The Meridian City Council is planning to review the city’s food truck ordinance in a coming work session to see if changing it could bring more opportunities for local businesses.

In a meeting Tuesday, the council heard from food truck owner Sherese Rasco about challenges the current ordinance was causing to her business.

Rasco told the board she recently purchased a piece of property at 22nd Ave. and 9th Street to be the headquarters for her food truck and catering business. The property is zoned for business, but under the current ordinance, it cannot be used for food trucks.

“This is my livelihood,” she said. “This is my business.”

Community Development Director Craig Hitt said the city’s current ordinance restricts food trucks from operating in the city outside of a food truck park. Only one privately-owned area, which was designated as a test site under the previous administration, is able to host food trucks under the current rules, he said.

“According to the documentation that the previous council adopted, that is the only park that is allowed to food trucks at this time,” Hitt said.

The ordinance allows an exception for food trucks permitted for certain events, such as those held at City Hall or Dumont Plaza, Hitt said.

Ward 1 Councilman George Thomas said the council wants Meridian to be supportive of businesses and would need to go back and look at the ordinance to see what could be done.

“We can look at that. We can set up a work session and get together and look at the ordinance,” he said. “There may be several things in there we need to change, but we want as many businesses as we can have. There’s no question about that.”

The council agreed to hold a work session at 3:30 p.m. Jan. 25 to discuss the ordinance and other business. Work will be underway on the floors in the council’s usual chambers on the third floor at City Hall next week, so the work session will be held at Union Station.

In other business, the council voted to accept a $6,000 donation from Mississippi Power Co. The money will be used to plant trees in downtown.