting. I think they are doing some selfie-museum-type things focused around black history and women’s history to start out and be an incubation for other minority-owned businesses,” said Mayor Conger.

The next city council meeting will be Tuesday, December 7 at 9 a.m. at City Hall.