Greenfield City Council 8/12/2026

Greenfield City Council 08/12/26

Terry Bynum

The mayor started the meeting off differently tonight–by announcing that just this afternoon, the city had been notified that it was awarded a $750K matching grant from the Office of Community & Rural Affairs, to be used for stormwater improvements. This is part of a Federal Block Grant.

The mayor also showed off a gift he received from students from Greenfield's Sister City.  They gave him a Japanese kimono jacket. 

The council heard from the Exec. Director of Hancock Sr. Services, primarily concerning a grant request.  They are asking for $175K–$150 for the transportation services, and 25K more for other services. The request has been referred to the grants committee.  There is apparently some bad blood between certain council members and some county councilors and commissioners.  One city councilman was quoted as saying, "Some of the county elected officials forget that Greenfield is part of Hancock County!"  80% of the rides on Hancock Sr. Services either originate or terminate at a Greenfield address. 

   City Budget Update. 

   Sept. 2.  City departments will appear to talk about their budget requests

             9   Budget ordinance will be introduced at the council meeting

            23  Public Hearing on budget

   Oct.  14-adoption

            16 submitted to state

Council agreed to approved the Hancock County Multi-Hazard Mitigation Guide.

Council received a "white paper" from the city engineer Glenn Morrow and the traffic safety committee talking about the wide variety of residential speed limits in the city.  Some are 20, some are 25, some are 30, many are not posted, so they default to the state mandated 30.  After much discussion, Morrow and the traffic safety committee will come up with a plan to lower all residential street speed limits to 20 mph.  And ordinance will be drafted and presented for council action. 

Larry Silver spoke up about a couple of issues bothering him.  He asked what Project Phoenix is, and whether any councilors have signed NDA's about the project.  Everyone but the mayor expressed no knowledge of this project.  They mayor said he heard it was a group of private citizens looking at buying property in the city.  No one admitted to signing an NDA. I think Larry is concerned that someone is trying to sneak a data center or some other type of project in without transparency. 

His other issue is the 22 Flock cameras the city has.  He listed 5 more municipalities that have removed their Flock camera.  He claims they violate the 4th amendment right to privacy. 

The police chief was adamant that the cameras were valuable, and they should stay. No one at the meeting seemed to be bothered by the "Big Brother" aspect of the cameras. 

Mayor remarked that Jesper is stepping down from the council.  He's selling his house and moving.