City Council Strategic Planning Workshop 6-18-25

[0:00:00] It is 8:35. Let's go ahead and get started. Angela, if you want to move up to the top. We are having some technical difficulties. We'll get this thing going here in just a little bit. But for now, I know some of you already have your PowerPoints with you. So, Angela, it looks like you have yours. All right. With that, uh, let's go and get that one started. Okay. Good morning. I'm Angela, the interim assistant director of neighborhood family services. Nice to see you all this morning. You're the one to talk. I couldn't hear you all day yesterday. Just kidding. Okay. She'll be disciplined after this is over. Do Do we have the remote? I don't have it. Remote. Okay. Angela, we do have the PowerPoint presentation in front of us. So you want to kick it off with what you have in front of you? Of course. We can follow along. Okay. So starting off is our mission statement. So that states that the neighborhood and family services department is dedicated to enhancing the well-being, safety, quality of life for all residents of St. Angelo via the animal services code compliance, housing support, and wick nutrition divisions. Through responsive programs, community partnerships, and supportive services, the department addresses key aspects of neighborhood health, family stability, and public safety. Thank you. Can you not hear yourself? Hello. I can hear myself. Tom, you can't hear me? No, I I could I Okay, thank you. Okay. Um, our strengths for No, just I'm sorry. Do I need to be even closer? No, we're good. Okay. So our strengths of neighborhood and family services um we put in there an integrated service model model. So one of our greatest strengths is how our four divisions are able to work together. Um and that's mainly because

[0:02:02] we serve the same demographic across the board. Um wake people normally are seen animal services as well in code compliance and such like that. Um we are very fortunate to have a very passionate team under all of our divisions who work hard and understand the mission that we're trying to serve. Um, we have strong community partnerships. Um, we work closely with a lot of nonprofits here in St. Angelo. Um, and reach out in the community as much as possible. We we have two programs, HUD and WIC, um, who provide reliable funding streams through grant funding and federal support and our public visibility and impact. We're highly engaged with the community through pet resource resource fairs, wick clinics, and neighborhood cleanups. Um these events not only provide services, they also build public awareness and encourage proactive participation from residents. All right. Um our weaknesses. So we do have some resource constraints. Um staffing and budget limitations kind of slow down our response time. Um our outreach, we aren't able to reach as many people as we'd like to. Um and any expansions to programs we would like to serve is kind of hindered by that. um our aging infrastructure mainly that's the animal shelter. Um it does require several upgrades. Right now we're just kind of holding together with band-aids here and there when needed. Um our technology gaps we have across all my divisions minus wick um we have some out outdated computers, outdated systems um so they kind of reduce our efficiency and then we have public mis perception. So, um, some community members don't fully understand our roles. So, I think that, um, creates, especially in code enforcement and animal services, and that, um, you know, it just it doesn't help. So, we're trying to change that narrative a little bit, but it's it's a constant thing. We're trying to work on figure

[0:04:06] out the best approach to our opportunities. So, we would like to see some cross division innovation. Um, we're have been trying to work on some pilot programs. One of those such as animal services has a hard time reaching people just because they think we're there to either give them a ticket or stuff like that. So, we've been enabling Wick to go with them to kind of open that door to be like, "Hey, we're here for Wick services. We have animal services with us. Can we fix your fence? Can we microchip your dog? Can we do those kind of things?" So, we're just trying to um work together with all of our divisions to create a one-stop shop that we can help you with everything that you need based in on our the services that we offer. Um and we're exploring more pilot programs to do that similar things. Um digital transformation. Did you have a question? I'm sorry. So when you say you have cross division and you make a call, do you take somebody with animal services with you or is it just somebody knowledgeable of both parts of that? Like you just gave an example. Hey, you're there with Wick, by the way, somebody here with animal services. Yeah, but it's a planned event. So it was it's not like a someone calls in um a complaint and we're taking all of the departments. Um it's just a planned event. So, we're taking Wick, Code, and Animal Services to each house asking if there's any needs that we can help with. Um, we would like to do more of that where we have one person, and you'll see that in one of um our goals to have one person who is well versed in all items so that if they need housing support, they need WIC, they need code, they need animal, we have one person that is able to welcome kind of like a case management role almost. Okay. Thank you, Tracy. Mhm. um digital transformation. There's a real opportunity to modernize our digital tools. Um we're working on online reporting and we've done that with Brian and Lauraai. Uh our complaint form for animal services. You can now upload pictures which is helpful to describe the dog and things like that.

[0:06:09] So, we're seeing how that works. Um we want to move our breeding permits online so that they're not getting lost in the transfer between planning and us. um that it kind of just transfers via technology. So, I think we have some opportunities there to make it easier and we're more available. Um community education campaigns. I think a lot that goes back to one of our um where the misperceptions I think we need to educate our community on again what our roles are, how we can serve citizens and what we exactly do. Expanded grant funding. I think there's some opportunities out there to tap into new federal and state programs. Um Morgan and I have been working on that diligently to see if we can get some funding for whether it be homeless prevention, um maternal growth, health, or excuse me, maternal health. Um Wick is pretty maxed out on what we get from them, but maybe there's something else out there that we can we can get to help with those services. And then um population growth. So, there's an opportunity here with new residents um to reinforce neighborhood standards, but it also becomes a threat eventually, which you'll see later that it does increase our demand for services. Angela, who writes your grants? Uh Morgan and I. Okay. So, our weight grant, it's not we don't write it. It's just something um that we do a contract with every 5 years. And so, they send it to us and Daniel and I review it and legal. Oh, that's fine. I just Yeah. But any grants how many people had the need to write grants and how many grant writers we actually have. Oh, I see. Who is writing those? I mean, with the advent of AI, it's much easier to write a grant that it was or to apply, right? And we do have several knowledgeable people at the city. I know Sandra writes a lot of hers and she's been doing it for years. So, she's a resource and operations has their own grant writers, so we can reach out, but Morgan and I handle all of ours in house. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay.

[0:08:13] Okay, some threats that we're facing is economic pressure pressures. So, rising housing costs, inflation, job insecurity. Um, those can increase community needs and strain our resources. We have staff burnout retention. Um, our staff, our frontline staff especially, I apologize. Um, they are just put in emotionally intense situations. So, we really need to make sure they're taken care of. and not getting burned out. Um, a regulatory changes, just shifts in state and federal policy. I don't have any issue coming in this upcoming fiscal year for our grant budgets, but you know, it's unknown and you never know year to year. Um, we did get the tenative numbers for um our housing program and it looks like it will be the same. So, we don't have any worries for this upcoming fiscal year. And I'm pretty sure uh wick will increase, but again with the political climate, you just never know. Um, public safety challenges, animal incidents, illegal dumping, and housing code violations are often concentrated in areas where we're already stretched thin. Um, so addressing these concerns requires coordination with law enforce law enforcement and other city departments. And then natural disasters. um extreme heat, storms, and other climate related disruptions pose serious risks to vulnerable residents such as homeless, homelessness, and those that um are just vulnerable in their day-to-day situations. So, we want to make sure that we have things on standby to make sure we're able to help them in those situations. Of your public safety challenges, which one of those three is it crime, neglect, or animal related services that takes the most time? I would say I'm not as well verssed in code to answer the crime and um side of it, but I would say that from being animal services, I think that would take most of our time. Okay. And mainly because that comes from and it could be for code as well because like I said, there's a case management aspect to that that we're not as well versed in as that we should be. Cool. So, thank you, Angela.

[0:10:16] Can can you share with us the city's response in in the case of a disaster? who gets involved in in what order. I'm sure you're working with fire and police and well, if it's a main disaster, that would be handled through our emergency management. So, I have read the plan, but it has been a hot minute, so I can't tell you the exact steps at this moment. I just know that um we're already stretched thin on a day-to-day basis, so we want to make sure that we are able to do our part when it comes to that. Well, you step in when you're asked. Yes. Okay. And we do stand up the as far as emergency management, we have an incident that's of of this caliber as far as a big one. Uh we do stand up the the EOC and basically directors are called in. Uh so we manage it from that perspective, but mainly you have police and fire that would be the leads on that and of course operations and uh public works as well. They're typically our first responders on the ground. But uh yeah, as soon as we have a situation like that, we send up the EOC. Mhm. And I will say that um we have the best relationship that we've ever had with police right now. So we're um we work really closely with them. Um Chief Scott and I are we meet regularly to make sure if he has any concerns, we can get them addressed and if I have any concerns, he can address them on his side. Okay. Okay. Moving on to our one-year goal. So by June 2026, support San Angelo families by deploying self safe I'm sorry and healthgiving programs. So we um address those through a couple of strategies. So the first one for the year 1 go would be strengthen integrated citizen centered services and by doing that we would develop shared intake and referral systems um and cross trainin staff so wick housing animal services and code compliance can identify overlapping needs and serve quickly and then collaborate across divisions to close gaps in service delivery like identifying animal welfare issues in substandard housing or referring wick clients to housing support. Just making

[0:12:18] sure that when citizens show up to Wick to get benefits, we're also letting them know that we have other services that are available to them and vice versa if they went to code or animal services. Um some resources needed for that goal would be um cross trainin staff. Um we did state an integration coordinator. It's not necessarily I mean of course we would love it to be a full-time position but could be somebody that we already have. um if we have somebody that is able to take on their regular duties plus this one um and bilingual outreach specialists and we need those and we have those um but the more the marrier um shared referral systems between all of our divisions between code housing wick and animal services um interdep department workshops on collaboration and wraparound service delivery just making sure I don't think code compliant should be an expert on wick but I think that they should know what services they offer. And then multilingual educational materials, that is something that Wick is very good at, but the other departments, not so much. So, I would like to um use the resources that we have at Wick to make multilingual um pamphlets and things like that for my other divisions. And then, with community partners and we, like I said, Wick is really good about that, but I really need that to be across the divisions to work with those community partners that we have. and we're Morgan and I are getting better with that, but it could be better. Um, strategy two would be expand community awareness and engagement. And by doing that, we would launch a unified communication strategy that includes outreach events and appropriate materials. Um, promote responsible pet ownership, house readiness, wick eligibility, and code education through those events and partnerships. And then a targeted outreach approach. Um we have target neighborhoods that we are trying to spend most of our time in. Um the resources needed for that would be to out and outreach coordinators um

[0:14:22] bilingual community liaison and engage diverse populations. Um updated websites which we do have a great updated website but we want to make sure that our page of those are updated with all of those materials. um mobile tools for both code and animal services and a social media strategy. Um and we have been working with Laura Lai and Brian on this, but we just our social media needs help. Um staff development and public speaking and community engagement. Um Carlos does a great job, but I need the rest of my staff to be up with him that when needed, um when there's an interview, it's just not me, Morgan, and Carlos. I would like all of my staff to be well verssed in that. Um, after all, those are the people that you see daytoday, not me and Morgan. Um, and then a marketing and advertising budget for those digital materials and those pamphlets and con collaboration with trusted community partners. All right, any questions on year one? So, what I hear is our social media needs help. I mean, I I our social media is alive and going and we have tons of following, or I wouldn't say tons, not nearly as much as the city, but the most we've had. And people are getting the dogs out so that they're getting returned home. But I think we could use help. I can't think of the right word. It's just it's just not coming across well to our citizens. And I don't know if it's if it's us. I don't know if it's the misperceptions of our department. Here's how I see that. Social media is voluntary. Mhm. Okay. It doesn't need to be the primary source that people depend upon to get information. I think a lot of people put the onus on us. Well, hey, you didn't get this out. No, we've tried several channels to get it out. I just sometimes think we we put too much dependence upon social media to share our message, right? And that that shouldn't be a burden of yours. We'll have a department that takes care of that. But I get the point there. Just want people to understand it's not the

[0:16:25] city's obligation for you to monitor our and like and follow and subscribe to our page. True. Yes. It's just the most efficient way we found especially for animal services to make sure that dogs that have been picked up are I get that and and it kills me because so much can be misinterpreted. I agree. And um it's hard to get my staff not to respond to comments because they're they're so passionate about their jobs and they want to stick up. So there's got to be I want to call out one other person. And so that's what I would call this the strategy that we can find a way where we're meeting the needs of the citizens but also creating a boundary that it doesn't affect my staff negatively. Josh Hilton at the Rodeo Association # Josh. Sometimes he gets into a a a fevered, you know, battle back and forth and it's hard not to because like I said, my my staff are very passionate and they they believe what they do. They're doing good and I I believe that truly, too. But trying to get other people to see that is hard. So what I see as a step there is you probably need to train your group on the proper proper social media response. Yes. And I think that would be part of the strategy. Like I said, meeting what the citizens need, which is getting their dogs home in a timely manner and um and us knowing when to respond and know my staff knowing when to respond. And I actually advise them just not get on don't just don't get on there at all. Right. So step one's on the internal side with those. And then step two is where we talk about Brian and Laura, but I don't want those two co-mingle this. Well, and they're stretched then, too. So I would hate to add my mess to their mess. And I'm not saying theirs is a mess, but you know, they have a lot on their plate as well. We're good on that. Um, and I I brought up before to Brian and Laura, the social media, I'm I'm going to disagree with him. I think it is needed more. I think it would help y'all more. Yeah. And I do think there could be a better face is the wrong word. A better foot forward for it. Yeah. Right. And we just haven't figured out what that is. And so one thing I brought up and I don't know if it'd be possible. It

[0:18:26] probably HR question and legal. Um there's a whole lot of people in our animal community that say they're willing to help with all kinds of stuff. They are very loud and vocal. So on Facebook, yes, they know social media because they are on social media being loud and vocal. So, I don't know if there's a way we could get them involved as volunteers to come up to the shelter every so often and take photos of them playing with the dogs, whatever it is, and then put that on social media. Here's the dogs we have this week. Kind of take the burden off of y'all. Yeah. And we've we, you know, we used to have um open houses, so to speak, for a better term, and we would be open in the evenings and for people to come. And at first they were well visited and then it just kind of died out and so we we just ended it. And so they're um not let's bring Anthony Wilson into this. He used to um when people were commenting on their Facebook, he would invite them to drinks. He would invite them to drinks and be like let's discuss. So cuz a lot of it is ignorance. They don't really know how the city works and how the division works. And so he would talk it out with them. So I discuss doing that. But then again, it does it help? I don't know. I I don't know what the answer is to be honest. But yeah. Well, I just I think that could take some of the social media um work off of y'all. Have them do it and get to Brian Laura maybe and say when when somebody could be there to actually photograph it or whatever or you know it probably needs to go before the city before we actually post it. But yeah, something like that. And then the other question I had, it was kind of going back a little bit, but um it was your staff burnout. Mhm. So, in the last year, how much of your frontline workers have have kind of gone out because they're burned out, left or different divisions or um That's a hard question to answer. So, I've been in animal services since and I I keep going back to animal services cuz they are my division that has the most code compliance. They've all been there for a really long time. Uh Wick, same. They're married to Wick. They love Wick. Um and they don't have a lot of turnover there. So, most of it comes to animal services.

[0:20:28] So, I've been there since December and we've lost probably four or five, which doesn't seem like a lot, but when you work with divisions who they've been there for years and years and you know, Rudy's been with us for 30 years and we just don't have that. I think the most tenured employee, well, besides Stanley, um, you know, hasn't been there very long. So, it's just hard. It's hard cuz the work is hard, you know, the criticism is hard, just all of it, you know, and we're putting dogs down that they don't want to healthy, happy dogs, and that's hard, you know. So, is it do you think it I mean, is is kind of the mental burnout aspect of it. Has that do you think that contributed to most of those four or five? Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. The workload if it's not the workload, it's um I know my front staff uh frontline staff at the animal shelter right now, she's very burnt out. she's talking about um leaving and she did have plans of leaving but she's leaving sooner because she just she can't handle the phone calls and the getting yelled at and you know all of this stuff. So I think between that and the workload I mean that will and then like I said you're putting down health h healthy happy dogs. So it just the environment itself with employees together is good. They're great employees and they're they love what they do and I don't think I could replace them with someone better because they truly are great employees. It's just everything on the outside is hard with y'all and you kind of talked about some cross division and cross trainining. Mhm. Would there be the potential between the different services to rotate somebody from animal shelter to maybe a good part of Wick where they're just helping families for and rotate them out so that they don't get burned out. take them from that the you know seeing the terrible things to seeing the good things about what the city can do and kind of rotate them through to give them a break. Yeah. And maybe cross trains them a little bit as well. Um the it would be hard with Wick and I say that because the Wick grant is so particular. Um maybe there's something and so maybe there's something else but then I would be afraid and I mean this I don't know how to say this

[0:22:31] without being ugly to my other staff but it is a transition. So going from code compliance and animal services night and day and so I don't want to risk losing a code employ compliance officer because they don't want to work at animal services. So it's finding that middle ground and so some of my Wix staff have come and helped at the animal shelter up front and she'll tell you firsthand it was it was difficult and she told me I loved it. I love being there but don't ever send me back there. And it wasn't because of the employees or necessarily the environment, just everything else that comes with it. That heavy toll. And this may be more for Daniel or HR. Do we have um with our comp plan, do we have ways for people to go get mental health services if they need? We do. We do have that available to HR uh through counseling services that's available to staff. Um staff just needs to make sure make sure they take advantage of that. But uh yeah, we do have that available. I do want to mention too, Patrick, that on Monday when we have our third workshop, we're going to go more in depth into the discussions on animal services and recommendations by the task force that they did a an initial uh presentation which about 30 45 minutes long, but this will this will give us an opportunity to go more in depth into it, listen to those recommendations, some of the things that you're talking about as far as volunteerism, having the different groups come in and help. That's what I want to hear from them as well because I think that there's been discussion on that and I think that we'll have a lot more clarity come Monday as far as that direction where we want to go. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Okay. Moving on to a year three goal. So, we want to strengthen Stantel's neighborhoods by promoting safe, healthy, and engaged communities through proactive services and support for families and individuals. And under that we have um two strategies. One of them is build a sustainable supported workforce. Our people are our greatest asset. And I just said that and I'll say it I'll scream it from the rooftops for as long as I can, but um to serve our residents well, we have to invest in those staff because they are the ones dealing with

[0:24:34] or not dealing sounds negatively, but they're the ones supporting that staff. Yes, Harry. Just just a real quick question. Your required resources are the same for the first year goal, the third year goal, and the fifth year goal. Yes. So they're they're tied. So the one I'm talking about now, the build a sustainable supported workforce, it's number three. So it's not the same that each and I probably should have um relayed this to Daniel better so that would present better, but they're in order under the thing. So for year three, it would be under three on there. and um maximize funding. So number five, three and five would be for year three on this chart and then for five it will be um the modernize it would be number two confused. Okay. So, um, our action steps for that would be launch a workforce development plan focused on mentorship, cross trainining, and wellness. Um, and then prioritize trauma-informed care. Um Morgan and I were both foster parents at one time and we both had heavily trained and trauma-informed care and we do believe that it would um benefit all of our staff significantly just because of the incidences that we're constantly in and to guide those citizens through that and then support professional growth with CUS and leadership opportunities and wick and the housing divisions. So some of the resources we need which again will be um under number three on the chart up there um additional FTEES retention incentives and temporary staff to reduce burnout ergonomic equipment and improve work spaces for our frontline staff CUS and leadership development along with that trauma-informed care and then wellness programs and flexible scheduling options to retain staff and improve morale. All right. And then our next one on that

[0:26:40] one would be um oop, I turned the page, maximize funding and program impact. And so that one will be number five on your chart up here. And so the action steps for that would be to conduct an annual grant review and coordinate applications across divisions. Seek foundation support for specific programs like spayneuter or housing rei revitalization. and then ensure accurate data collection to preserve federal funding for both HUD and WIC. So, our resources needed would be a dedicated grant writer, which would be nice, but one for the whole city would be great, too. Um, we're not picky. Um, and program evaluators. Uh, centralized data tools. Um it says survey platforms but just something so that we can get more feedback, constructive feedback from citizens to see how we can help them in their crisis situations better. Um staff and training and grant compliance and data reporting and then consultant support and benchmarking tools to improve competitiveness in funding. Can you expand on that please? What what in the context of your workplace is constitutes consultant support and benchmarking? Well, when we are getting into the grant writing and stuff, it is a competitive process. So, we just want to make sure that we're submitting everything to those grant agencies that we can to make sure we're getting that funding. And so, it doesn't necessarily mean we have to. We just want to make sure that we're getting the funds, you know, so that we can expand those programs. Okay. Okay, any questions on the three-year? Okay, the five-year goal, um, ensures St. Angelins have access to services that support safe and thriving neighborhoods through robust programs for their households. Um, the action steps for that one um will be conduct annual grant reviews and coordinate applic Oh, I'm sorry. I'm on the same page. um move to cloud-based

[0:28:44] case management software so that we can access it across all divisions and allow for better tracking of referrals and reporting so we're not telling the same citizens several times because um one person didn't know they already talked to them and things like that. Um upgrade the animal shelter to improve care and increase community adoptions and implement mobile tools for code inspection, digitize HUD housing applications and offer wick services via teleaalth. Our resources needed for that would be um somebody techsavvy, some IT support in the field. Um it doesn't again this doesn't mean it's an FTE, just somebody who's really good at troubleshooting all of those um tools, mobile tools in the field. So getting them, I don't know, with it or whatever we need for that to make sure that we're continuously running um and maintain those new platforms. um a case management software, um upgraded shelter facilities and upgraded um animal shelter city vehicles, staff training on new platforms and data security, and then um GIS data analysis support to strengthen service delivery. Okay, and that's all I have. That covers it all. Okay. Uh any other questions before we move on to the next one? All right. Angela, thank you Angela. Appreciate you. It is up next with Bucky. [Music] H. Yeah. Now turn it on. Please hit the button. There you go. There we go. It's techn I don't know how to work technology. Let us coach it on how and you're the IT

[0:30:47] guy. Come on, man. I hide in my office. I don't speak publicly. [Laughter] You You must be the director. I I have people for this kind of stuff. Oh my goodness. I owe a dollar for that one, buddy. You saved me many times. All right, on that note, um, so our mission is to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the city of St. Angelo's data and information technology systems while ensuring compliance with security standards. We have many, many security organizations that we have to abide by. They have they love to tell us what to do, but it protects us and it's an easy template for us to follow. Um, couple examples. I won't go through all of them. Um, SEIUS, PCI, HIPPA, AWIA, TSA, FAA. Sorry, a bunch of acronyms I'm sure y'all are loving to hear. Um, so on our uh strengths here, the best way for me to read this. Um, experienced staff each with an area of expertise, but the ability to operate across multiple IT domains as necessary. what that means. Um, we have a lot of specialized guys in our group, uh, network guys, cyber security guys, but when asked, we can step across the aisle and do anything our department requires. Um, I'll get to it in a little bit. Well, actually, it's the very next one. We're very, we're crisis tested by multiple major IT incidents. Um, the biggest one that comes to mind, it's not even a year old, was uh, July 19th, 2024. Um, it was all over the news, but it was the Crowd Strike incident. Our virus protection program, which is an industry standard virus protection program, shut down every computer that we had it on, which is all of them. So, there was over 400 computers in our um oversight that could not be fixed remotely. We had to visit each and every single one of them. PDIT came and helped us out. Uh, the fire IT personnel and um municipal court, I believe, even even

[0:32:50] shipped in. They really helped us out that day and we learned a lot. Um, we learned about what not what not to do, but I'll get to later how that kind of presented um an opportunity and a threat to us. Um, robust threat detection and response systems. This is probably the biggest strength I think we have. Um, I've talked about it a little bit before a little bit before in audit committee. Um, it's a thing called a seam, another acronym. Uh, it just monitors our system constantly and allows us uh an indepth look at what's going on live. I think I've probably called a couple of you on Saturdays or Sundays and say, "Hey, are you in Arizona? Hey, are you in Colorado?" It lets us know if a login comes from a strange place. Um, that right there stops a huge portion of our cyber security incidents and we constantly have to stay on top of it. Um and I'll get to that more later as well. Um interdep departmental cooperation on IT related endeavors. We used to be uh there there are separate IT infrastructure in the in the city of St. Angelo with PD and municipal court. Um that has gotten a lot better over the years. We we share a lot of resources. We talk to each other much better than we have over the last few years. Um, one of the things that has been uh has brought a lot to the table for us, a lot of education, a lot of the software that we didn't even know about was our partnership with Angelo State University uh regional security operations center, the ARSOC. Um, that was a venture with I I I believe uh General Hawkins, President Hawkins uh started that up at ASU. They part of that part of that seam, that thing that monitors our system constantly reports to them. Well, my uh Crowd Strike, that's that's the virus protection programs kind of does the same thing. It constantly reports to them. During the Crowd Strike incident,

[0:34:53] the first call I got was at 3:00 a.m. from ASU. And I, you know, I was asleep. I was like, why is ASU calling me? Then the second call was from Brandon Dixon um out at the water lab. And I was that's when I knew something big was going on. But that helps us. They have the ability to shut off a computer on our network. Um, even a server, if something's going wrong, if something if if a computer needs to be shut down, they have the authority to say click. And we appreciate that. They haven't had to use it yet, but they have the full authority. And we're so blessed to have General Hawkins. Of course, he was a lieutenant general in the in the Air Force, and he protected our country, our whole country. That was his responsibility. So, we're blessed to have him there. And actually to put this program in place and include the city, uh, we're I'm very thankful to him for that. That's right. weaknesses, lack of official documentation on policies and procedures. There's a lot of things we do that we just have to catch people doing and say we don't like you doing that. Um, so we are working on getting that documented. It's a weakness right now, but I'll talk about how we're we're covering that. Uh, use of legacy systems that present maintenance and security issues. Computers start aging the moment you buy them and software updates. uh you know hardware is is probably the worst thing nowadays about falling out of compliance through entropy and whatnot. Um we are sometimes reactive to operational issues. Uh lack of continuing lack of continuing education and industry recognized certifications. Um limited opportunity to further institutional knowledge based on past incidents. Sometimes we don't sit back and do that triage of what did we learn from this incident just because we're on to the next one. um we we don't we don't take the time sometimes to to learn from our mistakes and from the things that are just thrust upon us. Um manual post incident recovery operations. A lot of that should be op should be automated. Um and you know that's what it used to

[0:36:54] be called was was automation and we're we're sometimes lacking on if a server goes down sometimes it take well we got to wait for Michael to get in or Stephen to get in come back turn it on. he knows how to, you know, we we'd like to automate a lot of that and that's something that Bucky before you move on with that just a question for you. Is anybody out of your particular group uh part of the console valley technology alliance? Um I don't think officially I think we have been so in the in the past. Uh but that is something that's uh getting later. I meet with that particular group. I think it would I think we would benefit if somebody from your group were involved with that. Now, you don't get educated every every time we meet, but there are been times that I've learned a whole lot about technology just by having a conversation with people. Um, so think about it. All right. For sure. Uh, opportunities available grant funding for cyber security and IT programs. Um, a lot of the opport a lot of the grants that we see come our way uh are cyber security related as you can imagine. We we have gotten some uh we have not gotten some. A lot of times a lot of times there are opportunity to check some boxes. They'll have particular um they'll have particular things they want you to comply with. Stangelo.gov. That's one of them. They wanted us to have sanangelo.gov on it was a requirement for a lot of grants because a.gov address they just don't give those out. You have to apply for them. You have to be vetted by the institutions. um advanced management systems to streamline operations, responses and recoveries. Talked a little about that earlier. Uh opportunity for city of St. Angelo to become a leader in IT and cyber security for the Cono Valley in West Texas. Improving customer confidence in city of St. Angelo and attracting businesses to the region. Low cost and free training available for staff. There's a lot of great things out

[0:38:56] there for us uh that are low cost for us to continue our education because it landscape changes so much. I I talk about I know I talk about it a lot but that that that theme that monitors our network that I didn't even know that existed two years ago and now it's the thing that we rely on the most. That's that's how fast our world changes. Um available threat intelligence resources. We have a lot of help uh through through institutions like DIR, TML that are always willing to help us uh with with cyber security incidents. Sorry, my yes question. Um do you have a software guru? Somebody that is just a whiz at primarily software. The reason for the question is both yesterday and Angela mentioned it some in her presentation. Seems like software comes up a lot in these conversations. So that's one question. Do you have somebody that is an absolute guru in software? Number two is there and we we've heard about cross this, cross that. Do Do other municipalities have software systems that allow for a far more robust communication within the departments across departments throughout the entire organization. Um, does that software exist so that we could It may be one of the most major upgrades that have ever been done with respect to anything software or hardware, but that would make our communication system I'll just say better. I don't know what

[0:40:59] other word to use but make it better for the entire organization so that everybody doesn't have these isolated we've used the word silos a lot but doesn't have these isolated silos where this this group has only got this software this group's only got and we've got so many different systems out there that nobody can communicate. Does that exist? Well, to your first question um and we talk about this a lot with the other departments. Gone are the days where it is going to be your resident expert on every piece of software that we use. Uh the financial software when I got here, it was the expert in in the financial software. We're not anymore. That's that's way and we shouldn't have been. The accountants and the CPA should have been the experts in that software. So that's a lot of the torch passing. What we want, we just need a seat at the table when it comes to software choices and software selections. Um we have to we have to vet these software companies through our cyber security risk analysis and we have to make sure they're going to function with our system. Um that has gotten a lot better in the last few years. We have mechanisms in place through purchasing where if software is being purchased they say have you talked to it? We have to sign off on those contracts. So that is that has helped quite a bit. Um to your second question uh what we currently we we have a very powerful uh tool with office 365. We we subscribe to that and there's a product in there called Teams. We all have a full-blown license office government license for Teams. Um, is it utilized to its full extent? It is not. Um, I I'm always trying to encourage people to use Teams. I've any project that I run, I create a team and a team is like a little message board where you get on there and you share files and you chat and talk. Um, that could be utilized a lot better. Um, and this Friday we kick off a project to bring PD into that ecosystem as well. They're going to be on our sangelo.gov uh email addresses and they're going to be part of our Office 365. So, they're

[0:43:02] going to be part of the same teams, same Office 365 account as the city police department. Yes, I'm sorry. PD. Yep. Thanks. threats. All right, you're going to notice the only place that I mentioned AI is under threats. Uh emerging cyber security threats from AI and targeting by advanced persistent threats. Advanced persistent threats are when they get into your system and you don't know it and they just sit there a while and wait for a much better opportunity uh or gather as much information as they possibly can. Um that's that's something we've had before. Uh that's something we're constantly trying to look at. Those typically uh trigger our our alerting system. So we're very lucky to catch a lot of those rapidly changing compliance landscape. Uh reliance on post end of life systems. Uh we have lots of we're right we're up against the wall right now. Windows 10 um goes out of compliance October 14th I believe it will no longer receive security updates. So, we have to upgrade to Windows 11. That's great. Windows 11 is free. But a lot of computers, there's a big difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11 uh um hardware. And some computers just aren't compatible, and you've got to buy a new a whole new computer. There's not a little chip you can buy to put in there. You've got to buy a whole new computer. Furthermore, the only way to find out if a computer is compatible is to visit that computer and try to do an install. And right now our list is 289 computers to approach in the next until October to figure out if we need to upgrade them. Um that that snuck up on us and uh we're working as fast as we can to get that get that finished to get some numbers because a lot of them we'll just be able to upgrade but we won't know until we go visit each and every one of them. Um and also servers servers are are

[0:45:06] another end of life thing that we're always up against. were always coming and telling you how old our servers are. We got to get them upgraded. Um, limited flexibility and response and operations. All right. So, our Wait a minute. Lucky, can you go back right quick? Oh, man. Yes. When you're talking about your persistent threats, do you prioritize by departments the the hardware and the software that need to be the most current? A lot of times that's just you have to do your updates daily. You have to update your malware, all of that. So I would say probably the most critical thing would be finance and HR. as you're updating you go through I mean do you prioritize how current the software and hardware is by department of course okay and what are I mean do you have a priority well operations if if you ask me we kind of lean towards public safety first if there's a public safety system that we have that we oversee which we'll get to that in a little bit um but yes for sure finance is is up there and a lot of those we like to keep uh in the cloud uh so that that the we pay somebody the the vendor keeps those up to date. Um that's that's our that's our number one choice. Cool. All right. That's all. Thanks. [Music] One-year goal. By May of 26, I've established policies to guide KOSA staff, completed IT asset inventory, established business continuity plans for mission critical assets, develop IT staff training program, improve post incident recovery activities through automation and education. Uh resources required for that continued CMO support on limp lending policies and changing operations. funding, funding for new programs and initiative, funding to replace unsupported assets. And I got to say, whenever there's something that

[0:47:10] needs to be replaced, finance has been great in helping us locate funds to do things like that. Um, they're they're always great to work with. It's usually the water department. Yes. Well, or their stuff. Uh, see, uh, participation from, uh, KOSA departments on identifying assets. uh commitment from directors to champion IT and cyber security improvements with staff. I know a lot of the things that we've brought to the table in the last few years have been cumbersome. Uh multiffactor authentication, having to log in with your little app, that's so important. I know y I don't have to preach to y'all to the chor. I know it's a pain, but gone are the days where a password is protecting you. Passwords mean nothing anymore. You have to have that multiffactor authentication, unfortunately. Um, want to make sure I don't skip anything here. Three-year goal, move IT and cyber security from reactive operations to a pro to a proactive department focused on identifying issues and remediating before customers are impacted. Resources required for that are continued funding for IT and cyber security initiatives, commitment from CMO and directors to promote an environment of continual improvement in IT and cyber security operations over business as usual strategy funding and support for a public safety radio system maintenance contract. This is the this is the fun one. This is my favorite thing to talk about is our radio system. Um, right now we have funding to get our radio system caught up to me and me and Chief Brody were talking about this earlier. People don't understand that radio systems now are just a big rack of servers, Windows servers, even Ubuntu servers, all kinds of software that previously you just put it in a corner and you forgot about it and you and you let it go. It didn't touch the internet.

[0:49:13] So they it's fine. It's running. I can key up and it's working. That's not the case anymore. These things talk to the internet. They need updates. They have cyber security concerns that you have to meet. It's a computer. It's falls under siege of standards because it's over there uh in that environment. Um we have with this project that we're working right now to get our system caught up and safe. Uh it's going to get us it's going to take a year to complete the project and then we get a year maintenance on top of that and after that we're going to need some kind of radio maintenance uh funding a year an annual contract with them. Tom, I don't know if you remember, but when I asked nervous right now, when I got approval when I got approval to go to the P25 upgrade uh from council, I think in 2015, you had one of the few questions and you asked me, Bucky, are we pretty much going to need $6 million every 10 years to keep this radio system working? And I I answered yes. And that's that's still the case. We we are going to need that. I'm going to throw out a number. The last quote I had for this radio maintenance uh contract, which I I hadn't gone through with a fine tooth comb yet, but the last quote I had was $400,000 per year. Over $400,000 per year over a 10-year period. And that got us a hardware upgrade halfway through. So, there was some value in it as far as hardware and maintenance and support on that radio system. It it's it's it's coming. our our old way of operating that radio system of just buying it $6 million and hey talk to you in seven or eight years can't do that anymore. It's like everything. It's a it's software. It's got to be paid annually. So look, you you have a a job that very few people see until they need it. All right. I mean, nobody realizes it until suddenly all the things that we use don't work.

[0:51:16] My the biggest scare I have boils back to public safety and with just what you said and other people may understand this I do not. If we're tied to a server system and a cloud-based system through PD and fire department when we have a power I mean the number one time we're going to we're going to lose power someday. We're going to have a power outage. Can our public safety group still communicate? I mean, if we lose power to West Texas, are they tied to a server in a room where they can't communicate if it loses power? Well, we have lost power uh during, you know, Snowmageddon. Uh that was a great test of our systems. Uh so, yeah, they have everything has backups. We have propane generators out there. We have propane generator or access diesel generator at a dispatch. Um but there's so many different systems there. Uh, for example, we don't provide the phone lines for 911. That was provided through WSC. Um, the community helped us out there. West Central Wireless donated uh 10 cell phones and that's how we ran. That's how they ran 911 for for those days. Um, but we we do as much as we can. We have all the systems in in place to keep those systems running to keep power running. And we have backups. Uh, this new radio system that that we are designing, it's it's a ring. So if one section goes down, the rest everybody can still talk. That's a that's a new design that they came up with. Cool. Thank you, Bucky. Five year ago. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. I have a question. Now, I don't know that it if this falls under it or what. you were talking about public safety and you know we had a siren system sirens and and I we ended those and you know I have the Nixl alerts and stuff but when just recently and I'm not assigning blame but we had tornado warnings and all and I didn't get a Nixl deal and because I try to sign up with

[0:53:21] everything with the city just so I can attempt to be on the same page with you guys. Um h how would would that work? Because there's there are citizens that if my mother were alive, she wouldn't have a cell phone. She's certainly not on social media. How and she she couldn't even hear the phone rang if it did. So how how do we address that part? Because we have a lot of people that are not tuned in or, you know, they're they're they're kind of very at risk, I think. Does that even fall into your department? Uh, not so much. Um, but I can speak a little bit to it. Uh, when when we had the sirens, um, they operated on radios and that those were under my perview. There was, I believe, 19 of them. And, um, they just got, and Patrick or Chief Brody can talk more to it. They they told it last time we called for parts, I believe the quote we got from the vendor was, "Go look in a museum." Um, those those parts were uh, impossible to find. and that that pretty much expedited the process to go to a Nixl type platform and and Nixl does a pretty good job. But you're right, my dad doesn't get any text messages. I' I've just got off the phone with All State yesterday. They're trying to give him some money and he can't get them to send him a check and they were like, "Accept it with with a with Vinmo." He doesn't know what Vinmo is. So, um anyway, all that being said, Nixel allows for phone calls and it just rings your phone like an old You know, there's there's several different options. Yeah. you know. Yeah. I I I can't speak too much towards towards Nixel, but I just don't want us to get so so um it up. I don't even know how to speak the language that you guys speak that we forget about some of those that are that don't have the capabilities that all of our computers and everything have. And um again, that may not fall under your apartment, but that I'm just

[0:55:25] thinking of of thinking along those if there's anything we can do to help with with the alerting system, they're always uh free to come ask us. We'll give whatever expertise we can. Mayor, thank you. Yes. Um, is there any, so I know cloud storage is a big one and and like you talked about everything now is a subscription base instead of buying things one time. Is there any opportunities for us to um a would be more secure and b would it save us some money to have our own storage center? Um cuz storage in general is pretty cheap but subscription services just go up every year. So is there any opportunities there that we could do something inhouse? Uh you're talking about for data. Data. Yeah, data. Um we use laserfish was one program that they use and they said that was just for the cloud storage. Um and some of it is trying to keep inter departmental so they can find files with each other. So we do have one already. Um, we have a we have a uh 30 terbyte server system. It's a cluster of servers uh in the basement that that um we've carried over our legacy data since I've been here. Um it's it's about twothirds full and it's staying pretty steady. It's we're we're not creating much more data anymore that we have to store here. All of our data is usually tied up in subscription services, Office 365. Um, legal files I believe we do store locally. Um, but a lot of that the vendor takes care of the storage. Thank goodness uh evidence.com that that the police department uses for for uh body cam footage that comes with free storage of all that video. We we could not I'd be up there. Of course, that's PD's perview, but I we'd be asking for a lot of money for for for storage, but as far as our documents that we create locally,

[0:57:28] it stayed pretty steady. It hasn't it hasn't written and there isn't really isn't a need for us, I don't believe so, to uh to create anything huge. We're staying pretty pretty flat. And then on the radios, um, and again, this not my perview, but I know a lot of cell phones now have a emergency system where they will try to link directly to a satellite so you can at least get text message out, things like that. Are the $400,000 a year radios needed if we could do something like that instead? Like, is there any other options? Not yet. Okay. There will be. Um there is a standard coming out in the next few years uh that all radio all major radio manufacturers are participating in. It's called uh missionritical PTT and which means that a radio such that Patrick I don't think Patrick has his radio on them. It will be compatible with a cell phone tower. So if our towers we have three towers in the city. If something happens to our towers, uh there is going to be an opportunity for us to subscribe once again to AT&T, to Verizon to be able to our public safety communications network ride on their communications towers because they can they can throw a lot more money at their towers than we can and they do. Okay. Thank you, Bug. Yep. Okay, where was it on there? So, anyway, I'll just start over. I don't know if I read that or not. Established the city of St. Angelo as a leader for Texas IT and cyber security operations. Uh, required resources, long-term funding and support commitments for ongoing initiatives. CMO support to coordinate with outside agencies and entities. city council understanding that encouraging cyber security awareness in the community and partner agencies makes the city more cyber secure. Um I don't know we I wasn't really aware of this until recently but uh I have guys in my

[0:59:32] department that actually go out to schools and uh talk to kids about about password strength about multiffactor authentication. Who wants to see a boring old fireman when you can talk to an IT guy about passwords, right? So, I thought that was really cool. They talked to Boy Scout troops. Um, and it's and it and it's really, you know, h how that benefits us is we of course do business here locally with a lot of uh with a lot of vendors and and contractors. And that's the worst way to get a fishing email is from somebody that you know because you're like, I work with this person all the time. Surely this is safe. And you click on it. Well, they've gotten hacked and now you've got and then it sends it to your contact list and that's that's how it spreads so easy. So getting the more education out here locally really benefits the city and it protects our our assets as well. Uh commitment from AOSA, SAPD, SAFD and municipal courts. unify services and operations and reduce redundancy and remove barriers to IT and cyber security cooperation. This is something that we've been striving towards for a long time and we we have made quite a few strides. Um is unifying all of our IT departments. Uh we have a lot better working relationship with with them now. Um like I said earlier, they are joining our Office 365 ecosystem. That's going to be a huge one. Um, and right now they help us out when we need them and they and we help them out and vice versa. Um, it would be nice to have us all as a unified organization and that's why I put that as a 5-year goal. Just just just so we're all on the same page and so we all answer to the same person. Any other questions for Bucky? Bucky, thank you. Good presentation. Appreciate you. Up next is the fire department and chief is coming up right now. And I completely watch.

[1:01:37] [Music] It may be under here. Oh, there it is. Thank you, buddy. I'm going to do this in attempt to try to stay on target. So, if I'm looking at my phone, it's my timer. All right. Good morning. Thank you. Um, so first and foremost, so the mission of the Snil Fire Department is to provide the community with the highest level of life safety and property conservation through the extension of training, fire prevention, emergency medical services, fire suppression, and emergency management. And those are all intentionally placed in the order that they are of order of importance. So we teach this to our recruits the day one they enter our academy and we preach it to our entire staff every day because that is what our mission is and that what guides every one of us. So this strategic planning summary outlines SFD's current strengths challenges and the opportunities while providing a clear roadmap for the future. It reflects the department's dedication to remaining proactive forward think forward thinking organization. So we'll start off with our um SWAT analysis. Our strengths professional, highly trained, dedicated firefighting and EMS personnel. Very strong leadership and administrative team committed to our strategic planning process. We have high morale and strong teamwork across all of our shifts and all of our stations. Uh c culture of safety and wellness with injur injury reduction in initiatives in place. We actually created this last year a um risk reduction risk management plan that we uh implemented put across our uh rules and regulations and sent out to our entire staff. We identified critical risks that we face every single day, mitigation risk and avoid avoidant

[1:03:41] avoidance procedures to mitigate those or to avoid those. So um our training and professional development, we have a in-house fire training facility with growing roles as a regional training center for the entire West Texas region. And uh we are forming an alliance and a partnership with TICSS so we can serve this underutilized section of West Texas. Uh and the ultimate goal is to get firefighters in this underutilized underserved community trained and into the workforce and at the same time we're we're utilizing our training academy to generate revenue to bring back into our our city. So, um, we have the ability to, uh, we offer over 20 fire and emergency certification courses with an extremely high pass rate of 99%, experienced training staff with extensive curriculum development experience, and then, uh, emphasis on leadership development and succession planning. Again, this last year, we created a succession plan, excuse me, where I'll take you from a rookie firefighter, give you every step that you need to take along the way to be fire chief one day. And that starts on day one. We uh we have a fire officer series that we teach in-house again to save money so we do not have to send our our our leadership and our officers off to another other cities to get this development. And then it is also important that we do send them off. So we have a partnership partnership with the Texas Fire Chiefs Association. They have a succession plan training development program there where it starts as a company officer, moves into battalion chief training and then ultimately chief officer training academy. We just recently had one of our battalion chief graduate from the chief fire chief's academy. That's a two-year program and uh he just graduated last week. So proud of that. Patrick, sir, you go back to SL. Oh, how much how much revenue do you think you generate just as part of the training center? Not with when you're sending crews out, but just the training center. Right. So, that's

[1:05:43] kind of a moving target and we're hoping to increase this year after year. Just a rough day. So, we uh offer at least one uh area school a year and that'll generate about $10 to $15,000 and that is a weekend Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We bring in volunteers from all over the state. We've even had some um international students. Uh we offer every one of our certification classes and what that means is like a driver operator certification or an instructor or fire officer certification. We open that up to the public and I say the public other fire departments. We've had a big spring come down. We've had uh Goodfellow Air Force Base and their personnel and the charge for that is like $240 to $400 per person. Let's look at that for the whole year. I'd forecast about maybe $5,000 in revenue generated there. Um, our EMS, we f we have our full accreditation, our in-house EMS system. Uh, our basic EMT course that just concluded, we had four outside students in that, $1,600 per student. They did not transfer over to our paramedic program. If they had, that's $6,400 per student. I'm looking for this program to expand and explode over the next 5 to 10 years, especially the paramedic aspect of it. That is one of the uh this is a national shortage on paramedics to the point that uh Senate Bill 8, Texas Senate passed a law that will 100% pay for basic to paramedic. So reimburse your costs for the for the academy. Um so I'm looking for this program to really take off in the next 5 to 10 years. Thanks. You bet. Chief, talk about the as far as West Texas and the training available in West Texas, where do you actually have to go if if it's not here uh the convenience to have it uh folks coming here to to to St. Angelo? Oh, absolutely. So, one of the So, Bigpring, I talked to the fire chief up there, talked to him about our program, our our basic MTN, our paramedic program, and asked him what he was doing. Well, he's sending his paramedics, they're doing an online course, and then he's they're sending

[1:07:45] them to Corpus Christi, Texas. There's a long ways to go. Expensive hotels and they have to spend three weeks there to do all their skills and their final testing. So send them to me. I'm 90 miles away from you and I'm cheaper. And Senate Bill 8 will completely reimburse your department for what you spend. As far as in West Texas, um Ozona, they offer a basic EMT. They do not offer a paramedic. Um Howard College does offer a paramedic, but it is now a big spring now. No. Yeah. Yeah, they're moving that to the big spring office now. So, um, we are one of the only accredited paramedic courses in West Texas. So, our closest one, we've there's a couple up in the metroplex. Of course, you have a lot of UN colleges that teach it, but our closest one's going to be in the Metroplex. Huge potential for this program. Continuation of our our strengths is our emergency response capabilities. St. Angelo is an ISO1 public protection class PPC one and which is a superior operation capabilities. So we have a very well integrated EMS system within our fire operations. Uh special team capabilities, hazmat, hazardous material teams and technical rescue disciplines. Uh we have high operational readiness and rapid deployment of existing resources. So, and we're also very active in the tiffas respon response wildfire teams. So, tiffas is text Texas interstate fire mutual aid system. And those of you all that have been around a while, this is when our crews deploy to outside agencies that have requested our our assistance. And then our city is reimbured for those expenses and also they're reimbursed for the that apparatus being deployed. And I'll I'll touch on tiff Michigan later. So, our community engagement and relationships, we have a strong relationship with city leadership, our elected officials, and also the

[1:09:47] community. We have a proactive fire prevention and public education program. That is a huge uh asset to our department. That is a whole another division. And our our philosophy is it's much easier to prevent a fire than it is to put a fire out. So, our public education and is expanding and growing dayto-day. So Billy has got some amazing ideas over there and we're going to have a big public public education push next year. Um so we're highly engaged. We have a highly engaged fire association and they are they contributing to charitable causes and our public trust. Um positive public image and reputation for professionalism and community service, financial management and grant success. We've been very successful over the last year at um being awarded different different grants. Some examples there. We have not been awarded the safer grant since 2018, but we were awarded in 2018. And as y'all know, y'all approved me to apply for this this round um for the safer grant. The AFG grant we were awarded last year for about 140 $160,000. We received a siri grant from the council of governments to about $460,000 se several um uh grants from the cog last year. So all in all about $500,000 worth of grants. We're very proud of last year's efforts. Um we had transparent financial reporting and sound physical management uh and effective use of budgetary resources to maximize our service delivery. Yeah. So, we'll touch on weaknesses now. And I'm going to hit on these pretty quick because a lot of these weaknesses are going to be addressed later in our um in our goals. So, our infrastructure and apparatus, we have an underfunded um capital outlay and annual budget allocation for apparatus replacement. With the rising cost of apparatus acquisitions, they are outpacing our current funding levels. uh

[1:11:51] geographic coverage and response areas. We've identified a geographic coverage gap in the southwest region of St. Angelo. In this area, we have excessive uh response time exceeding 7 minutes and areas located more than five road miles from the nearest fire station. And this causes increased risk for delayed response for fire, EMS, and rescue incidents in this area. Special operation capabilities. We have no dedicated in-house swiftwater rescue team. We do have trained swiftwater personnel, but we do not have a train uh swiftwater team, which makes us relying upon external resources. Our closest one is Texas Task Force One, and they have a 4-hour flex time to get here and you see that could be a problem. So this exposure to significant flood risk events without immediate local local capabilities and again every one of those are addressed later. Some of our opportunities uh expansion of our tri uh training partnership through the regional training facility. I discussed that briefly uh regarding uh our partnership with TE's potential in the future expanding our paramedic program to the entire West Texas region and beyond. Um so we we are currently pursuing additional grant funding. Uh advoca advocate for increased capital funding and long-term apparatus replacement planning. Uh plan and advocate for construction of a new fire station to address the southwest coverage gap. Expand community risk reduction and public education initiatives in our underserved neighborhoods. And then expansion of our tiffas deployment capabilities. What I mean by that is this swiftwater team that I'll be discussing later when they're fully operational they will be deployable. So currently we deploy on wildland we deploy on something called all hazards. So all the flooding events that were happening all over Texas over the last 3 to four weeks we had deployed resources to combat that. If we had rescue boats we had the potential to

[1:13:53] deploy those rescue boats as well. Do we get to invoice them for that? Is that revenue? Yes sir. every time we deploy with Tiffmas. Not that I would put that over public safety, but it is revenue. If we're spending our assets to go, I just want to make sure you're invoicing and not only at cost, you might make a little out of that. Oh, absolutely. So, the benefit of it is that's your money. Those ass those assets that do that we do deploy, they are paid per hour depending upon the asset. So, a type one engine, a regular fire truck is $86 an hour around the clock. That adds up very, very, very fast. and our personnel. So, what kind of cost is this to the city? There is no cost to the city because it's we are paid from portal to portal for those personnel to leave here. All of their their salaries plus their benefits are 100% reimbursed back to the city. Well, what about the vacancy that person causes back at home cuz somebody's got to work their shift? That cost is also reimbursed back to the city. Even if it's overtime. Even if it's overtime. 100% reimbured back to the city. And the amount of the money that we are paid for that vehicle to be there, that is added revenue. Now, it goes back into the tiffness program to I mean trucks are expensive, rubber on tires. It it gets expensive to keep these vehicles up and running and then replacement costs for some of these deployable vehicles. And chief, so I do want to uh stress that the priority is on local coverage before you do any of this. We we make sure that we have our citizens protected before anyone deploys. Yes, sir. So before we make the decision to send out any deployment, whether it be all hazard or wildland, we're going to take care of St. Angelo first. So we will never deploy out more vehicles or personnel that would reduce our coverage area in St. Angelo because this is our number one priority. Some of our threats uh continued apparatus cost inflation is outpacing our current capital funding. Increased urban growth and development in underserved response areas. Reliance on external agencies for specialized rescue capabilities during uh time critical

[1:15:56] events, budget constraints or economic downturn potentially impacting our staffing, our training and our service delivery. uh potential loss of our ISO classification one rating if response times and fire station cover gaps are not addressed. And this next one is a really big one and y'all have heard it several times in the last two days. Our personal retention risk because St. Angelo Fire Department is so highly trained and certified. Uh they make them prime targets for recruitment by other fire departments. Um, with local salaries significantly lower than those of our comparable cities, these the risk of losing this experienced staff to a better paying agency threatens our oper operational stability and increase our training costs. Patrick, if we lose our ISO1 rating, what's that do to our home insurance? So, currently this area that is underserved, they are already at a PPC class of 10. We are the entire city is a ISO1 PPC class of one. There is this small area that is a PPC class 10 significantly more on their insurance. If we drop from a one to a two, every residential insurance policy and every commercial insurance policy will see an increase. Now, what's that number? I've reached out to the state fire marshall's office. I've reached out to ISO directly and they said they there's no way to correctly forecast what that number would be even a percentage because that target keeps moving. You have some insurance underwriters that put 30% of their premium decisionm on their ISO rating and then you have another underwriter that actually puts 10% on ISO but 25% on your credit rating. And then you have another uh underwriter that looks predominantly at your history and how many claims that you have had. Again, it's a moving target and very difficult to truly tell you how much it would move. But the fact is if we go from a one to a two, every citizen, every business owner will have an

[1:17:59] increase in insurance. So now I have to follow my paperwork. Okay. So, in the response to this SWAT analysis, the San Angel Fire Department has established three key strategies at goals to guide our department, guide our priorities over the next 1, three, and five years. So, our first year goal is to establish a fully capable swiftwater rescue team with the St. Angela Fire Department that meets recognized swiftwater accreditation and Texas interstate fire mutual aid system stiffness standards by the end of the fiscal year. So with this goal we have some key strategies to achieve it. We need equipment and rescue boat acquisition training and certification and uh deployment readiness. those a action steps. The objectives to achieve these strategies is to procure and outfit two operational swiftwater rescue boats with the necessary transport and deployment equipment to ensure rapid response capabilities. Acquire and issue full sets of personal protective equipment and for four twoperson teams and that includes dry suits, helmets, PFDs and technical rescue gear. Uh, our goal is to certify at least eight SFD personnel to the S SWA compliance standards and the swiftwater technician level through approved training C courses prior to the end of this current budget year. Develop and implement a deployment protocol and maintenance schedule to ensure the swiftwater rescue team can be rapidly operational and establish an ongoing training and certification pipeline to expand team capabilities and maintain readiness for future highwater events and mutual aid response. So, how do we pull this off? What resources do I need? Two two rescue boats. If y'all remember,

[1:20:02] we've already bought them and they're being delivered today. Actually, we went to KMA yesterday to pick pick these boats up and they're going to be delivered today. Um, so our personnel, we've uh assembled a task force of over 20 SFD members and they have been identified and they are all engaged. This initial group of four personnel are have been scheduled for swiftwater technician certification training um oper operational planning uh development develop procedures for team SOPs and it's in its final stages of development to ensure our safe and effective activation of our swiftwater team. Uh internal funding this is really big. This project is fully supported through existing department funds and no reliance on additional general fund resources required from our department. Um organizational support, we have a strong internal commitment and leadership support to stand up the team and sustaining it for a long period of time. Um so all of the funding for this goal has been made possible from this tiff from us involvement in tiffas. So, these rescue boats were approximately $60,000. We're looking at this the the PP the personal protective equipment for these uh deployment personnel of being around $15,000. The training for these personnel is going to be around $15 to $20,000. And all of this funding we have available um in our TIFmas account to pay for it. Um, and while I'm on Tiffas and the huge impact it has had on the fire department budget and the uh the relief on the general fund budget is we offset the cost of a type one engine, a regular fire engine. Two years ago, we p we used $400,000 of those funds to pay for 50% of that truck. Uh we purchased a type six brush truck last year, which is a large body brush truck with a fire pump on the back, pickup truck with a

[1:22:04] fire pump on the back, and that truck was $315,000. We currently have it delivered. Uh and then we also purchased a type three brush truck, which if you've seen any of the grass fires in California, the big uh wildland trucks out there, that's what a type three is. And that one's set for delivery this September. already purchased and paid not paid for yet, but purchased. And uh all in all, about $1.3 million in the last two years have been a direct impact from this tiffas program offsetting vehicle costs. So that's a goal number one. Any questions on that? Perfect. I'll move on. So, our three-year our three-year goal is to provide consistent fire and life safety coverage to all of the citizens of St. Angelo, specifically targeting underserved areas by achieving a 4-minute average first unit response time in the southwest region of our city through the construction, staffing, activation of a ninth fire station within the next three years. This is going to be a pretty heavy lift and I know that. So, our strategies for accomplishing this is to develop and implement a phased hiring and training plan of 20 additional firefighters. Complete the design and the construction of fire station number nine to support modern operational needs in our growing community. Secure sustainable funding for the construction and ongoing operational costs of station 9. objectives to complete these strategies. Create a hiring timeline that aligns with our construction milestones. Conduct uh recruitment efforts to attract highly qualified candidates. Provide required training and certifications to ensure readiness of our new personnel prior to the station activation. And finalize the architectural and engineering plans

[1:24:07] based on operational requirements. Uh follow a project timeline that ensures construction is complete on a schedule. Identify and pursue available funding sources. Develop a long-term financial plan that supports both the capital investment and the reoccurring personnel and operating costs. Coordinate with city leadership and finance teams to ensure the alignment of a broader city uh budget priorities. Resources. This is the big part of this. So, funding to cover the salaries and benefits for 20 additional firefighters. I came to y'all yesterday requesting the authorization to apply for the safer grant. It is available and this safer grant will help offset the person personnel cost for the first three years if we are awarded the grant. Now, there's still a city contribution 25% for the first two years and 65% on the third year. I told y'all yesterday it was what? $2.3 million in grant award if that were awarded. Um our primary challenge is to identify sustainable long-term funding beyond the grant period or if the grant is not awarded to us. So city budget um begin working with leadership now to plan for future funding sources. training timeline. This is a big challenge and this is why I'm applying for the safer grant right now and why we're having conversations with city leadership right now about these personnel. Um the fire department's recruit academy is a 16-month program with a maximum class size of 15 recruits per cycle. So due to this capacity limit and the need to account for ongoing vacancies and retirement, it is projected to take up to three full years to hire, train, and fully deploy 20 additional firefighters requiring for the staff in a station 9. What I mean by that vacancies and retirements is I've forecast over the next three years a minimum of 10 vacancies through people quitting or retirement. So let's let's

[1:26:10] stop right there, Patrick. How many do you have on staff right now? 178. Say it again. 178 authorized positions. How many vacancies do you have? Zero. Okay. We're actually one over staff right now. We have 177's prime. And then you need to add 20. Well, 178 are authorized. We actually have 179. Okay. You need to add 20 on top of that. Correct. So my minimum staffing moved up to 198. That includes your paramedics? Yes, ma'am. Both sides of the house, fire and fire and EMS. Does safer funding come with restrictions? I know we have a safer do they dedicate to specific areas that it has to be determined. So, if you get this one, you have no problem using this for your additional 20. That's actually what it is for. So, u one one of my misconception misconceptions when I first started digging into this is that it was going to pay for those positions. So, I looked at it as I need 17 firefighters. I need two lieutenants and one captain. Okay. So, that's how I built my spreadsheet and my cost estimations. After going back and reading the small print of the grant, it does not pay for that. It pays for entrylevel positions only. I used a firefighter salary, not a recruit's salary. And then, of course, two lieutenants and a captain. So, I refigured those numbers and the the the grant significantly reduced. They also talk about reimburseable expenses that can be included in that such as personnel costs. Well, I have to outfit these firefighters with bunker gear and uniforms and the previous time that we had applied for safer, those were included in those figures, but after reading through it cannot be included in that. Now, our certifications, the cost for certifications absolutely can. retirement, FICA, all everything associated with personnel costs can but not um not uniforms or um equipment but there are no like special

[1:28:14] such as we get awarded no restrictions that you have to work around. I was just curious if as the grant is given to you and these people move from entry level to on board year 1, two, and three, how much of the safer fund can actually be dedicated to travel with the employee? So, I believe it is only going to be their entry level salary. So, even though the next year they may move up, well, they'll be in recruit school for 16 months and they'll stay at that salary, but um when they transition to firefighter 2, their pay will come up. And I don't think that pay that reimbursement from safer will come up with it, but it's still going to be a a big percentage of it. So, thank you. So, um this capacity limits and and I've talked extensively with Daniel about this. Uh if our target and our timeline is to break ground by March of 2027, why is that important, Tom? You brought up the ISO if we drop back to a two. March of 2022, ISO came and inspected our city and we retained our two. Correction, we retained our one and they will be back in five years from that date. And in our report that we've received from them, if we do not have a ninth fire station covering the southwest region of St. Angelo, we will not be able to achieve a one. That's our timeline of March of 2027. Station does not have to be finished. If we break ground by that point, okay, I can push I can write the state fire marshall's office a letter requesting for an extension until that major infrastructure piece is completed. 12 to 18 months for construction. That's why my timeline is 3 years from today. It's we have the site selected, do we not? Yes, we do. We have land purchased currently. We have an architect working on design plans and projected projected costs and uh he is almost completed with the projected costs. Moving right along. So uh this is also going to take careful

[1:30:18] workforce planning and phased hiring uh will be essential to ensure that new positions are filled while maintaining our safe levels of staffing departmentwide. We fall below those safe levels of staffing, we're going to get killed on overtime. So we have to maintain those high levels. Um capital project resources big one is funding for the capital expenditure and currently this is our biggest hurdle. There's currently no grant funding identified to pay for a new fire station. Y'all saw AFG up there earlier assistance to firefighter grant. There there is money for reconstruction or remodeling of fire stations but no money for new construction. I've reached out to the GLLO. No funding for new construction. reached out to um Karen Kirkindall with August Fluger's office. I kind of put all of my eggs in that basket with the discretionary congressional funding. Well, apparently the projects that were approved in 2024 did not get funded. So 2025's funding is being pushed to 24 to fund those already approved projects. So the uh discretionary congressional funding is out for this year for us. Um, also I've reached out to the uh council of governments and they don't have anything either. Um, I have looked and looked and looked and I keep running into dead ends for grant funding for new stations, but I won't quit. I'll keep looking because I know that is a lot of money and we'll see what we can pull off. So, and that is our primary hurdle and I I think it may come down to our funding source either be a bond issu issuance or some other sort of local funding mechanism. So, um, good quality financial modeling and cost estimations to help support y'all's decision- making process is going to be very important. So, and currently I am in the process of getting that cost estimation for you. So, that brings us any questions on a three-year mouthful. I did real quick. Yes, sir. Um, you're So, you need 20 additional for that plus a loss of approximately

[1:32:21] 10. Correct. So you almost need two full classes in the next 32 months to get Yes, sir. That's exactly what right now I can push a little bit. So like say this year I only hire 13. 17 is going to be a stretch to the next year, but I can push a few more. So right now I have an active list out where civil service we go through a cycle where we put out a test and everybody gets ranked on this um this hiring list. I started with 52 people and I have 15 left. So it's going to be difficult to hire 15 people with 15 left on my list. Now I have to make a decision very soon. Do I publish another list so I have two lists to work with? So I'll have more applicants than 15. It depends on if the positions get approved or not before I go through the expense of another test. I'm I you probably answered this and I just didn't understand it. If we break ground prior to that March date or or say on that March date, that takes us out of the being at risk to go to a two. Correct. Completed. Well, what that does is that uh it gives me the power. It gives me a the ability to reach out to the state fire marshall's office and request an extension of our deadline for our next survey. Okay. So have some break ground. Yes, ma'am. So with major infrastructure upgrades such as if we were purchasing a ladder truck or building a fire station or about to hire 20 additional firefighters, all of those metrics go into the calculation of our ISO rating. Okay? And if we're in the process of doing that, then they will delay their their survey. But I have to have something to say, we are about to do this. Can you please wait until we complete it? Do you know how long those extensions are? 6 months. Wow. And how many are you allowed? That's I don't know the answer. Until they say no. Until the state fire marshall says,

[1:34:23] "You've been building this station for 14 years. We're coming." Do you know what I mean? So no. Realistically, they the state fire marshall office knows it takes a long time to build a station and uh the average 18 months. So, if we are 12 months in, so I'm going to have to every six months request that extension. And um to one point where they said, well, it's been 3 years. Mary, we had we had it's funny you asked that question because we had that discussion as well. How how much can you kind of push it back a little bit? Right. We kicked We're good at a deadline, though. But boy, I tell you what, they expect you to follow that. But u we're thinking about that as well. So that's good info. You know, the first six month timeline, that one will be easy. So we've broken ground. I have my plans and this is this is our projection. But that second 6 months timeline, if they don't see some reasonable progression in the construction of that state station, they could immediately turn it down and come at that 6 month mark. So but all of this is, you know, guessing. So because I don't know the decision they'll make. You for the sake of time let's go and keep moving forward right now for the next one. Yes sir. Yes sir. I have apparently stopped my timer. So our 5-year goal is to establish a sustainable capital outlay plan within the next 5 years that will ensure the San Angel Fire Department's apparatus fleet is replaced on an appropriate life cycle schedule and the capital funding keeps up with the pace of the r rising fleet replacement costs. Um key strategies is to develop and implement a formal fleet replacement schedule based on industry best practices and department needs. Uh advocate for and secure multi-year capital funding commitments to support the long-term fleet replacement plan and monitor marketing trends and adjust capital projections to account for the inflation and involving apparatus spec specifications. Um, our key objectives to accomplish these strategies is to establish and adopt a document apparatus life cycle

[1:36:27] plan that targets a 15-year frontline service life for engines and a 20-year frontline service life for our aerial vehicles, aerial ladders. Conduct a full inventory and age analysis of our current fleet to identify upcoming replacement needs and long-term capital requirements. Prioritize replacement based on the condition, maintenance cost, and operational risk. Work with city leadership and the finance department to align our financial outlay funding with the life cycle replacement schedule. Regularly update our replacement cost estimates based on current market and data and vendor input. review and revise the capital plan annually to ensure that it remains aligned with the actual apparatus cost and techn with technology advancements. Uh resources that we need to accomplish this is multi-year capital outlay funding significant enough to uh meet the life cycle replacement targets. Uh industry standard NFPA standards is actually 10 years on an engine and 15 years on a ladder. We can push that out a little bit because our lower call volume and our robust maintenance program that we do have. So, we've pushed that 15 years engine and 20 years ladder. And that's about as far as we can push it cuz 20 years on a ladder truck. Uh our current ladder truck is 15 years old. It is 7500 engine hours and almost 100,000 miles. 100,000 mi. That's not much. Those are hard miles. Okay. That's a lot of idle time cuz whenever you drive to the fire, you could be there for 5 6 7 hours at a high idle pumping water. That's why those engine hours are 7500. And it's estimated um 30 miles per engine hour. Do the math on that one. It's a lot more than 100,000 miles. So, so uh annual inflation factors built into our capital budget to account for rising apparatus

[1:38:29] cost. Uh recent trends have been between 5 and 10% annual increase. Um last year we saw about 18%. It was incredible. So uh good data planning our of our resources. We need a comprehensive fleet inventory and life cycle tracking system and historical maintenance and repair costs data used to prioritize our replacement schedule. Any questions on that one on our 5-year goal? Mayor, council members, really I just want to kind of brag on the chief. He's got a very keen business mind. He's always looking for the revenues, whether it's tiffas, whether it's the training center, whatever it is, the grants, everything he goes after, he's always looking at the at the dollar figures and I've always really appreciate that about him. So, Chie, thank you for that. Thank you for your presentation. Good. Another thing I want to add to this is uh this was a little project I did and it was very fascinating. So, I talk about having a life cycle replacement for our vehicles. took every single frontline vehicle that we have, the the actual purchase cost when we purchased it, and I used a very modest 5% inflationary factor, and I carried that out all the way to 2061. Every 15 years on an engine, every 20 years on a ladder. Anybody guess what a ladder truck's going to cost in 2061? We got to start planning for it now. Five, ha. $10,416,000. $10 million for a ladder truck 2061. You need to go beat up Kelton from that water fun. Oh, he's going to Everybody else does. So, I think what we need to start doing is start putting uh NASCAR stickers on our our fleet. Runs water through it. I go meet up. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Uh next up, we have economic development. Michael will be doing that presentation. And here comes the person that's going to pay for all of stuff. So let me start

[1:40:38] [Music] just like two turns right [Music] take a quick break. Thank you. It's good though. It's whatever you want to do. Let's do All right. So, we're going to go ahead and break for 10 minutes as a prep before we go into economic development. Michael, you ready? I don't know if I'm ready, but Okay. Well, let's go ahead and move on then into the economic development and uh you'll go ahead and kick it off then. All right, Michael Dayne, interim economic development director. I want to welcome you to the highlight of the three-day event. Oops. Economic development. City of St. Angelo Development Corp Corporation will seek to retain, strengthen, diversify the tax and job base of the community through quality infrastructure and facility improvements, innovative in incentive packages, and a focus on best business practice in order to provide sustainable economy for St. Angelo and its regional partners. The the Economic Development Corporation is controlled by the ballot which uh is voted on by the citizens. That most recent ballot occurred in 2010. That ballot splits the funding splits the eligible uses of the funding into two camps. 20 up to 28% for economic development and other 4B eligible projects and 72% for specific items that were listed on the on the ballot. Uh the economic development side, the 28% economic development and infrastructure improvements, uh business retention, expansion and recruitment, incentive programs, business incubator operation, uh community and workforce development. the ballot side, the 72% side. Currently, what's avail that that

[1:42:44] money is available for is water supply and infrastructure and related and affordable housing SWAT strengths long-term water supply. Now, that's not a coast of DC thing directly, but it wasn't that long ago, recall that we were we were challenged with how are we going to answer the question about where is my water going to come from if my move my business here. We don't have that problem at this point. We have long-term supplies identified. It's a question of following through on the development of those supplies so we can bring that water to town. That's a good thing. We don't have to answer that question anymore. diverse economy, uh, stable sales tax outlook. We'll come back to that. In spite of a, uh, some volatility at the national level, we we still have a relatively stable outlook here. Uh, another strength, our airport. We've got good flying weather and lots of it. Lots of good days to fly. Pilot training, mechanic school, and room for development. We'll also come back to that. industrial park. We've got a good history there where we've got some folks that have moved in and gone to work. Um it is we need to do some finish out on phase two. We'll come back to that. And is grant eligible? We've got grants in the history of the development of that park which have helped keep our local dollar cost low uh for that activity. We'll come back to the park future slide. St. Angelo quality of life. It's an indisputable fact. We have good quality of life here. My doctor says I've had too much of it and I need to ease up on some of that quality of life, but for the rest of you, it's there for the taking. Experienced staff and key partners. Bob and Nora are the horsepower on an internal basis for getting things done at KOSA DC. and our chamber partners

[1:44:47] through our contract a COCDC contract with them are our is our they're our horsepower for recruiting retaining developing prospects. Um so that experienced group is clearly a strength. Local stakeholder collaboration uh with the primary stakeholders being uh the CODC board, the city council and the chamber throwing that board all the chamber stakeholders in they are all all those groups are on board with economic development. It's not a question of if, it's a question of how do we engage and so the wind and the sun are always at your back when you're in economic development in St. Angelo. It's a good job to have lots of people cheering you on and uh so everybody's ready to work together to try to get something done. Just a positive climate for this type of activity. Weaknesses. Split ballot. We talked about that split ballot because 72% of those revenues are dedicated for water supply and housing. That means that money is not available for economic development. And depending on your perspective, that can be viewed as a weakness. Obviously, it's a strength if you're trying to fund water. But it's if you're trying to fund economic development, that impairs our ability. It it essentially takes a town of 100,000 and makes us equivalent to much smaller sized towns. Dilutes our ability to compete. Uh weak sales tax per capita performance that is a historical issue with St. Angelo. We think it might be rooted in low industry and commercial activity and high retiree uh um residency in the city. Uh I know when I retire I'm I'm going to have to think about what I spend money on, but

[1:46:50] that is a historic issue in St. Angelo. When they hired me 26 years ago, the then city manager Tom Adams said before he was hired, a few years before that, he looked into it and that that was an issue in the '9s and continues to be an issue. We have relatively low sales tax per capita. So, we're we're fighting the tide a little bit on that. Uh, another weakness, utility expansion in high growth areas. In those high growth areas, the demand has outpaced our ability to uh expand the utilities, the utility infrastructure, and we'll come back to that too here in a little bit. Uh opportunities. I think we have learned in recent months that the uh AE electricity availability uh at at certain substations is a significant opportunity for us and that's the basis for the data center interest in our area. Uh planned interstate highway development I27 I14 intersecting here is a we think a positive sign for future growth. workforce development initiatives. Workforce was always kind of talked about a little bit, but uh the chamber has uh maintained that they keep singing that song that every prospect is asking about workforce. Um and uh so I would say that is uh they're aware of the issue and ready to respond when we have those uh opportunities. In addition, ASU and Howard College both are significant opportunities for uh development initiatives. Um airport and industrial park demand, rail park also we we see high demand for those areas and um uh that's a good thing and we'll come back to that in a in a future slide. Data and another

[1:48:54] opportunity data centers and secondary development. We're excited about the possibility of a data center or more than one data center, but there's secondary development that we're told goes with those things and we're excited for that. Also, use example secondary. We've been told that uh frequently warehouses uh are developed in a close in close proximity for staging the initial equipping and subsequent re-equipping of those computer rooms. And uh that's the that's the biggest one I've heard. There there may be others, but that would obviously make the industrial park uh uh a good place to to do that. Um threats economic volatility. We talked about we think we're stable locally, but we see some volatility on the national side. to the extent that that reaches into our community that that could have an impact. We're not seeing it right now, but uh that that's a possibility. Competitive regional development. We're in West Texas where uh communities compete for employers and so we are in a you know we we can't just take for granted that people are going to move here. We have to remind them why this is a good place to do business. Uh, one of the threats, employee tenure. Um, Bob and Nora both have 20. Well, Bob doesn't have 20, but he he's got enough he can retire. And so those they could go at any time. I mean, the the other side of the coin is they're good at what they do. They've been here long enough to get good at it. The down the other side of that coin is they could go at any time. And uh so we we need to make coming to work attractive to them. you know, who gets to work with me. So, I just like how phras. No, I'm not going to say it that way.

[1:51:03] Exactly. Uh, another threat, development pace. Uh again, I talked about uh experiencing that feeling that development is occurring faster than than we can keep up at this point on the utility side. And I'll that'll express itself in a in a goal here in a minute. one-year goals. The chamber contract uh by 9:30 2025, KOSADC will have an updated contract with the Chamber of Commerce for business retention, expansion, and recruitment services that will include enhanced performance and activity measures designed to increase development opportunities. Uh the current contract will expire 12:31 of this year. Um there's been some interest both on the coast DC side and a willingness at least on the chamber side to move to our fiscal year. So they're talking about a 10-1 renewal date. Um the chamber has brought a proposal that includes those enhanced uh uh performance and activity measures and the board has heard about that in their first presentation and are are considering those options. What we need for that is for the board to continue to do what they think is necessary to develop a meeting of the minds with the chamber and to communicate with council about what the basis for their opinion is. And so I've already asked them talk to your council member. If your if your board member is reaching out to you, please talk to them. If they're not or if they are, call them up and you reach out to them. We'd like this to go smoothly. Uh we want the chamber to hit the ground running on 101 and uh um but we need you and that board to be of one mind on uh getting that new contract passed. So, we'd like you to be uh talking with your board appointee so that you all understand each other

[1:53:08] and uh recall that if they pass something and it comes to council, it comes for ratification, which is an up or down vote. and that uh we are accustomed to tailoring uh value engineering items that come before us before you. But on that item, your only options are vote up or down. And so if you have some value engineering or some tailoring you'd like to be worked into that contract, the time to do it is when you have an opportunity or make an opportunity to talk to your appointee so they can work it into what they're going to send to you. Does that make sense? That's that's an important goal. In the last couple of years, we have interpreted the operational strategy over there as city staff administrative and processing uh initiatives that are brought to us by the chamber. They are our outreach folks. If we do some sort of economic development, unless they come down plop down in my office or plop down in Bob's office or call us directly, the chamber is handling that outreach piece. And so, we need them to continue to be on the job. All right. Next goal, industrial park phase 2 infrastructure final buildout. By 61 2026, Coast DC will issue a notice to proceed to begin the project to complete the infrastructure development in phase two of the industrial park. Phase 2 is partially developed. We got that last back corner. There's a road back there. We need to decide what shape we want the road to be in. Um Bob has some ideas for uh storm water that could uh increase the amount of acreage available for development and uh he has been talking to the engineers about that. We anticipate they'll bring us a plan and within 90 days and we'll go through the bidding process and and

[1:55:12] uh try to get that started. But that will be I think all the acreage we have in phase two and we'll come back to that in subsequent year goals. And then uh water system demand. I've talked about the pace of development, the demand for those utilities and we're feeling it as as we talk about both airport related economic development and as we talk about data center development on completely opposite side of town. So from our standpoint, uh we would like council to to uh support Shane in I assume funding and staffing necessary to move those initiatives along. Uh the why is that an issue for Kosa DC? Because if you think back to the 72% side, that money for long-term water supply and related really is going to get spent with the city. We're going to cut the city a check for that. So, we've got some resources to help out as you consider what your issues are. Part of that funding should come from us and and we want to be there for that. Um, so we will, I think we will be part of the conversation in as Shane talks about the funding necessary to accomplish the projects that you identify as priorities. So, we'd like you to identify those those two ends of town as priorities. We'd be glad to help with funding. Uh obviously the board would have to vote for that and you'd have to vote ratify the use of those funds to help in that mix but we think that's a priority as we want to try to get ahead of that catch up with growth that we're feeling uh in relatively short order and I don't have

[1:57:15] specifics for the goal just that we think it needs to be a priority uh required resources Um, obviously we want support for water system projects to help with that and we we'll be glad to support in some way. The in fact the board has already talked about well can we do build some infrastructure here to help you know they're they're already talking about it. Michael. Yes, sir. As we look at this and your emphasis on water, this overlaps quite a bit with Shane and the department and we're we pretty much depend on one facility, one treatment, one zero. I mean, there comes a point to where if you put all your eggs in one basket, that puts us at long-term risk. And I don't know if we're going to do a study, if we're going to look at an engineer, but figure out a way if if there's maybe ways that we could take that risk off one specific area and maybe have two or three different water supplies and sources because I know we're also at risk with Goodfellow. I mean, we have basically one supply line and if something happens, we owe risk, but is there ways to spread our risk out among maybe three different supply sources? And this is this is not a today answer. It's not a probably a year answer, but I think St. Angelo long-term is at risk if we base our and keep our supply based on one plant, one facility. Can we mitigate that with the bar stool approach of and I'll steal a word I learned from Lunia, a cluster of water supply and improvements get across town? Cuz we're already seeing it out at, you know, the airport. We're having trouble getting enough pressure to go across the line. I want that to be a focus. And economic development in Kosa DC are the thank goodness for this. They're a variable income. All right. The better the job they do, the more income we make. We need to support that. It's the only thing here that will be able to supply a lot of demands we've seen the last 24 hours. It's going to lie

[1:59:18] strictly on them with projects that are in the mix and projects that we're looking for. But I boil it back down to number one question we get is is how's your water? And we need to look at developing a plan on how we can supply water to new projects without putting a burden on what we have existingly. How we can get water across town at the right pressure. All I just there's a lot of variables there that make me uneasy at night when you go home and think about there's a lot of weight on everybody's shoulders of people in this room. There's 100,000 people that are hoping we make the right decision on water and they won't even know that until it's too late. So, I just want to reiterate economic development needs a support to run and look at that. And we've got to get water to two or three different projects. And I just want an emphasis on that as we move forward. And I'm glad you see it right here as one of the it shouldn't be a one-year goal. It should be a two year, three, five, and a 10 year goal. I agree. I think part of that, Tom, to your to your point and your your question from what Shane said yesterday, the the study that that they have initiated and have underway now, I think will uh I I'll say hopefully address your your question about other uh locations, facility. Um so if we had something at one facility, the whole the whole city wouldn't be without. But I'm assuming that that study is going to look at that. It should cover redundant systems when it comes to you moving forward. I just want to say that in front of the economic development team that there is a plan, there's a process and it's it's key to their survival too. Absolutely. Well, they they are very appear to be very supportive. In fact, they've asked for a presentation from Shane about what are what are your challenges? What are your capital challenges? So, I think they're gearing up to get behind and help, but uh that's something they'll have to uh develop that opinion. All right. Uh

[2:01:25] three-year goals, infrastructure and connectivity enhancement, adapt to data center, and other growth impacts. We are hopeful that uh that we'll experience some growth challenges related to data centers and we're going to need to kind of be light on our feet and ready to adapt to what we find to be needed during that time. Right now we're talking about utilities. It could continue to be utilities. It could be other things. Uh update chamber recruitment strategies strategies to adapt to a changing local economic landscape. That sounds good and it it's really filler because it's in their contract. Each year they bring us an updated strategy and so they will be doing that adapting also and uh uh that's not a big challenge. They've been doing that for years. Evaluate the need and develop a vision for additional air rail and industrial park development. I talked about phase two. We're going to plan for phase two. We're going to try to issue a notice to proceed next calendar year. Um, but at the current pace, we're probably going to be about done with we're about sold out in a couple of years or a few years. And we need to develop a vision for what's the next step? Is there a next step? Uh, what's that next step? The development timeline for especially if you get an EDA grant going, it can be a couple of years for that kind of thing. and we want to get ahead of it. Uh, evaluate city's updated comprehensive plan for CODC's role in maximizing the impact of local development. Anticipating that this council will ask for an updated uh comprehensive plan. We'll be interested to see if there is a need or role for KOSA DC that comes out of that. We just need to we just need to be ready to talk about and act if necessary on what we find there. uh adapt to and partner with emerging

[2:03:28] quality of life and community investment initiatives. Uh one of the things that I think has been very positive is the splash pad initiative. We have very little CODC money. I think we put $150,000 in that second in that second splash pad. But that is very efficient when we just put money in a project. somebody else does all the planning, all the engineering, all the bidding, all the building, and all we have to do is put a little money in it. From our perspective, we've got very little time in it, and it's a very efficient way to utilize CODC dollars. Um, to the extent that those projects come forward and they have a a widespread public benefit and an impact on quality of life, I think we need to stand ready to respond to that. [Music] Okay. Five-year goals. A little more vague, a little more generic. Infrastructure and connectivity enhancement, economic diversification, job creation, support for small business and entrepreneurship, workforce development, education, life, quality of life, community investment. The important the most important thing for goals moving forward in my opinion is a widespread fundamental support for these data center projects. That is uh tremendous has tremendous upside potential for impact to tax revenues. And while that is technically not a KOSAD DC project at this point, that's a city project because it is just about city land development, acquisition and development of land that the city owns. Kosa DC is right in the heart of it from a sentimental perspective, ready to respond and be part of what needs to happen. And I think that's the attitude that needs to come from every city department. it because of the potential impact to the local community through the tax revenues that those could

[2:05:31] generate. We need to be ready to jump in and grab the rope and pull. So, that's number one. Support data centers and uh these other things will follow. And I think I think that year one I think those are achievable. We're going to have to work together on them, but I think all that's very achievable. Any questions for Mike? Yep. Yes. Anybody else want to go first before I ramble? Go ahead. Go ahead. Uh have a high demand for water. Correct. That's not our understanding that that they don't use it regularly, but the need for capacity for fire suppression is high. Thank you for the correction. So with that in mind, how concerned or should we be be concerned about the ongoing litigation that is slowing down the development, if you will, of the West Texas Water Partnership Resources [Music] because their routine use of water is not high that it's only for fire suppression. It is not a primary concern for me at this time both because I want the deal done and water is somebody else's deal to handle but on a routine basis they don't use a lot of water is our understanding and so um that's not a concern if we get the pipe sized appropriately so the water can be delivered my understanding is the fire department can can effectively fight a fire u as far as long-term water supply issues. Uh I'm a little bit out of the loop on uh real threats to to that and my understanding is that we have faced challenges for every water supply, every

[2:07:35] long-term water supply that we have dealt with and that's a routine part of development of those water supply issues. But I'm way out on a limb that is not mine to stand on. As far as the West Texas Water Supply, uh the partnership, we're moving forward with uh the project that we had talked about with Fort Stockton Holdings. At this point, uh the city of Midland has applied for grants that should help us with that project. Initially, we had it uh forecasted around $550 million project that has shot up to about $800 million. So, the grants that they're applying for is upwards of two $200 to $300 million. So, there's some some hold up on on that in anticipation that hopefully we'll get word back that we qualified for one or a couple of those grants, but we are moving forward with that as part of a our long-term water solution. Uh there's not a slowdown at this point. I know that there's always challenges from lawsuits that come through uh as far as not allowing uh the cities to transport water out, but at this point, there's not an issue with that because it has been approved. It's just those challenges that come up at times, but um at this point, we're not foreseeing really any major hiccups that would stop us from securing that water. My understanding that you're saying that the litigation is a typical component of these negotiations. I think the hickory struggled with that until it didn't it was okay. But is it also true that the deal was signed? I'm looking at Brandon that the agreement was signed prior to any litigation. So that gives us some liability protection. Yes. Yes, ma'am. So, uh, on our end, as a matter of fact, one of the lawsuits that we dealt with just recently was tossed out. So, we're we're not dealing with that in particular, but they do they do come up though, and it's typically from one one group that's actually suing us at any one point. But yeah, I don't know if Brandon has anything else to add to that, but we Yeah, I would just add that our agreements in that um you know, have

[2:09:40] contingencies for even if the lawsuit, you know, goes horrible and we're not able to produce or get that water, then we're going to we're not on the hook and we have an escrow agreement where those current payments are going into to also account for that and and get that money back. So, I think we're covered there. And again, we have multiple projects in the work in the works at this point. The final the final permit that we're looking for from TCU and the on the uh contour river water supply project. Uh that one we as we reported yesterday should have that that draft of a permit by mid July. And that actually would allow us to kind of move forward with some of the processes that we have to follow. Um and I think that's going to roll smoothly. I'm trying to be optimistic about it, but we did go to Austin, met with TCQ, and they had told us that they would get that to us by mid July. So, we have other water supply sources. Again, the good thing is is that we're not putting all our eggs in one basket. We're looking at surface water. We're looking at uh underground. We're looking at uh uh water that's recycled. We're looking at everything at this point. And quite frankly, you look at that portfolio that will give us the water supply we need moving into the future. As Michael said, we cannot promote economic development if we don't have that water secured. So that's a number one priority for us. And then you and the other two city managers regularly are allowed to review the money leaving the escrow account. That's correct. Cost incurred. Yes, ma'am. That is correct. No concerns. Not at this point. No. is did I understand you right that well it being an escrow but that would is could be refundable to us I mean it's not a sunk cost is our money going to is that helping pay for this litigation even because we're of the payments and stuff we've made I don't know who has access to that but I mean we're 5 years in and there's not been I don't believe there's been a a well uh even drilled

[2:11:44] drilled on that um in that area? Not at this point. Not for the West Texas Water Partnership with the Forest Stockton. Not not at this point. And that's the plan that we do have right now. So, yes. How long would it take? And I understand that pipeline is I mean that's going to take forever. Like from the day that we started, put the litigation aside and assume that it all goes forward. From the day we start drilling until St. Angelo gets a drop. Do we have a timeline on that? No. at this point I mean there's still a lot of work that has to be that has to be done engineering and on our part um even the the path that we'll take for the pipeline and we know that at some point it'll go into through through Midland and we've talked about uh working with CRMWD uh to connect to their network as well but on our end really uh city of Midland currently has water rights through uh CRMWD for IV water and so we we have also rights to Ivy Water. The discussion had been initially to um instead of transporting the pipeline all the way for the additional cost to St. Angelo that we would kind of uh take Midland's aotment for the IV water and and at the same time work the process to make sure that we get the pipeline to St. Angelo so we can reverse water in here if ever we need it in case we have a severe drought and IV ivy goes offline. Those have been discussions on our end that we're looking at different ways to reduce the cost to the partnership and uh those are still in discussions. Again, at this point, we're happy that we've secured that force talk to holding the water and uh we'll iron out the details as far as where the water source comes from and just to ensure that we have for emergency purposes that water available to us as well. There's a lot though. There's a lot to it. There's a lot to it and and we're still working through a lot of the details ourselves, you know.

[2:13:46] So again, we're just quite pleased that we we have secured that water at this point and we'll uh u hopefully be moving forward without too many challenges and challenges that we can't overcome. Thank you. You're welcome. So my question here and I'll go with this to you Brand. I mean a lot of this was discussed in executive and I don't know what's allowed to come out and what hasn't. I have been asked on several occasions and I have said, "Hey, that's been discussed in executive. I can't." I see it start to come up through meetings and there's questions about the amount of dollars we're spending. There's things we can share and things we can't. And some of those things that we can't share, if we were divulge, those would put the city at risk. I get that. So, I just we're going to lean on you. We're discussing a lot of things have been discussed in executive. Okay. and and maybe we need to expand executive to include some more people if that makes somebody more comfortable about what we're doing. But at at the point right now, I'm just bringing up something that your predecessor leaned on me and in here, there are things we're discussing that could put us at risk. And I'm going to kind of lean back on y'all. I mean, I I haven't been in those executive sessions. So, if you do feel like there's discussions coming up that we're in those, then yeah, we need to kind of take a step back. That's why we got an attorney. So, you say you're you're legal and you're going to tell us when to go and stop. That shouldn't be our decision. No, I know. But I I mean, I'm fairly recent here, so I I wasn't part of those discussions. So, I don't know. I mean, if some of this You don't know when to cut me off, Joe said. Shut up, Tom. Mayor, in all fairness, so the stuff that I've just discussed is pretty broad. It's nothing that that quite frankly would put us in any risk. I know I just saw Shane come up here and he can come up, but there are some people that would, you know, there's there's funding parts all for this and I I see the frustration. some people aren't aware of what's going on down that path and I think it would smooth some things out but there are legal concerns here and I just want to make sure number one we

[2:15:49] abide by the legal step and if if council would like I can put together like a Friday packet report or something that kind of goes more in detail what and what we can share um and we can run I run to Brandon and our uh outside water legal council as well to make sure that there's nothing that would be said within that within that update to council uh that would do it. I we can also do an update at a council meeting, a future council meeting as well. Uh if y'all would like that, it's however y'all would like that. And again, there there is information that we can share now that we couldn't um prior to this. I'm kind of not as much worried about the information as how far we could share it as expanding that to who we could share it to. I think would solve the majority of the problems. I'm not worried about the information or the content. How far can we go and share that? And I think if we loop some of those other people in, it might resolve a lot of questions. Mayor, let us take a look at that and I'll update you on that as far as how far we can go. But, uh, again, I do realize that we do have brand new council members on board. We want to make sure that you're up up to par with what's going on at this point as far as securing that water. So, let us work through that and we'll I think that's a a good idea also as far as a Friday packet. Let's put that together and we'll we'll we'll get together and discuss that with you. I think that's great, Daniel, because you know I'm I don't know anything. U learn. We're all learning on the fly. So with our you know our our new class here um there's it's like we go into it in the middle. So it may seem redundant the questions we ask or or look at, but it a lot of that is just getting up to speed. Sure. Absolutely. If I can though Karen's question about the water with the data centers, the things that I've read and I hope this is correct that there may be a a high volume initially to kind of charge that their cooling system but that's in a closed loop. So there's not any um That's correct. Big um big out big pools

[2:17:55] out of the out of our And then also you don't use water to put th those kind of fires out. You know, electricity and water don't don't mix. But that they flood it with nitrogen, I believe, and that sucks all the oxygen out. But it's a it's almost science fiction some of these things. it. But I'm I'm I was glad to learn that in that closed loop, it's not going to um impact uh the residents. No, it's more of evaporation that we'd be dealing with. But Shane, do you want to talk about the volume of water maybe initially that we'd be looking at the data center? Well, what what we've been told so far in in our initial discussions uh as we've talked with actually multiple companies at this point about the diff they're different systems, but they're all very consistent. It is a closed loop system. Again, they don't use any of the evaporative systems that they used to use a decade ago. It's all closed loop and so they've really come a long ways, but charging for and it and it depends on the size of the building and how they actually construct. But you're looking at anywhere from 2 to 4 million gallons per building for for their systems uh for their initial charge uh to to get the system going and then after that it it use becomes very minimal after that. Um and again they do use a lot of u for fire suppression inside the inside the building where they actually have all the computers and things like that. They do use uh gasbased systems for that a lot of that as well for fire supp initial fire suppression. Uh but for firefighting capacity on the outside of the building and for and accessory structures they still do need adequate water supply for firefighting uh capabilities at the facility. Yeah, mayor. We have looked at projects actually that have come before city council that have we that have actually addressed way too much water as far as consumption that city council has said no we're not really interested in that. So we always take a look at that especially when it comes to water consumption and that'll go to council to discuss and to determine whether we want to move forward with a project such as

[2:19:58] that one. I want to apologize my question got us way off task. I was say we we've got a schedule. My apologies Mike. That's all I have. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Mike. Up next, we have the police department and I believe Yep. Chief Griffith is here to make that presentation. We got off economic development. Morning. appreciate y'all guys doing this and uh means a lot, learning a lot this morning as I'm sure y'all are drinking through a fire hose. I've had a lot of that over the last year. Um the St. Angelo Police Department uh is committed to protecting life, property, and the constitutional rights of all citizens uh through ethical and professional uh service. Our core services include uniform patrol operations, criminal investigations, narcotic task force, emergency response, community engagement, specialized tactical support, and school safety. We are focused on uh proactive policing, crime prevention, and building a strong relationship uh with the community we serve. I when looking at this, I thought it was a great opportunity to go through kind of just all the things that we're all facing as we can see uh early on to this that we're we are all strapped for cash and we're in a uh target-rich environment for trying to fund fund uh different divisions. So I I don't envy your tasks laid before you. um the oops the uh strengths of the department that was something that we've been kind of working through is we're kind of rebuilding stage uh I do see that we are a driven uh leadership and command uh team that's one thing that uh generally

[2:22:02] and I'm not talking bad about previous administrations it's been people that take these roles are usually a little bit older and uh kind of towards the end of their careers uh we have a younger uh command staff staff and uh assistant chiefs. And so we've been hitting the ground running and trying to find ways to save money and to develop our department uh for the future. Uh we have a strong inter agency partnerships with DPS, Tom Green County Sheriff's Department, uh MHMR, the school district. I I kind of add upon that too with uh just inner city divisions. We've made it a prior a priority to be uh working with animal control, with the water department, with whoever that might need something. We're we're trying to reinstate uh the police department back under the appropriate umbrella of the city of St. Angelo. I think for the longest time, it's been operated as its own little island. We are not an island. We are part of the city and we appreciate that. Um we have recent investments into digital technology and and I think that's thankful to u several different divisions inside the city from legal to um finance and uh previous administration. Also they helped push forward uh a cops grant for funding for radios uh computers uh license plate readers which is what one thing we started focusing on. uh drone uh tactical drone kind of what we we classify that as uh and tactical leadership training uh as we see the world that we are in these days is um is is struggling with maintaining order and there's more uh critical events this morning in the early morning hours. The San Angel Police Department responded to a uh what was a borderline hostage situation and nothing short of by the grace of God uh we did not have an officer involved shooting. uh he surrendered at the last moment as we were actually about to use deadly force. So I'm thankful for our guys that are out there working at any given time. Those things can turn into a long hard process. Um and that's that's the area

[2:24:05] that we're talking about under recent investments in digital technology and tactical capabilities. Uh professional development as a prior priority inside our department. That's one thing that uh we have been lacking. I'll just be real honest with you and uh I'm not going to name them all off, but I uh since taking office, we have sent people to homicide investigation schools, armories, civilian leadership, uh leadership courses for our mid-level supervisors, uh Lement, which is one of the leading uh organizations for development of professional staff. Uh we've gone through DPS. We've looked at um robotics uh to to help with tactical and also uh drone uh capabilities. We've gone to evidence courses u advanced courses on uh sexual assault uh especially in area of child crimes. Uh we have pushed hard and heavy in that area because we have not been doing that notoriously. Um and so that's that's been a big priority and I think is a strength. Uh growing our uh what SRO we probably should have spelled that out as a school resource officer. Uh that is uh something we've never really had. What we've had is peacemilled uh every school district or every school in the school district is um staffed by an offduty officer that was previously funded by the school at a at a rate that was hard to get officers to do it at and they were off duty. So, they would work sometimes a um they would work about a 40 40h hour 42-hour work week depending on what side of the 12-h hour shift they're on and then they would roll into a school for the next 2 or 3 days and that just wears people out. You also get a different officer in there each day. Doesn't develop and grow your your relationship with the students. So, we're working on trying to get that to be a staff position and funding it through the school district. um neighborhood outreach programs to expand community relationships. Uh we've been doing that with um everything from church safety meetings. We've gone through two iterations of that and it's

[2:26:07] been wellreceived uh with uh one receiving over a hundred and the next next course was over 60 uh people showing up to that. Uh neighborhood meetings, we'll be having another neighborhood meeting coming up soon uh for the southeast part of town. So Harry, we hope to see you there. Um and and then also pushing hard on transparency. Uh something I I ran on. I think it's important to me that we just be as real as possible because in especially with law enforcement, the the distrust that we're seeing across the country, the more that we can just be open and straightforward and address what we're going through, um I think that that helps us. Weaknesses because we are a motivated and energetic workforce. um we are limited by collective lack of department experience. That's just being real. You can be a good and bad all in the same thing, but um we're trying to offset that weakness by training. So, we're pushing hard to get people to in command level positions to attend uh the classes and courses really um that are anywhere from 10 to 12 weeks long depending on what they are. There'll be the National FBI Academy, there'll be Lemit. Uh those are lieutenant and above command courses. Uh good thing is about Limit is it's it's cheap on the budget. Uh it's it's paid for by the state and so we're we're but it's a long list and so since we have not been putting in for that, we're going to have a a lot of people having to go to that um as quick as possible. Staffing limitations due to what should be that says hiring freeze, but it's really more of six frozen positions. what we're talking about there and budget constraints. Um, you know, that I get I was here through that process in this very room whenever I said, "Yeah, let's let's go ahead and freeze those positions to help give raises because we didn't think we would get back to where we were at today." And I'm thankful that we are we are riding that line of being uh staffed with with recruits, but we're not staffed functionally. And that's something to

[2:28:09] understand is that um between positions that are injured, hurt, and that are in the academy, uh the attrition rate that we're seeing fall out of that academy is a little higher than we want, but we don't want to retain people that don't need to be here. So, we had 13 start that last academy and we're down to 10 with the possibility of a nine. Um uh cadets making it through that and that's before they start field training. So, they just completed the academy and they're taking their their state test. Uh so we're hopeful there, but that is a a a definitely a weakness that we're dealing with. Uh when it comes to budget constraints, I want to make it real clear, I've said this several times in different meetings, and many of y'all guys have been in those different meetings that we're not throwing any rocks here. This how we got to where we're at with our with our funding is not uh any one person's fault. I think there's been a lack of communication. That island mentality doesn't help. Um there hasn't been a lot of uh evaluation into what we're doing. But uh I I just want to give you a little bit of basic information here. So per capita spending uh is one thing we wanted to look at that is a breakdown into police. So for the city of St. Angelo, we're spending about $280 per citizen, right? And when you break that down in comparisons to uh St. Angelos, let's let's look at Witto Falls is $342. Temple is $308. Long View is $350. Baytown $416 and Tyler at $353 per capita. Now, when you when you break that down into a total budget, that's millions and millions of dollars. Um, when we look at the comparisons of these cities, um, we're on par and at similar budgets of cities that are about 80,000. Uh that's that's some equipment that's some uh and me and Daniel have spoken many times on the fact of this is not they don't know what they don't know and if we don't communicate it then we're it's a disservice to our own citizens and so we just want to make it very open and real that in this process we are um way behind the curve and that's that's

[2:30:13] most people say well what about the the crime the crime data you know I've heard that several times the crime data is one of the things they come back and say We're safer than these other cities. When you give a comparison to uh Witto Falls, Witchto Falls, we are on par with uh property crime. We're right at the same level as them. They're slightly larger, but we still have more property crime. We're just below them in in violent crime. They have been doing a really good job of of combating a gang problem that got out of hand. They did not staff their police department appropriately. They did not have the appropriate um funding in in the right place. and they were just like us, they were way behind on salaries. Um, so they have been making a big push on that and they've inc they've increased their uh payroll by 22% since 2023. Um, and and to to give their top-end officer being at 100,000. That 100,000 mark is I never thought in my lifetime that would be something that we would achieve. And I know some people believe that the St. Angelo Police Department is paid too highly. Um, we're not talking about St. Angelo's industry, right? We're talking about the we're talking about the profession of law enforcement and uh our average officer uh right about 76% of our department is below 5 years of experience. I was talking to HR yesterday. We only have 25 uh% of our department will be eligible in in less than I think 5 years um to even retire. We're a very young department and I bring that up kind of in this weakness area because that's something that we have to look at. And when you compare you being able to walk into Abalene and make $100,000 after one year or go to DPS and make 105 after uh one year or two years when they're sitting at 65 $70,000, it's something that we're going to have to really keep in mind as we move forward because those guys are all younger and they will stay in that younger section because of the way our structure is. So, it's important and I do think that that is something that

[2:32:15] we're just real about. Uh, and if you would like to have any additional conversations on what we've done with the budget, we have a additional, but for sake of time, I will I will move forward unless there's any questions on that. Okay. The only city that really beats us on uh violent crime and or property crime is Baytown. And they are uh a bigger town for us to compare and they're also a metro to uh Houston. So I I it's not the best comparison, but they gave us some information, so we took it. Um, when it comes to additional weaknesses, uh, our facility uh, space is limited in our evidence storage, which we'll get into that into our 5-year plan. Um, we have an increased risk of of staff burnout uh, driven by sustained high operational demands. Uh, we currently have been functioning right about this one. When I took office, I think we had operational, like what we could actually put officers, gun toing men and women out there on the street was at 148 operational. Um, we are we are now closer to that 163 ballpark. Uh, but we have injuries and and and things we're working through. So, there's still mandatory overtime on every shift. Um, we we are still functioning with C being supplemented by overtime to help get cases uh at least reviewed. Uh, we we are not in in uh a utopia uh of of law enforcement. We're in a next step up, but we have about three or four more steps to get to to make it to where we're not going to burn these guys out. But that is a weakness and a real uh is real that we have to to evaluate and look at. Um, next one here is opportunities. Uh, we uh continued state and and federal grant funding uh availability. We have been pushing hard on that and I think that the staff has seen that we have pushed uh somewhere around I think we're at 2 $2.6 million that we've been able

[2:34:18] to uh procure. anything from being a family violence position uh that we're going to have an actual case worker that's going to come behind that because in the data that I did not talk about we lead really almost the state of Texas in family violence uh the state average is 813 uh per 100,000 uh and we are at constantly in between 13 and 14 uh 100 so well above and so with that we've retrained our entire department on family violence. We've gone through and how to investigate it better. We are now bringing in this case worker which we got through a grant uh that will be a social worker that helps connect them to uh the other nonprofits and we're hopeful that's going to help bring that down and we're going to institute what's called um a threat assessment. So we evaluate whether or not uh they the victim uh the likelihood of reoccurrence of violence occurring again and trying to push those good cases to prosecutors as quick as possible and make sure that we do get some sort of prosecution on that. So those kind of things that we're pushing hard on um when it comes to uh enhanced community policing uh initiatives that's again some stuff we've touched on. We think that that's an opportunity for us to continue to add to the church safety working on uh citizens police academy coming back and also uh in the area of uh maybe a junior citizens police academy at a high school level done at the high school. Uh we're working through those steps takes time. Uh continued development of uh public trust through engagement and transparency. I initially I I I didn't know how this was going to be received to the public of just coming out and and talking about things, but man, every day we're getting more and more people reach out to say, "Hey, thank you." Just the protest the other day, um we we had I can't tell you how many people reach out to say, "Hey, thank you for the way y'all handled that." Right? I think that that's a testament to uh some of that development, understanding the moving forward into new policing. We're not

[2:36:19] just out out there going to be throwing people around. We're going to watch. We're going to engage. if we're going to we're going to have those opportunities to enhance the community. Um and then also we we were able to use uh Howard College as a police academy. Uh I think we're we're looking to expand upon that too as a recruitment and educational side. So when the cadets graduate from our police academy, they will come out with 18 college credits and we're trying to find a way to connect that to where they can even work on an associates degree in the future through different programs. Travis. Yes, sir. I if you go back to that previous slide that's one thing I want to commend you on is you you campaign on that public trust engagement transparency you have done meetings everywhere you said you were going to do meetings your group has gone way out above and beyond what we have seen and it's because you've encouraged them to do that I I fix say I don't know what we can do to help you and I I don't think we can we'd be in the way but your group has done an outstanding job there since you have come on board I'm not judging prior to that, but I'm just saying you have you campaigned on that and your group has done that and I I hear that. I see that with people that have to hire your staff and use them for other events, but that has gone absolutely wonderful since that point. I I just want to say that has worked. Um, the one other thing I wanted to talk about when you're talking about some things there, I talked with null about the ability to dispatch the drones. Yes, sir. And he had ideas and a plan and I don't know if sometimes those are way far out of what we're capable of doing, but he had some ideas and thoughts there of being able to dispatch those and get you on site for a fraction of the cost of other types of air support. Yes, sir. And I don't know if you have pursued that, if you're going to address that here. Um well, we might might as well do it now because there's several spots that it could fit. But we have submitted for a drone. Um a drone is first responder is what it's called. It is our first step into really I guess a high

[2:38:23] level of technology. It would it is a system that on priority calls on one portion of the of the town and we kind of focus on the west and north because that's our biggest uh call volumes based off serious crime and andor uh combined stuff with fire. So major crashes uh structure fires and those things. So it would be able to as soon as dispatch keys it to be sent out it would dispatch that drone. Um, we didn't think we would get this, but we're doing a partnership with the Texas Motor Vehicle Theft Task Force, and it looks like we're in early stages without having anything in writing. It looks very, very promising that we'll be getting two of these grants that will help fund one of those drones, possibly two. Uh, I've been told that the from the company that uh we're looking at that would it would uh possibility of a second one being able applied in that grant. Um, also we would provide for two additional staffing for uh law enforcement, which we would we would probably put one of those in C to investigate all automotive related crime and then one on the field in partnership with the sheriff's department to have a cross-d designated uh task force that can travel outside the city limits and uh and work on stolen vehicles. Um, that's also combined with additional uh stationary license plate readers. So those grants I think are going to really help. Um imagine with you know talking to the fire department you know talking about having issues of getting response times. Uh if their battalion chief could pull up a live stream of a crash or a structure fire. Uh and we t I talked to to Chief Roadie to say, "Hey, we can train uh your drivers, your battalion drivers to to be pilots so that once they take over to structures fire, that they can then start flying that themselves." Uh and they get a much better read on where to how to suppress that fire. Uh same thing for us on crashes that we can cut that down to we have three officers responding to what is classified as a a serious crash. But if we get a drone there many times that

[2:40:25] they're seeing that was within a minute uh give or take uh that will have actually have eyes on a major crash to be able to say hey all the cars are off the roadway. Nobody's nobody's um um you know dead or dying in the middle of the street. We can slow down our response which would lower our chance of having crashes. Same thing for fire. Uh so I see this as being an opportunity to really truly uh enhance our abilities and be a a force multiplier. I also think that we have to look at what we can do with these is not a big brother approach. This is what we we're looking at is more of a real time data that we can pull cuz witnesses, as much as I love them, uh I I've done, you know, gosh, eight years of investigations of some sort and eyewitnesses are usually not very good. And the stress, they're just as much stressed as as the person involved because you're you hit a spike and then uh we get miss different color vehicles and things like that. So the sooner we can get actual real eyes on from professionals which we'd be functioning that out of dispatch to begin with u we we would see the ability to get have an enhanced um enhanced investigative u results. I think my point there was that's an easy way to cover a lot of country with a little bit of cost. Yes sir. We'd be entertaining anything along those areas. And I I do want to dispel any like that that videos are not being retained. We're not flying them over. It's not a big brother approach. This is more of a 21st century um just used to you had to go put dimes in at the phone booth to find out what kind of call there is and get the information. Now we're just doing it real time with this with the advantage of technology. Travis, are these drones just um limited to the PD or or can fire fire department can is there I mean I'd hate to go to the cabinet and not be there when you need it, you know, but is there there's some um cross benefit to the other

[2:42:29] departments? So it's autonomous and we would do that through the public safety dispatch. So it's it has its own uh two different options. So it either changes batteries or it can you can have two different drones that charge on PL on pads. Uh, and so it's it's similar to kind of what he's talking about is having air assets. Uh, but you can you have to get a team ready, wake them out of bed, throw them in a helicopter, do pre-flight, and then go take off to get to where you're going. These drones are ready and and waiting to go. And as soon as they press the button to dispatch us to that robbery, it would immediately take off and head towards that location. uh the autonomous aspect of it allows it to uh fly not fly in in areas that it u is not allowed to. So that air force base uh around the airport uh as it has to lower its ceiling that's programmed into the system. So it it really provides a an automatic response and then you can offset that because I'll be honest an air asset being a helicopter uh will provide you a better physical eyes and better cameras and things like that. So, we would as soon as a DPS, which has a new helicopter here, uh we would swap that out and send it back to charge and let the air asset handle it. Incredible. Yep. Um threats uh understaffing. Um that that the strain on that has been hard for us for a while now, but we're going to continue to push forward. We kind of touched on that. I know it's sick of time. Um we have limited proactive policing. So that means we've cut uh traffic division down. We've cut CD down because we want to be able to respond to emergencies. Um we we are looking at some uh planning stages of with the staffing that we have now how we can adjust and pull back some of that overtime. We will still have to maintain some of it, but we're hoping we can pull back some of that because it's it's it is costly. Um but but it does wear them out and that's one of the things that is a threat to our our our staffing, if you will. is I hate that forum. Uh but increasing vulnerabilities

[2:44:32] to risk uh in evolving crime. So we see that with new drug uh organizations. We had that happen uh during the course of uh October, middle of October to the end of November. We had a new drug organization come in from Mississippi. And during the course of that time with between local uh rival drug organizations and them, we had about 13 driveby shootings. Um, we didn't go out and tell everybody about that because we knew who they were and we had surveillance units on. We were using the drones. We were doing all sorts of stuff to be able to build the cases. And we had some outside the box approach to be able to get uh charges on those individuals. And since then, we've wrapped up everybody that was the primary uh aggressors, if you will, in that and and been able to secure that as being a problem. And that's just awesome police work to be very honest with you. But that evolving crime trend to just have it come out of nowhere is the prices of methamphetamine are still cheaper than we've ever seen. The border being closed has helped. And so as that happens, we probably will see more violence increase because we went from a flooded drug market to now it's going to be a little bit more tighter. So they will fight harder for customers. With that, we created a drug task force between the the Tom Green County Sheriff's Department and DPS and our federal partners uh to fight that narcotics threat in the Tom Green uh county uh uh and in the city uh at a together approach, right? We're better together. Um and not have siloed work because if you have those individuals all doing different investigations, sometimes they're all investigating the same person. you can try to get through that with deep confliction, but whenever you're all working together, we've we've seeing some great results in that. And we also don't share the results of that like I would love to. I'd love to be able to do a press conference and be like, "Hey, look at all this dope." But we're talk talking about state level charges most of the times. Um, we have several of our guys are cross-d designated, meaning that they are uh federal uh licensed uh they're a San Angelo police officer that's also a DEA

[2:46:35] agent. So, it's our employee that's gone through training and been certified. Uh, we also have guys that are homeland security that we're working on. And, uh, in in that, uh, we can file those charges federally, which, uh, not speaking anything ill to our local district attorney's office, it just when we have these cases that are on a massive level, we we generally find that those prosecutions uh, have longer term frames uh, based off of their their court systems. Uh so with that, we can't share the I'm talking large level narcotics arrest uh because we're going to turn around and flip those individuals and push towards the next person and towards the next person. And then we'll have what's called a bust out where we will have 15 people that that don't even know that they've already been caught and already been investigated through uh either undercover work or informants or whatever that might be. And then we'll we'll turn around and and and and make you know six, seven, eight arrest uh with an organization having you know uh 15 20 30 40 lbs and then we'll move to the next one. So um the next one is a just the legal and operational risk from uh our outdated evidence. Um we we see that as being a um a problem. I'll go ahead and tell you we're getting into kind of the building aspect of this and uh Daniel, how am I doing on time? Am I still good? Okay. Um I we have a building that was as best I can tell between the annex and our station that we have now. We're sitting somewhere around 33,000 square ft to anywhere around 36 um roughly 3,000 ft. um working with the finance we were able to get some comparables and uh Huntsville has 58 police officers and they have 40,000 square ft. Um most of these other departments that are anywhere near our size are working places of u 100,000 um 92 120 110 uh that's Waco Abene and uh Long View I believe. Um we're we're we're out

[2:48:43] of room. I can't put things anywhere else. I' I don't know what else to do. We were looking at getting um shipping containers or something and then having to deal with the logistics of trying to put only certain items out there that don't meet evidentiary status. Um we're storing evidence in 15 different locations throughout our department. That is not a good practice. Um I'm not expecting y'all to come in and build us a new uh station. Uh and it's not even in my three-year plan because I know it's realistically that we're talking about a very large build. Um, but it is something that we need to to talk about. And so it is a threat of where we put our evidence and we have some stepped in plans to not just ask for a whole bunch of, you know, four or$5 million right now to phase it in over the course of the next few years to help us be able to fix this problem. Um, you know, limited funding impacts long-term policing uh potential. And what that means is if you have a misdemeanor crime, right now we're waiting on a part-time officer. I say part-time, we're waiting on a an patrol officer that we've trained up to C level to grab a case and investigate that. That's how we're we're we're trying to get those lower level crimes somewhat handled because we just don't have staffing. In comparison to Witto Falls having 24 detectives, we have 11. Um and and and so I can't pull the from the patrol and put those back in there because I I I guarantee you they started their morning with eight officers on the on patrol for the whole city. Um we we've rearranged our shift to really it was almost kind of crumblesome for the officers, but we did it based off the best response with the numbers we had. Um and there's just no way to fill those positions back. Um, we're waiting on these guys and hopefully these nine will promote uh will will pass and get trained. Those nine officers out of the academy in October, we'll be able to if they get through with the field training, then we can start looking at trying to add two more officers to C and two uh more to narcotics and two more to these different places that we're

[2:50:45] hurting from. But that's what that that's what that means. Um, growing mental health calls. I I can't tell you um you know homelessness, mental health, drug abuse. Uh people have asked me, you know, what caused homelessness? What caused uh this this situation to be here? Generally speaking, it's either drug abuse that leads to mental health or mental health that they self-medicated to get there. So either way, we're strapped and saddled with dealing with responding to a higher number of of of calls for mental health and uh andor drug addiction. Uh so we're we're pushing hard on having resources. Now, uh, in every police car, they have a list they can go to and find ways that offer, hey, here's the phone number to ADAC. Here's the number to, uh, get counseling. Here's the number to get could you get out of, uh, of homelessness. We've been trying to work with the city, United Way, and action, Contro Valley Community Action Agency to uh, have homeless prevention funds because we're the first line that see that. We're going to a domestic again, 1300 uh, of those reports per year. we're going to those those calls um many times that they're arguing about finances, right? So, if you're about to become homeless, it's going to be a pretty big stress on you. So, we try to put those resources where they need to be. Uh working with the Tom Green County Sheriff's Department on their mental health side and and trying to uh look at options. Appalink has a great program that I'd love to to try to emulate uh that um several other cities in Texas are now modeling where they work with the fire department uh their mental health provider which would be uh MHMR for us and the police department and they get funding from their local the local uh hospital uh and they work as a team. They they respond to calls and they do case management of of mental health calls and they have they have lowered the number of mental health calls that they're seeing. Um and we can do that in partnership with the Tom County Sheriff's Department. Travis, right quick. Amy Wiselle Flint with the Collective. I'm Say that again. Amy

[2:52:47] Flint with the Collective. Yes. Has she spoke with you any um they have a group of people there that you wouldn't know were probably male? It's an outstanding group of people there. One of the key things that they brought up was responses by public safety to somebody that has a mental health problem versus somebody that's actually a threat to the public. Right. And they would love to expand upon that and see some development in that area. I'm not and I defended the face. I don't know what we do wrong. I mean, we have to deal with what's on site. Yes, sir. we somebody doesn't wear a badge or a tag that says I have this type of, you know, inability to deal with or or mental health problem, but those are one of the things that we're going to have to deal with in the future. You're spot on, but I don't know how you develop and go full circle, but I just want to let you know we I heard that and that is important and and Amy Flint does have I think some resources and and that's great and we we have spoken to her several times and we work with mental any various mental health providers throughout the Tom Green County. The issue is is we can't one thing we can't do is we can't send a a mental health worker into an environment where so that's why Abalene uh WTO falls I think uh several east cities uh east Texas cities that are using it they partner with the the fire department the police department and the mental health provider. So the mental health side is handled by the mental health provider. the safety and documentation is managed by the law enforcement because the way Texas law breaks it down is that's who has the authority, right, to put that uh mental health uh uh to secure them in that time frame. And then the fire department's there because through advanced medical directives, they are able to clear people medically without having to go to the to the hospital. So, we're not tying up resources at the hospital. We're not tying it up at the jail if we don't have to, right? And we can get this person right to where they need to be. Uh I believe some of those cities are even have where they can have a partnership with their with their uh hospital where they can come and just do some quick testing. Hey, we're going to

[2:54:48] do uh drug alcohol uh screening or something like that where it's not even they're not even being admitted because it saves so much time and money of these mental healths where we'll we'll do it. We'll do an ED on somebody emergency detention and then they'll be at the ER uh and then we'll leave with with the sheriff's department there and then they'll they'll walk out or they'll they'll they'll they'll only get cleared for a short period of time. And so it ties up the hospital, the the the security there and uh the deputy. So we're trying to find a way that we can look at this um fairly because when you have a mental health expert that can say, "Hey, we maybe we won't do an ED, but we're going to do a first thing in the next next morning. We're going to do a follow-up. We're going to make sure that we have family member there." And they have a plan in place that helps you with liability like from the city standpoint because we're not we're not those things like you said. Thank you. Yes, sir. Um so we're going to get into the first year goal. Um by 20 26 the San Angel Police Department uh will fill existing vacancies across uh key specialized divisions. We've already touched on the criminal investigations narcotics task force special operations traffic neighborhood outreach. Um I want to touch on that just real quick. We have one officer, his name is uh Joe Mada, and he uh has been lowering our calls for service by when there's a neighborhood problem, he goes out and addresses it. Generally, what we'd find before, we didn't even know it's an issue. It's been five times we've been over there. So, officers actually will reach out to to Joe Ma and say, "Hey, Joe, will you go work on this?" It could be anything from homeless, it could be neighborhood disputes, it could be uh someone that is uh homeless prevention. He actually helped a young lady and her kid who was getting evicted get uh in funding from United Way, I believe it was, and then got them into a new rental place that kept them from being homeless. Cuz what people don't understand, if you have a kid and a mom d walking through St. Angelo, um

[2:56:54] excuse me, you'll have a bunch of calls on that, right? People will go out there four or five times to the calls like that. Excuse me, have a little bit of cough. And that in itself um uh lowers those calls for service across the board. So we want to add another one in there. It's not something that answers all the calls for service, but it does answer this niche amount that we can get in there and solve the problem permanently and that doesn't get solved by a police officer on patrol in 15 20 minutes while he's trying to get the next call. That makes sense. Um and then two school resource officers. We're hoping to have that by October to enhance investigation capabilities, community uh engagement and targeted enforcement efforts. Uh we would like to see uh staff time um and coordination to support uh temporary assignments and minimum uh disruption at core patrol functions. So we're trying to find a way that we can speed up patrol. We can get more guns in the field. We've already cut three positions from the St. Angelo Police Department that were being filled in more of a I want to say a clerical positions, but that we're in positions that we have filled with civilians uh to put more of those guns on the streets, if you will. And so we want to make sure that we're being uh we have minimum disruption and get those uh response times down. Uh cuz with being lower staffed, we're sitting at about uh 4 minutes response time. Uh formalized uh selection processes to streamline specialized division selection. So, we want to make sure that we're selecting the best candidates by doing not just a simple, hey, you want to come apply, uh, you come and talk to us. We want to actually develop those individuals, get them through, uh, programs where they get to go to that division in advance and then rotate in real quick to get some training to see if it's a good fit for them, work with those uh, guys. So, kind of like what we're doing right now with the part-time detectives, two of those part-time detectives are putting putting in for C now. uh they have a uh they'll be able to go to work right away. Uh so those kind of things what

[2:58:56] we're talking about and cross trainining uh schedules so we we can have uh mentoring and expose internal candidates to specialized functions which is what I just covered and funding for uh associated training equipment and onboarding. So every time you move somebody from a a a officer line doesn't mean that they can't investigate, but you can't just task that person with investigating this murder, investigating this sexual assault, investigating this robbery. You have to phase them into that. We have to go to basic uh investigations course and then they're specialized for individual property financial and hom, you know, crimes against person. So that's the that's stuff we're talking about there. Travis. Sir, going back to that, I'm going to ask you a yes no question just because I we're limited on time. Can you cross trainin some of your people in animal control and capture? So, I'll be honest with you. Uh, we're working about 2100 calls for service as my off the top of my head is what we had for law enforcement uh last year. Um, we're already having trouble getting to other responses. At this point, I I want to be more focused on our ability to handle uh people issues. And until that time we get leveled out, uh you know, if we get a staffing number of around 195 uh to 200, which would be on par with what we're seeing in these other cities, then yes, I think we can have some conversation about what we can do to take that over. But I I'm having trouble investing. And I'm not talking to take it over. I'm talking an assist. I mean, which we are doing that. If you're talking about like assisting, we use we've offered a drone several times. Uh we've sent out uh Joe Mada I think's gone out several other people that we try to use that are not going to pull from our numbers. Um it's on a daily basis we're having to call in overtime for different shifts. So to answer that would been one of the first things that we were going to cut. Uh we go to smoke calls, we go to dog calls, we go to uh a lot of these lower level things. And when we first took over, we didn't know if we were even going to be able to to manage those with the other calls for service. There was 112,000

[3:00:59] calls for service uh for the San Angelo Police Department in 2024. Um and and we have most of those being responded to by about 63 men and women. Um so that's a struggle. Um got as of right now, that's a no. I got it. Yes, sir. Do you have real quick um do you have a rough estimate on your average uh response time on a lower level call like not an immediate dangerous life and health? Yeah, I would tell you somewhere around 7 minutes. Depends on the shift, depends on the time of the day. Uh because each those numbers the way we have it currently staffed as I'll be we have a time we come in at 6:00, then we come in at 12:00, then we come in at 4:00, and then we come in at 6:00. And so that ends up having four shifts on each side of the week. And that gives us this number at the magic number during the busiest time of the day, which is usually between 4:00 and about 2:00 in the morning. Uh that we have staffing there. Um so those calls are going to be different based off of those different time frames, but it's somewhere around 6 7 minutes depending on how many calls are in the queue. um you log in at any given time, there's going to be five or six calls already just waiting to be responded to or currently being handled by those, you know, between 12 and in the afternoon and uh well, let's go from 6:00 in the morning to 12:00 in the afternoon. It's pretty common that there's just going to be 6, seven guys because we're short right now. We had injuries. we're actually having to move people from other shifts that were uprooting them their whole life uh because we've had in uh multiple injuries and a few resignations and so that shorts that shift down to where we have to reallocate those resources. So, um it's it's a struggle and so on those shifts that are short uh you're not going to have as nearly as a good response time. Thank you, Chief. Unfortunately, we're running just a little bit short on time, but just keep going though. So, yes, sir. Um, so three-year goal. Uh, this is one thing that I think is going to help be a u an offset some of the numbers and things we're dealing with. So, what a

[3:03:01] real time crime center is is is again not big brother. That's what sometimes this gets associated with is that we're we're spying on you or tapping into your what a real-time crime center is going out to people and going out to businesses and asking them, "Hey, can we uh tap into your existing cameras, right? Uh this is a 21st century uh like a crime watch, right? Instead of having people out walking your your uh camera that's on your gas station, right, that you own can we can have access to." And then we have a notification system that says whenever we do access it, it tells you, hey, we accessed it because of this call for service. Um, and you get notifications to that. Um, a good example and that that goes across broad scale. So getting to where this is a a functional thing um that would be local sourced like uh we're working with the city uh on using traffic cameras, right? We're working on like the library, the bus station, public sourced already public entities. you get these access so that way whenever there something does occur then you have somebody staffing in this real-time crime center that can immediately pull up video to it and now we'll have a drone going to it as well right so we can get the the blind spots covered and follow mobile there was a murder in Bowmont Bont is the the a city that is the first one of our size that's got a full deployment there was a murder in Bowmont and it just so happened that the gas station that it occurred at they they were able to watch that live stream as the suspect's leaving. They got the license plate, entered it into their license plate readers, the the the the tech working in the real time crime center was able to establish, hey, we really feel like this vehicle has been driven by previous contacts by John Smith. John Smith has a last known address over here on the northeast part of town. The license plate reader is reading in that direction, and they arrested him as he pulled into his driveway within like 5 minutes and 45 seconds of the shooting. um that's leveraging technology to make a safer, better community, right? And so

[3:05:04] that's what a real time crime center is is it's uh we're not tapping into anything. If you don't want us to have access, we won't, right? U it's a it's a it's really that neighborhood watch turned into 21st century. And so that's what what we're talking about there. We'd like to see that fully functional uh up and running. Uh cameras, additional license plate readers. Um, again, uh, this is checks and balances and it's not kept data. We're not downloading these videos. It's not something that we're we're trying to put into an artificial intelligence or anything like that. This is this is real time process information. And I want that to be clear because we're not in the business of monitoring citizens. I don't have time to to monitor even myself sometimes, right? Let alone someone else. Five-year goal. Um, we're talking about the police department and just for the sake of time, y'all you guys have seen this. I'm sure you can read this. Um, I I'll tell you that the the the building is we're out of room. Um, we're we can't keep functioning there. We've peacemilled, we've moved, we've remodeled, we've done everything we know how to do. It's not secure. Uh, I'll be honest with you. Like, we we it it's glass. Uh, if somebody wanted to attack our police department, we have no bulletproof glass. We don't have anything that to protect our staff and our our um we we are um packed to the gills. We are looking one of the requests that we put in for is an actual portable building that we'd put next to the uh the station uh to to hold for the next 6 years or so. We understand that this is going to be something that uh we can't just where are you going to put a police station, right? I mean, how is that going to function? These builds that we're looking at are um 46 uh 45 million, 33 million, 48 million, 28 million for a very small department. This is not something that is we're just lost on. We we have to understand that it hurts us having C way over here. We never see them, right? We're already

[3:07:06] fragmented with our shift configurations. So, you don't have the camaraderie. You don't have a place to you run into somebody. we're we're jam-packed into a place where we should be running at 100,000 ft into this 34 35,000 ft uh at different locations. Um and so with that, we we have to be real as to um how do we fix it? We can't just keep I go to retirement breakfast, right? Um where I have retirees and there was a guy that that stopped me and he said, "Hey, how's that new police station coming?" And he kind of laughed. He said 1992 they were telling me when I first started they were going to get a new police station. I've started it in 2008. We were going to get a new police station. We had people that started 5 years ago. We're going to get a new police station. Um this is not just a building, right? This this is the ability for us to function, meet the needs, and and not have a fragmented uh force. So, it it's it's not just something that we take lightly. It's I think it's was the first thing I thought of on a 5-year plan is we have to have this that not having and I want this to be something that's going to last us, guys. I want this to be a 50, 75, 100year building plan to be able to grow out cuz I don't want my son to deal with this. I don't want to peacemail something into a um a structure that's been there for the same amount of time. I'd like to have it something that we build out with intentionality that meets the needs of our citizens and our officers. Absolutely. And with that, I'll take any questions. There's no way there's no question. You answered mine all the way across. Travis, thank you, sir. She Thank you, sir. Good presentation. Travis. Sylvia, you're up. Something like this would work for [Music] exact same thing. If they took four floors off the bottom, [Music]

[3:09:16] we don't get invited to this party very often. So, thank you for taking the opportunity uh to have me here and shed some light on some of the operations of the municipal court. Um Sylvia, hold one moment. Staff, if the food's back there, if you guys are ready to eat, go ahead and get your um your food and you may want to start on that, but uh with that, Sylvia, I'm sorry for the interruption. No, okay. So the court's mission uh the mission of the court is to interpret and adjudicate applicable laws and support the local community by providing efficient and effective services through the promotion of justice. We seek to serve the citizens of St. Angelo in an accountable, efficient and independent manner. In addition to providing fair and equal access to all citizens of St. Angelo, we also strive to facilitate the timely disposition of cases with prompt and courteous services. Um the core services of the municipal courts. Uh being able to provide fair and equal access to justice. Uh performing efficient court administration and operations, maintaining independence and accountability, providing education and training for professionalism, and building and maintaining a strong infrastructure for service excellence. Um we'll move on to some of our strengths um that we will I've listed here and I'll elaborate on some of these um but adaptability to change that is one of the most probably hugest strengths that we have. I I I can't give enough credit to our staff um in the willingness and the ability to embrace change. You guys know um it's been said many times here that uh legislature meets every two years. So we're constantly changing um and it's it's an evolving process. So um I give credit to the staff. Uh they are always very willing. They may not like

[3:11:18] it, but they respect it. And so with that being said, I the staff is just great. Um and and it's not just in the operations of the court or the clerks, but it also extends to city marshalss. Um I kind of want to take a minute to commend them. You know, anytime uh I'm called by Daniel to say, "Hey, uh we need extra security or we need this." Um another good example was just a couple of weeks ago, um Monica Ramos called from downtown development. There was a lot of um um graffiti that was in the alleyway and they were going to have a a family gathering of some sort or some kind of community um project going on and she said we got hit really bad over the weekend and she said it's very obscene. there's a lot of it's you know there was um profanity those kind of things and she said I really don't want our citizens to to see this and I was like well currently that um position the graffiti abatement position is um vacant right now so I said okay let me see what I can do you know of course I reached out to uh parks and they were they're bombarded themselves they're short staffed too so um I had a city marshal that uh his unit happened to be in the shop and I said, "Hey, I've got a project for you. Can you help me?" And he was like, "Yeah, what do you need?" Uh I said, "I need you to go get the pressure washer and I need you to get over there and get that stuff off their walls so they can hold their uh function this weekend." Absolutely. And right away he went over there, got it done. We had to the pressure washer had been sitting for a little while, so we had to maintance it and all that, but he's a jack of all trades. and I was like, "Thank you very much." So, and they're very appreciative. So, just little things like that that they are always willing to just step up and go above and beyond to help out.

[3:13:22] Um, let's see here. Um, providing good customer service um and provided educa educational training opportunities. uh and the capability to provide fast resolutions and cross traininings are among some of our um other strengths that we have. Um and I will say the the St. Angelo Municipal Court um when we go to different cities for different trainings, I will say that we have a highly respected reputation amongst other cities and my predecessor probably will take all the credit for that. And if you know who he is, Ellen Gilbert, you can understand why. Um, take credit for that for the next 15 years. I know it back to Lake View. I'm like, am I ever going to be able to get your name out of this? And he's like, "No, ma'am, you're not." So, but I will I gladly have him alongside with me. So, um, we also, another strength of ours is we have our own, um, IT administrator. Um, thank goodness for that because I am the most uh technically challenged person. So, uh, it is just not my jam and my IT administrator, he knows that. And so, we are very blessed that he is with us and he takes care of a lot of those um, things for us. So, um, I have to tell him often times, I don't know what you're talking about. Put it in English for me, please. Simple terms. And he explains it. And even then, I still don't know what he said. I just say, "Okay, get it done." So, as as cost- effectively as possible, please. So, um and he does. So, um those are some of the strengths. Weaknesses, outdated, uh case court system. Uh and then of course, a remodel that can be kind of chaotic, especially when you're trying to be fully functional and still operate. Um evolving changes to policies and procedures. um our electroning

[3:15:28] electronic filing system can be a little bit more updated and our inability to resolve cases is also a weakness for us. Um opportunities uh we have uh technical uh technology upgrades for e-iling um access to electronic forms, continuing education and training opportunities and special court dates. And I'm going to touch on special court dates for a minute. Um I know that um most of the directors here and city management know that we have implemented a teen court program here within the last year. Um and that's all I've been talking about because I'm extremely proud of that program. Um we have gotten a lot of feedback on that. Um, and it has given us the ability to uh collaborate and make connections with nonprofit agencies here in the city of St. Angelo. Um, just this past week, we were um contacted by Special Olympics um needing some people to go out and volunteer and they wanted to take advantage of our team court program. So, that has been a major plus for us. Um we had we held it last night and Judge Daniel um actually um made a lot of contact with some of the parents and they just had nothing but good things to say. So we're very proud of that. We had that in the 80s team jury. Yes. I spent a lot of time there. And we also are blessed to have a very good juvenile case manager that operates that. he's the head of it and um his main goal is to uh work with these families and work with the teens and let them know that there are different alternatives to uh and in order to you know prevent them from going down the wrong path. So um let's see here um increased accommodation cap

[3:17:31] capabilities is also one of our opportunities. Uh threats of course is budget. Um I'm that's a threat for everybody. Um but um municipal courts uh generate frequent and incidental revenue that is made up of fines and court costs and that's established by legislature. Um in prior years there was um more of a substantial um amount that was collected and over the course of the years it's drastically changed. Um legislature just meets and uh they are continuing to find ways um of alternative means to uh dispose of cases without collecting fines. um we have to have different types of hearings now before we can attempt to issue warrants. And I know that's probably been um you know made made known. Um it it kind of it it kind of hinders our ability to do some things. Um let's see here. Um but and then um other threats is the ability to inability to issue warrants. Like I said, there's a process. Um now we can't just the judge can't just issue a warrant. You have to have a hearing after a hearing before we can issue a warrant. So um the workforce retention uh challenges in a competitive labor market and I think that's kind of been mentioned a couple times. uh during this meeting. Uh and then future legislative changes. Um we just never know what's going to happen. We don't know. It's it's hard to project anything um in this field because we don't know what the legislaturator is going to do. Um so our one-year goal is um let's see. Can I ask a quick question? Yes, ma'am.

[3:19:33] Did Did I just hear you say that your inability to issue warrants that you have to have a hearing before you issue a warrant? Yes, ma'am. So, before previously, um, if somebody didn't come in and pay their fine, you could issue a cousin warrant immediately. That's not the case anymore. before you the court can issue a a cious profine warrant, you have to have a hearing and they have to have an opportunity to come in and they have to um give the judge a reason why they weren't able to pay, what their inability was, and then we also have to um try to find alternative means for them, whether it's community service or things like that. So, um it's it's it's a process. Now, what is the percentage of the individuals that actually come in to uh address that as far as when you schedule that? Do they actually come in or are they still they don't? Okay. So, it's just an added step in the process. You really don't get anybody coming in to address that warrant or the they they don't we can we can schedule the KPS profine hearing and you can have probably 50 people on that docket and only 10 of them are going to show up. Yep. So, okay. And why would they, you know, when there's no consequences? So, if they don't show up, can you pursue them then? If they don't show up, then you can issue the warrant immediately. Yes. And and we do. It's just just the silliness of adding one more step to the process. Basically, what it correct? It's it it seems like it's just an endless cycle. It really does. Um we've asked that question um to you know um some of the people that you know we go to these trainings with that you know are more familiar with um you know these laws and ask them you know is it every time we go to issue so you have one

[3:21:36] person that comes in they get on a payment plan they don't make their payment we have to have a hearing we issue the warrant well then they don't make another payment so and it's every single time they don't comply with the orders of the court, we have to have that hearing. Okay. So, thank you. Um, let's see. Um, okay. So, let's go to year one. Year one. Uh, well, hang on. I went too far. Oh gosh. Go backwards. Did I get it? Okay. I told you I was technically challenged. Okay. So, year one, uh enhancing access to justice and public services um so that the court procedures are fair and understandable to the court users. Um currently, we are um you know, we are in um compliance with those kinds of things, but there's always ways to improve and enhance um the access to justice. And a lot of those things are just um updating sound systems and uh installing devices to accommodate the needs of all persons um coming in and identifying to work and eliminate all the barriers um to the access of justice. Um another thing is we want to enhance jury deliberation room. jury deliberation room. Um adding technology so that way they can view um you know uh evidence and making sure that they're comfortable and they have adequate space. Um and then the other is improve the operations of the community service program. So I kind of had this these positions on hold. They're not currently filled. We have the supervisor um for these for the community service program which y'all known um is TAPS. It stands for the alternative program. So

[3:23:39] and and it used to be effective and it's really not so much anymore. Um, but the this position has been vacant and I was waiting to see what the legislative changes were going to be for this coming session to see if I could totally do away with it or if there was a need for it. I don't want to totally do away with it because I feel like this really does um help out other city departments. Um we send these um our people that are signed up for community service. They go to Fairmont Cemetery and they help with the grounds out there. They go out to the animal shelter and they help out there, you know, um by cleaning uh the restrooms, cleaning offices, whatever they need to do. Um and they also go out to the convention centers and get stuff ready in the coliseum, you know, for events that are coming up. So I I don't I feel like it is a benefit for our city. Um so I don't want to take that away. So we are going to fill that position. Um but we do want to uh get it going and fully functional and operating again. Um and the way we're going to do that is we're going to probably promote more amnesty hearings. So once again, there's another opportunity for us. We're not going to be able to collect fees and fines because we're going to promote this program. um and hopefully get a little bit more of our cases resolved this way. Um we want to you know promote the program of course like I said to other city departments and make use of them um and then you know um expand the uh knowledge and education to the public to know that they have this alternative as well. Okay. Um, and then thirdly, the professional staff development. This is going to be something that I'm going to harp on and it's always going to be um, one of my biggest priorities. Um, I'm not for sure if y'all are really

[3:25:42] familiar with the training that goes along with becoming a court clerk. It's a lot. and not taking away or uh from my um from the previous administration, but um when I came on almost 19 years ago, it was like just a oneweek training that you're reading really out of a book. Um and clerks are literally the face of the court. That's most people come in contact with the court clerk. they're never hardly going to see the judge unless they have requested a hearing. So, education and training is very important um to making sure that they know what they're talking about. You know, um previous it used to be that um people were a little bit more receptable or receptive to well, these are your options and they would comply with it. Nowadays, it's not so much. People want to challenge you. They want to know if you know your job and why you're doing it and how you're doing it. And I challenged my supervisors with coming up with some sort of training plan that it's not just going to be a well, I don't know. The answer isn't going to be I don't know. That's just how it's done or I I I don't know. That's what they told me to say. I want them to know and I want them them to be confident enough to be able to answer those questions. Um I believe that that also helps alleviate some of the burdens that the legal department has to deal with if we can remain a little bit independent and we can answer those questions for our defendants. And um I love a challenge, you know, when I have a defendant that comes in and they want to know blah blah blah blah blah, I love to be able to spit out the reason why. And that is something that I tell my my staff, you know, we take pride in that. We do. So,

[3:27:45] um, also, um, let's see. Also, you know, with that, it fosters the trust in the judicial system when they know that the clerks know what they're doing. Um so with the the required resources, you know, uh city council and city management support for sufficient funding when necessary. Uh fleet services of course for vehicle maintenance for the community service program. Um on that. So I want you to touch on that very very briefly. So the fleet services for community service. Yes. I have no idea. Well, because we have a van that transports our community service um people to and from their locations of where they're going to work. So, you're not able to do maintenance on it? Well, that's what I was saying. We would need them to the continued operations for the maintenance of the vehicles. Okay. Does that make sense? Kind of. Sort of. It's not a new funding, but just a continuation. Just a continuation. Correct. Correct. For you. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Patrick. Yes. I didn't understand where you're going with that. Yes. Um, year two, year three, uh, enhance the quality of justice by providing physical and techn technological infrastructure that supports the needs of the public, the court, and its justice system partners. Um so this is um updating techno the technology infrastructure complying with legislative mandates and developing alternatives to uh court appearance obligations. Um of course updating technically uh technology um is going to be one of our biggest priorities. Um we are in need of replacing our servers pretty soon. So um that is a goal that we have. Um and then improving our case management retention

[3:29:50] and um those kinds of things. Uh working with our software to explore uh increased efficiency opportunities. Um complying with legislative mandates, that's going to be an ongoing thing every other year for us. um making sure that we have a full understanding of the legislative requirements and determining um you know the research and uh determining an impleation plan. Um I will say that that's one thing that we are um very proactive in doing. Judge Daniel and I, you know, we know when it's legislative time. Uh we know when the bills start coming out and we keep up to date with them. And usually we have our policies and procedures in effect prior to September 1 when they when the laws go into effect. And we have trained our staff um developing alternatives to court appearance obligations, approving the improving the department web page, um developing an e-iling and response system, um and establishing um kiosk opportunities. Also uh the required resources for this is also going to be you know the support from city council and management um the court's dedicated technology fund. So we do collect some court cost um that are dedicated for the use of just the court and that's the building security fund and our technology fund. um we have done a really good job in, you know, being very frugal with those and saving um those monies because we know that the big changes, they're they're inevit. Um and so we really try to uh maintain those and make sure that we are um able to purchase those bigger uh make those bigger purchases when necessary. um coordinating and collaborating with software company and then coordinating with communications department as well for our web page.

[3:31:54] The five-year goal ensuring adequate and functional physical infrastructure to support uh court operations and enhance security. Uh this is more on um just uh enhancing security. Um, there are a couple things that I would like to see done. Um, as far as getting, um, adding bulletproof glass for the safety of our clerks. Um, we've always been told that it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Things can happen. And we, unfortunately, we see a lot. Um, you just never know what you're going to deal with on a day-to-day basis. You know, we have our city marshalss, and I'm so very thankful for that department. um because without that security it would be um it would be more hazardous and dangerous than what it is right now. Um also with this, you know, purchasing new X-ray machines um and then add adding updates to our security monitoring systems. Um and then building renovations and parking lot innovations or renovations. Those are just, you know, the things that we'd like to see. Updates to the courtroom. Um installing new AC units. We know that's probably going to be a big um expenditure in the upcoming years. Um ours are pretty old. Uh replacing you know your office furniture and um you know u adding additional um parking and repaving, those kinds of things. Um and making sure that the that the court is safe um as far as not just inside but also outside. So um and that is really about it. But the ultimate goal is the the the ultimate and the indefinite goal of the court um is always going to be do the right thing. And I think yesterday, Miss Coffee, you said, you know, doing the right thing doesn't always get you a pat on the back. And we know that. We live that every day. But um at the end of the day, and we know we're not going to be

[3:33:57] able to touch everybody, but at the end of the day, as long as we know we've done our part um and we leave a good lasting impression of not just the judicial system, but of um you know, for the city of St. Angelo, then we know we've done our job. So, Silia, thank you for that update. Silia, one thing you you're one of the few departments that has a a revenue and an expense. I mean, y'all are 2.6 6 on expense and 2.1 on the revenue FTEES and things like that. It'd be great if you could find a way to balance those. I mean, the opportunities I don't know what there is to help you do that. The tax program, do you get to bill or invoice for that or you just provide them if you provide that to somebody outside the city? We just we don't we don't provide it to anybody outside the city. Can you I know trusty labor things like that are get tons of phone calls and those are revenue for people that provide manpower. We we never have um but that's something definitely we could consider and look into for sure. Provide six to eight people that work four straight hours to clean something that's something certainly worth revenue to somebody. That's it. Sylvia, thank you for your time. Okay. Any other questions for Sylvia? I think we're we're good. Thank you. I love your attitude. Thank you. I love that can do attitude. We will break for lunch right now. And uh I know that health department, you're next, so we may jump into it in 15 minutes. So just be prepared. Okay. Sandra, you are up next, ma'am. I see that you already have your item on the on the screen. Am I on? You are. Yeah. Yeah. Just turn your your microphone on there. Oh, there I am. Anybody else playing my secret? You got to go. I think I'm sure. You want an introduction? I'm sorry. You want an introduction? I did introduce her. Uh, up next we have Sandra Variel for the health department. Ma'am, would you like to proceed? Yes, sir. I was actually going to introduce myself for the benefit of

[3:36:00] Councilman Self because we had not met yet, but yes, I am Sandra Viel. health services director and I've got Maria Aguilad, our nurse manager with me to to help me answer any questions um or to give any other insights or he can catch up. I'm sorry. He can catch up. Oh yeah, I'm sure he can. So anyway, I just wanted to say um everybody else is here. So uh yeah, I know y'all y'all are I've already met everybody else and I know people. So anyway, um so yeah, I oversee health services um or slash St. Nigel Tommy County Health Department. Uh we are we do DBA basically as Nandeline County Health Department for any uh grant applications and contracts that we have with the state. So that is what we use even though it is a health services for the city that is our um department. So public health is made up of three Ps which is protect, promote and prevent. And so our mission statement pretty much um incorporates that. Uh we prevent disease, promote health and well-being and protect and prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. So it's very simple but we take those three Ps and that is uh become a mission statement. I I'll go back on to that. So our mission statement basically um so what we do um our core our core services in order to basically meet what our mission statement is we have a um we we provide communicable disease prevention through our nursing department um immunizations SDI um testing treatment investigations contact tracing um so we do those types of activities through our nursing department. Uh we have environmental health, we do food environ we food and environmentally born illnesses and

[3:38:03] public health nuisance prevention investigations response and those types of things. And we have a public health emergency preparedness program. It's not a division, but it is a program um again to try to help um promote and prepare us for a public health emergency. And that was evident through like COVID um again through measles even though we knock on wood haven't had a case but you know we've had to somewhat be prepared for a response if we had to um have a response. And then health administration, grants management. That's something that uh falls on me. Excuse me. So strengths of our um basically our workforce. We um are seasoned. Let's just say um I guess that's a good word, seasoned. Um yeah, Marie has been with the department 28 years. Our LVN 22 years. I have been also 28 and a half years and so um that is actually almost half of our FTEES or full regular FTEES. So we have seven full-time regular FTEEs and three seasonal temporary employees. Those come through a grant, but we kind of I'll discuss those a little bit later. So, you know, we have low turnaround. We've been for here for a while and even our environmental health inspector um our senior has been with the city 13 years with our department eight. Um so, um and the office manage the admin assistant for nursing has been with the city 13. So, we you know, we've uh people like us. I hope I'm hoping that they like us and they like our department and they want to work with us. And so we definitely work a lot with customers and I believe that we do have

[3:40:07] a good customer service. A lot of times we get calls for not just health related things but u it could be a plethora of something that's happening to somebody and we definitely try to find or um find e either them a solution or refer them to something. We do a lot of referrals and in vice versa people refer to us especially like for uh STD testing and treatment things like that. We do have a very good working relationship with external partners, Goodfellow, Angelo State, U Department of State Health Services, definitely Shannon, um with we work with the restaurant association, um and other partners as well. And I think I mentioned Angelo State nursing department. They do a lot of collaborations. Um and so um yeah, and with the city with city um departments, we work well with everybody else. Um, another strength of of ours is um, oh, I guess back in 2012, we were at the point of losing our nursing division. And so, um, we came across this 11:15 waiver and it was a program through um, well 11:15 waiver funds. It's a Medicaid program, but um we worked that program for 10 years and we were actually able to bank six or seven more years beyond I guess beyond this year that will allow us to house the nursing department where they are currently located. So, we've got enough funds available to pay for rent without asking for city funds to do that at this point. At some point, maybe. But uh we've had enough in the last 10 years and another six seven years beyond that. So I mean I think that's a really good strength. Um we worked and we hustled. There was a lot of work to to that particular program but um it in the long run this this is

[3:42:11] what was um this was a positive. Sandra has been excellent at researching and securing grants. So we're so grateful for that. So I try you too. I try. Um, and as small as we are, we do still offer and you can see that I don't want to read it, but um, you know, the nursing department offers uh, immunizations vaccines, Texas vaccines for children. The only problem there is, of course, and this is not a strength, but um, we can only provide vaccines for Medicaid or uninsured or underinsured children or through the adult safety net um, uninsured adults. Um we do the STD HIV testing treatment and or referrals to HIV. Shannon I believe is a program for HIV. So we you know we do a lot of um back and forth referrals. Um environmental health we have a lot we have so probably about roughly 600 permitted facilities that uh inspectors have to inspect uh fixed mobile and temporary inspections. But the 600 is the fixed in your mobiles. Those are u temporaries. Those fluctuate throughout the month. Um of course we enforce public health the statutes local statutes, health statutes. Um through environmental health, we have the Texas food establishment rules plus also the food code. So the state adopted the federal food code and therefore in turn we adopt the federal food code. And so uh we follow those two things. Um but yeah um we have a knowledgeable staff and um you know we we try to provide those services to the community. Sandra. Yeah. Go back one slide. Are you in charge of all the food truck inspections and temporary? Yes. Food service. So like at the carnival during the rodeo, somebody has carnival and they have food trucks set up. Are you clean? Yes. They actually Yes. And we um they have to submit for an application.

[3:44:16] So everybody knows they submit an application. Um and so yes, they go out and they inspect every single one through um yeah at the carnival or any of these downtown functions or anything that is uh and we get to know a lot about well we find out about events especially through um which is a good thing if they're using a city venue because through the the special events application or through parks applications they send that to us and then we find out and it's like okay so it's like if they're providing food then I have to I say okay they need to contact us and apply and those types of things. So yeah, we we do all of that and the mobiles uh even though they're coming out, I will say um just just this legislative session um and I think it's still in the veto period, but um there is going to be some changes coming down for mobiles. uh not so I'm not exactly sure how the rules are going to affect us but apparently uh the mobiles are now all going to be permitted through the state and not through the local government. I'm not exactly sure as far as inspections and those types of things how all that's going to work or we're not sure. So, but that is something brand new and um but again send that veto period. So, it may but anyway again we still we still um yeah do all those inspections. Um yeah and we respond to people selling out of their homes. They're not supposed to sell out of their homes. So, you know, we if we find them, we try to educate and say you can't do it anymore. And if they continue, we obviously can sight somebody. The two inspectors do have authority to to site. Um so um we have done that in the past or somebody's selling illegally or you know they somewhere in the streets or something like that. But thank you and s these aren't laws that we're creating. These

[3:46:18] are state laws that we have to follow basically when y'all are going through the inspections and go I think a lot of people don't understand that they get upset at the city but uh y'all are doing what's required of y'all through the state. Yeah. And we all I mean we're following the inspection form that is set up and so it's not like anything that we've made up and they're all it's it's it's all attached to a food code. And so I mean we go down the list and those are the things we see and you know they're attached to that food code that we have to basically regulate and enforce. So I never hear a complaint about inspections until they're bad. That's usually on the other end, not ours. The only complaint I do hear is the schedule of those. Sometimes those inspections come during their peak time. And we if you're in the middle of a performance or you're in the middle of a crowd and then an inspector walks in and you have to shut down for 15, 20 minutes to do an inspection. A lot of times those were timed just to be that inconvenient. And we and I don't know who does that and we'll defend you and have your back that everybody has to be inspected, but you would think maybe there'd be a little bit more of a a better time to do inspections, but there may not be, right? No. And they are aware, especially like the big u the restaurants, they try not to go through that lunch period. a convenience store might be a little bit different, you know, so I mean, yeah, they can go through a lunch period or a little after the lunch period, something like that, but they are cognizant of the heavy periods. Granted, sometimes you might go at 10:00 and there might be a lot of things and so it's going to push you into the lunch period and sometimes it's like 11:00 or something like that. But um I mean they as far as like between like 11 and 1 11:30 to 1 where they try not to was inspections at the rodeo. I'm sorry. It was inspections during the rodeo the inspection and they were done at peak nights on peak performances and it's it had to happen. All right. And

[3:48:22] there's not things but you you just wondered if maybe there was a better time or the other nights when it wasn't a peak performance that somebody wanted to go see for free. It's all right. We'll go we'll go see for free. Oh my gosh. That's when I'd have done it. That's what I Now, I will say I will say our inspections are never scheduled. They will always be a surprise inspection. Some people want us to schedule. We do not do that. So, just as an FYI, it's something we have to do this. We just do not do these on support that. Yeah. And so, they're definitely unannounced because I mean, it's not that we're trying to catch anybody. It's like, okay, what is your if you're doing everything correctly, there's really shouldn't be a problem because you're doing it correctly all the time. And so, it doesn't matter what day. Granted, there might be one really bad day, but it's usually not the case because if they're doing things properly, it's not going to be bad. Cool. We're good. Thanks. I hate to be the timer, but you got about 15 15 minutes left. Okay. I'm sorry. About 15 minutes left now. So, I have 15 minutes. Okay. Sorry. Oh my gosh. Weaknesses, staff, staffing concerns. Definitely a concern. As I pointed out, we have seven full-time regular FTEEs. Half of us can retire today if we needed to. Marie, Lorina, who is our LVN, and myself if we wanted to. Um, so that's something that we need to think about. Um so yeah it's well it's a strength because we're knowledgeable. It's a weakness as well. Um also uh we do have three seasonal part-time or seasonal temporaries that came with a grant. It was kind of kind of a co period and then it's now called public infrastructure. So we were allowed to keep the people that we hired through co to this one.

[3:50:25] But that is got a term a term end and that's going to be in 2027. We probably won't have funding beyond 2026. So we'll probably lose three staff members, two from nursing and one office assistant that I have, which I had not had an office assistant since 2013. So it was really a relief to have somebody. But um anyway, so that is the weakness. is we're going to have some staffing concerns at some point in time. Um, so you know, we we could think about cross trainining, but it's a little difficult only because we're kind of specialized. I mean, nursing, we can't train to be nursing. I can't go in to do their job. And sanitarians, I mean, you know, sanitarians have a a a different lensure. And so, um, it's a little difficult to kind of cross trainin. And so, uh, maybe office assistance. Yeah, we could. Um, yeah. And so, anyway, u funding uncertainties. There's a lot of uncertainty, especially coming up from the federal government. Um yesterday, matter of fact, the state um pointed out, I was on a call, Texas is receiving $119 million cut in addition to the 700 million that the federal government took back that was COVID unspent monies. And so, I mean, there were still programs and health departments were still doing things, but it was like, nope, this is it. And so, they lost staff. And I mean there's just a lot of things and there's just a lot of there's just a lot of things going on and so there's obviously uncertainties. I mean I try to look for grants um but it's difficult to or you don't it has been our philosophy and Rick can say that it's been our philosophy. We don't want to apply for a small grant that has got so much work and then it's

[3:52:28] it's just a limited amount of time. There's no point in trying to hire somebody and where you're going to have to let them go. So we we try not to do that. It's got to be something more long-term that we um try to look for some kind of funding through grants that way. Um I just point I just want to point out that increased temporary events. We do have two only two health inspectors for like I said 600 roughly establishments permitted establishments but our temporary events have increased. And I went back and looked at um last year's between January and May and this year's January and May. We had like 52 54 last year whereas now we're like 82 84 I get the four and the two mixed up. So, I mean, we've got definitely an increase in temporaries and so it's like the guys are working weekends and it's like, okay, so when are they taking off and they might have to take maybe a day off as a comp time maybe during the week, but then that's decreasing your inspections that are going on and things like that. And so, you know, that's that's something it might be causing them burnout as well. It just depends on I mean, again, what's going on that month? Are they both working both working that weekend? And so it's just um anyway that's just something I wanted to point out. So anyway um opportunities I can see us out doing some outreach and public education through um our nursing department. I and we do that already. You know if they get invited um and Marie chime in if you need to, but you know if if somebody wants us to go and do put up put up a booth or something, what do we do or what can we offer? Things like that. We do those types of things. um outreach, you know, they they do testing for um CTRC and Rob Roy K Rob as well as for the ADAC. And so we try to, you know, do a lot of the HIV STD testing and um at those facilities and we've actually um been able to

[3:54:35] identify especially syphilis and I mean because we don't want to get into that part but anyway we've we've been able to get and treat people that that need to be treated especially these high-risisk individuals and so um but we still probably could uh maybe increase or just maybe do a little bit better uh as far as outreach and public education. I want to say that is especially like for environmental health even though it's so small and I mean we'd have to figure out how to do this but and maybe working with um communications but coming up with some kind of um campaign or something it's like what can you can you not do? We hear a lot of people, you know, again selling from home that is something that is not allowed and so you know just try to educate people and maybe we as far as that have not done such a good job and so I think that's a good opportunity. Again I'm always looking for funding. Uh if I come across something and if I come across something that I see might help another division I will forward it. I know I forward things to parks. I forward things to PD. Um, so I mean I if I see something and I if I know that something might be of use to somebody, I will try to forward. Um, I'm glad to hear you say that. Did you will share it? But the other Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I try to Yeah. I mean I'm 28 years and I just I hear things and so if I know something and I I just understand I understand you know what things are going what things are happening in other departments and so and explore volunteer intern opportunities especially I would say maybe for office people again it'd be a little bit difficult um for nursing or sanitarian sanitarians um our inspectors I mean they are um they have to have specialized training and the CUS and those types of things. Um the a bachelor's degree with 30 hours

[3:56:37] science. So I mean it's kind of difficult unless you find somebody but still we employ we employ sanitarians to do inspections and again with nursing I mean it'd be a little difficult but still you know there might be some opportunities to get some kind of volunteer or interns to help us do something maybe paperwork and those types of things. threats obviously loss of current DSH's funding um just yesterday as a matter of fact I'm have a call today too we which is a scary thing um there is a public health uh emergency it's a PHP it's called PHP public health emergency um grant and that we have been we have been receiving those funds since I guess 2002 or something like that. And so anyway, just this week um we learned that the state themselves have not received the notice of grant award. And so by the end of the month, if the state has not received their award, then they are suspending suspending like stopping. Mhm. They told me they have no funds to float. So, they can't, you know, just kind of kind of just help us to until the federal government decides what they're going to do. So, I that's a we're not sure what we're what's going to happen or we're going to do without one staff member. Senator, that meeting's at 1:30. So, uh I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Just Okay. So anyway, obviously funding um public's resistance to public health measures, you know, we saw that through co they don't want to follow measures. You can't tell me what to do. Those types of things, whether it's political, cultural, illegal, antivaxers, all of that is a threat. And we do not know what Shannon's going to do with their building. So right now we're housed there and we are so comfortable and it works for nursing. Um but we don't know

[3:58:41] what their plans are and so we may have to at some point look for another place to locate ourselves. Uh one year goal is just basically we try want to try to increase our food inspections. Uh we do have one u sanitarian training. So I think at some point he at the end of the year he'll take his his lensure and test and so we hope to increase that. um resources again, educational materials, English, Spanish for all of our departments, all of our divisions. And it' be great to try to see if we could hire an environmental health manager to be the in between me and the two sanitarians. That would be so awesome. But um that would be that's that would be a nice dream. That's a nice dream. Uh three year threeear goal. actually want to do that sooner than later, but we um have been we hope to be uh able to use the new software that development services is going to use, the trackit electronic software to do our permitting. And so there is a problem there with us as far as forms. They can't develop our forms, but we need funding for that. So that might be a need uh to finish off. Um and I think they had quoted me like $8 $9,000 to finish health forms, the inspection forms and those types of things. Um so that is one goal and we want to just basically sustain if not increase what we are doing at some some form or fashion. Um we don't want our department to die but it's just difficult when um there's so much uncertainty. again we do need that commitment city, state and federal especially funding um workforce training again you know the potential of us retiring uh technology upgrades and again through the track it I think that that might help us um

[4:00:43] health service nursing department we're just um they just um got electronic medical records and so that's good and so we just need to try to continue to work um well we'll get I guess continue funding in order for us to continue using that software or the electronic system. Five-year goal obviously is to just the funding and to so we can continue doing what we're doing. Um I'm not going to read all that. You y'all have read it. Um but so yeah, I that's kind of where where I'm at. So very short and sweet questions. So and I'm going to ask this one of Daniel and have him explain it. there's a relationship between us and the county as far as what we provide and and so we provide actually the the public health. Can you expand upon that a little bit? Well, I mean, so the actually the county could be doing the whole program u but we do take a component of it a component a component of it and that's exactly what what uh she's talking about. I mean from the STD um overview uh the nursing I mean we really cover quite a bit of what uh in other areas are covered by the county but this is actually the city and the county working together and except the city actually has the overview of the actual uh there yeah in um se 1972 when the health department was basically created city county health department the agreement states that Tomwing County would oversee and fund and do all of the library and the city would oversee the health department. Now, the county does have environmental health. They also have sanitarians and they are housed with the county and they basically are responsible for inspections outside the city limits. So, we technically don't go outside the city limits. Now we will for immunizations for preparedness emergency things like that. I mean we oversee Tong Green County for those types of things for

[4:02:46] STDs and things like that. A lot of us that's that's a lot of people don't understand there is a I say interlocal agreement between the two of us and we share those partnerships. All right. Thank you Sandra. Sandra thank you. Just have time to make that funding meeting at 1:30. So okay. Thank you man. Appreciate you. Up next is parks and recreation with Carl speak. I thought she did the right job. And now for the the fun stuff. Yeah, there you go. Carl, I was looking for you sober. I thought I thought you were talking over there, but yeah, I've been over there the last two days. Sorry, your voice is carrying something. Um, yes, we're getting close to the end of this for today. I do have a request. I'm more than half deaf. Um, if if you speak, ask a question, please speak into the mic so I have a chance of hearing you. Um, we'll start off with our parks and recreation mission to acquire, develop, operate, and maintain a parks and recreation system that enriches residents and visitors quality of life and preserves this quality of life for future generations. basically keeping that that system going into the future. As far as parks and recreation, we're a fairly diverse department. Uh we have Fort Koncho. Most of you all know Bob Hart. He's the senior site manager of Fort Koncho. He oversees the fort, the the Chase building, the state office complex, the Texas workforce center. He's basically the landlord for those facilities. uh civic events. Y'all may know Sid Walker who's been here I guess now 10 years as the um our civic events venues facilities manager. Fair Mount Cemetery.

[4:04:52] Jeremy Walker. Uh he's the manager there. He's been here about 8 years. Not related. Sid and Jeremy are not related. They share the same last name. Recreation. Uh Jesse Bennis. He's been there about a year. And then parks. Um Mario De Lao has recently been promoted to oversee the parks division since Roger Havllock left. And uh I want to point out one thing. Um parks organizationally is part of public works and operations. And as we used to say in the army, they're permanently attached to parks and recreation on a daily basis to do all the daily activities, the maintenance operations. The beauty of that system is that if if Patrick or Shane need them for any reason, they have full authority to tap into parks. Um, usually on a day-to-day basis, that's coordinated, but during emergencies, they can just bypass me and just reach out to parks and grab those assets. It has happened before and I'm sure it'll happen again. Knock on wood it won't. But so you should be part of the water budget then Carl. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Everybody needs a bite of that. Start off with um strengths. Um we are widely regarded as one of the more popular departments. I mean folks come to us because they want to. Now you may argue the cemetery that may not fit into that, but the cemetery is a great place to take a walk and a stroll. It's one of the safest places to walk. Uh it's a good place to teach your kids where to learn how to ride a bike because there's not a lot of traffic. That's where the the the cemetery is because they have to. Well, I mean, if you're going to a burial service, I mean, you are going cuz you want to, but if you're getting buried there, right, you may not at that point care.

[4:06:58] So folks, you know, tend to come to us not cuz they're having to pay a water bill or something because they want to participate in our activities. Uh we have stewardship of I'd say almost all the most beloved properties that the city possesses. Think of Fort Koncho, Kids Kingdom, the River Stage, all the river parks, the lake parks, the pool, the water league collection, um and more. We have a proven track record of delivering projects and responding to community needs and preferences. I think Shane and I started that back when we first came uh to take over parks and oversee parks. Took that sleepy division and conver converted it into an organization that looks forward and works with everybody to get things done. And I think we've both taken that forward into our departments and beyond to make sure we address the citizens needs. Uh we have a strong connection with the community through open communications partnerships. We work with uh six different uh citizen boards and commissions. The Santa Fe Park Commission, the public art commission, um the Fort Control Board, Civic Events Advisory Board, Paramount Cemetery Board, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and now two uh foundations which are separate nonprofit organizations. the Fort Concho Foundation and the San Angel Parks Foundation. So, we tap into to lots of different uh citizen groups. Um, let's see. Effective collaboration with uh citizens and organizations to get projects done. Kind of what Michael Dne tapped into earlier, the splash pads. The splash pads showed up as the number one item that folks wanted in our community in our parks and recreation master plan from 2020. And it took Altex Irrigation stepping forward to say we'll make this happen. City council approved it. They they

[4:09:02] knocked it out of the park. They got it done. Um and we've been that's that's happened with other projects. The reconstruction of barracks three and four at Fort Koncho happened because a citizen stepped forward. We worked with the area foundation and also got that project done. Uh Buffalo Soldiers Memorial is another example. MLK Park restrooms, the dog park is an earlier example of that. Only $6,000 from the house that sales tax went into that project. The rest of that was was publicly fundraised. Um the World War II memorial is under um is fun fundraising now. It already has a green light from council to go ahead and get implemented once they've fundraised. Um we also have a strong culture of interdep departmental collaboration. We work with several departments even with with Sandra. Uh Sandra Verel also helps us with our grant applications. Our last successful one was she got about $200,000 that we used with halfent sales tax and monies that we raised through St. Angel gives to completely replace the playground at College Hills UAD Park just a few years ago. U but she helps us the taps workers that were mentioned earlier. They help us at civic events with cleanups after events and setups for other events and then also at Fairmont Cemetery uh keeping those grounds wellmaintained. So we we tap into other departments. We help them, they help us. And of course, we have strong economic effects on local economy, especially in regards to tourism directly like with tournaments and events like Christmas at Old Fort Koncho, but also indirectly. I mean, folks may not come to the international water collection, but they tie that in with other places that they go see. weaknesses. Um, operating budgets have

[4:11:04] remained relative relatively flat. We have, thanks to council, we've gotten some pay increases. So, that that's why our budgets have gone up some is because personnel's increased a little bit. Um, but operating budgets have remained relatively flat across the board. Lack of dedicated funding um from house and sales tax and Michael talked about that earlier. We were blessed with the 2005 and 2010. Well, the last two um um tax referendums for house sales tax, we were blessed with getting funds for those, but they were projects tied to language in the ballot. I mean examples of that convention center renovation which we did in 2008 2009 the Texas bank sports complex in 2009 that's that's half cent sales tax renovation of the municipal pool halfet sales tax uh CRC roofers coliseum got about 500,000 earlier on with houseet sales tax that's about 20 20 years ago for minor improvements it wasn't a lot of big things a new roof was one of The river project in 2013 is an example. Even some house sales tax went to the Roya project which the public loves the trail that connects um basically Nicarbacher to Sherude Way. Let's see the ongoing youth sports practice area also known as the 29th Street complex have sales tax. Some monies went to Fort Koncho. um but primarily for the new visitor center. The design work on that has been done. I'm going to mention it here a little bit in a minute. Uh the the roofs were replaced at barracks 1 and two and there's still some funds left over there. We got a million dollars for park

[4:13:06] renovations and we stretched that out with other grant funding and implemented those projects in house. We totally renovated Middle Creek Park with hasset sales tax, Bradford Park, which now belongs to the school district. We totally renovated that. Brentwood Park, Brown Park, Uniad Park, and soon to happen, Sanorita Park. We're at the very tail end of our halfsent sales tax funding. Um, next one, chronic difficulty in funding um parks maintenance positions. We mentioned that yesterday. Parks is about nine short out of 50 positions. So that that reduces frequencies of mowing and and servicing parks. Um and I'll I'll I'll return to this, but we have gaps in park service area throughout the town. If you think about places like the Bluffs, there's not a single park in that entire neighborhood. There's parts of Lake View that don't have park services. I'll show you a map here in a second that kind of is a visual for that. Let me move on. Opportunities. Good thing as I mentioned at the fort, the debt for paying off the chase building, uh, all the improvements to create the chase building, that's been paid off, which frees up about $150,000 annually so that we can address things like deferred maintenance and different projects and offset general fund support for the Fort Concho. I'll mention this a little bit more here in a second, but the renovation, we purchased the old Kelly Moore Paints building on Avenue N. That provides an opportunity opportunity. Um, we've been given direction to hire a firm to incorporate the Concho River Legacy Trail, which is that ambitious sculpture project that's going to go along the river and into Santa Fe Park. We're going to bring that back to

[4:15:10] council uh probably the second meeting in July to talk about we want to broaden the scope of that master plan to include a little bit more of the river and also tie in that sculpture project. That's an opportunity coming up. Um and then planned renovations to key facilities at civic events. the CRC roofers coliseum um with the passing of of that bond and now we can completely renovate that expand it make it a brand new facility. Council's already authorized us to move forward with some improvements at the river stage. There's going to be talks about um potentially what to do with the convention center or or other possibilities uh tied in with a venue tax. Those are some opportunities, threats. Um, been here 25 years, quarter of a century. So, I've seen expectations change. When I first got here, I remember people calling to ask, you know, c could we please put a bench here at this park? You know, you know, I understand if we can't do it, but we would really love to have a bench here at this park. And now people are saying, well, where's our pickle ball courts? Every other city in the in Texas has pickle ball courts. We should have pickle ball courts, too. I've been here long enough to see the expectations increase. I I've been here long enough to see climate changes, too. We've been going through extremes in temperatures like temperatures like Snowageddon. The city almost lost all the ash trees in town and a lot of the red oak trees have have died. There there are changes. we go from drought conditions thankfully this spring we're getting some good rains but we are dealing with those challenges imminent retirement of folks like myself and u Bob he hasn't said when he's going to retire but it is coming I think he wants to get the barracks one and two project going hopefully finished uh but

[4:17:15] the next two years he and I may be gone u we're going to drag have barracks repair out over about 10 years. So Bob can't leave. He loves it here. He loves his job. I love my job, too. Um yeah, aging infrastructure across the parks and facilities. Um which is, as everybody else says, requires ongoing reinvestment. Carl, don't use the word aging too often. Don't use it. Uh maturing. I've I'm I'm I'm a little different. So, I've organized my goals here a little bit differently um until we get like into the 5 years. So, I'm going to look at near-term projects that are approved. And there's many more projects than this. Uh these are just the key ones. So, near-term projects that are approved by council. near-term pro projects that we've been discussing but they're not quite yet approved by council and then longer term not really considered or approved yet. So, and don't this doesn't match within slides. Near-term approved the the you sports practice area, uh, also known as the 29th Street complex. That's under construction. The con the contractor's work should finish in July. We've got to follow up and get some some turf established there. That's going to take a couple of months. We've had conversations about going back in and making sure those parking areas uh are in good shape and then also the rest of the roadways in good shape to make sure it presents folks can get there without messing up their car and it presents a good view to everybody that you know we're taking care of the whole thing. Um that is ongoing. The river phase 1 a of the river stage work is uh about to start. Um, it that will address accessibility issues. It will add storage space to the river stage. It'll

[4:19:20] just it'll fix up all the back rooms at the river stage. It will improve that driveway coming down to the river stage. It will expand the existing uh ticket box concession building. It'll improve the entrance. And those are the main things. Uh we've been given direction to proceed with the design work for phase 1B, which will be a new restroom and concession building at the lower area, bigger than we have now, additional restroom up top, and and new sewer work and lift station. So, we're going to we're proceeding with the design work on that. Um we will need funding for those improvements for concho barracks one and two. That was a house that sales tax project. A lot of the design work's been done. It was done earlier, so it does need to be revisited. Make sure that it meets all the current state codes. Uh that project's coming around again, but it it's going to take some fundraising. We're looking at about $5 million, but we are proceeding with that project. civic events. I just mentioned the coliseum project and then the possibility of doing something at the convention center or something else at a different location with the venue tax and I'm sure that discussion will come back around to council here in the near future. other near-term projects that are not yet fully approved. Um, I mentioned the development of a master plan for the river projects. Um, that master plan, I'm guessing, is going to cost about $100,000. That's not funded yet. We do have the resolution from council uh to move forward with the fundraising for the sculpture project and council gave us direction to hire a consultant to uh do the landscape plans to tie in that sculpture project. But we are going to make a presentation to council that let's broaden it up. Let's look at this whole river corridor. Um,

[4:21:25] you know, let's develop a master plan so we know looking forward what we're going to do with this the river as well as the landscape plans for the sculpture. Fairmont Cemetery. I mentioned buying the Kelly Warren building that's been purchased. We need funds to renovate that. We need funds to to do the renovation design. Doing that is going to cost about $450 $500,000 for the design work and the renovation. We don't have that funding yet. Once that's done, it's funded, it's completed, we'll be able to sell the existing office building on Avenue End. Uh we do have an appraisal for that now. So we we'll can recoup some of that money for the renovation project from the sale of that. We plan to tear down the maintenance building that's in the back of the yard at the cemetery. Open up that space as well as an acre and a half that we have behind the cemetery for burials. And that can create 1,400 spaces. That'll extend the operating life of the cemetery for at least 20 years with the sale of those spaces and generate at least $7 million. looking out 20 years uh at the current this fee of uh space cells. If we increase that the if we increase the fee of the space cells by about $500, we can put that money towards paying back that loan to renovate the building. So that's that's a near-term project. The funding for that renovation renovation hasn't been approved. Let's see other near-term projects. We need to re renew our parks and recreation open space master plan. Ideally, you want to do that every 5 to 7 years. The last time we did it was 2020. Doing so helps us be helps us apply for particularly TPW, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grants and be

[4:23:30] competitive with those grants. We've gotten I think about $2.5 million since I've been here from TPWD by doing this grant and being able to apply and compete for grants. So it pays for itself. That master plan does cost about $100,000. It is possible. I think that could be tied into the comp plan. Um, as long as it still has the elements that are needed by TPWD, but that plan does help us identify what the public wants and so it helps us focus on and gives us backing uh to get projects moving forward. I'm getting towards the end. Parkland dedication ordinance is something that has been talked about. It's not been fully approved. I want to pass this out. D. We developed this in a few years ago, but there haven't been a lot of changes in the park inventory since that time. What this shows is location of city parks and their service area. And then it also shows where you see the circles in red. Those kind of highlight areas in town that don't have any park services. The national standard is that anybody from wherever they live in town can walk 10 minutes, not more than 10 minutes, and get to a park or or green space, green belt. That's the goal. And so these areas that are circled, you can't get to a park

[4:25:34] in St. Angelo. I understand. I mean, okay, let me back up. I think everybody here understands the importance of the outdoors and nature. I think we all understand when we go out to nature, we feel better about ourselves. Things come in perspective. We feel better about ourselves, about our lives, about just everything if we spend time in nature. Some folks have easy access to that if they own land outside of the city. or if you have good access to go to like the state park or to the lake parks. But um other folks, they have their backyards and that may not be an ideal space for them. But parks is a good place for folks to reach out and spend time in nature, spend time with family, get exercise. Um there a lot of health benefit benefits from having parks. And also there's a concept called the proximity principle in terms of uh residential development, commercial development. The the the distance those properties are to um welldeveloped and well and maintained parks. Those properties have higher property values than those properties that are farther away from those well-developed well-maintained parks. And you can see it for yourself if you drive around. If you see a well-maintained park, well-developed, well-maintained park, and then you drive blocks away from where you can see the difference between the what how those properties look. So the idea of a parkland dedication ordinance it it do it does two things. It works with the developers as the city is developing primarily residential development works with those developers secure helps to secure property in those

[4:27:38] areas and it helps to secure funding to develop those properties for parks or green spaces. That's basically what it is. the the way that there's different ways to achieve that. You don't have to have a parking dedication ordinance, but you have to have some kind of mechanism to be able to look out and secure property in areas that are getting developed and funding to develop those parks. But the truth is the city hasn't done that over the last 30, 40 years. I think the city did a really good job back in the 50s, 60s, then it kind of stopped the last 40, 50 years. We collectively have not been good about securing property for future parkland. Um, would like to mention we are working with the school district. school district does have some properties that they're interested in not possessing anymore and so we're looking at the possibility of acquiring some of those properties that could solve some of our holes that we have here. But that's just one possible solution. So the discussion of a parkland dedication ordinance uh will be coming up and we need to decide whether we want that or not. And then looking out further in terms of like five years parks. It's like we mentioned the house sales tax. It's helped us take parks and renovate those parks, but we don't have anything else after that. We've got to have some sort of mechanism, a funding source that we could tap into to keep those assets um renovated, refurbished over the future. That's long-term. And then just we need to look at the our staffing. Um do we have enough folks to get

[4:29:41] everything done? Are they well trained enough? We need to take a comprehensive look at that. It doesn't show up here on the slide, but those are the two longer term things. I think that's what I have. Five minutes to spare. So, we have questions. I do. Um, didn't that parkland dedication that came before council and and did not pass? Never made it to council. Never made it to council. Okay. So it got stopped in the committee phase. They had a meeting of a homebuilders. Yeah. People there and it froze right there. Yeah. Okay. That's what I meant. So it stopped at that committee phase. Yeah. It it never made it anymore. I think there have been some council members who are interested in that. So it has not come before council but uh council members have expressed interest in looking into it as they have also expressed that about a landscape ordinance as well and those are just individual members. So that there was a group of council council members who were looking into that planning working with them on developing what might be an option. Those things have been brought forward in the in the development meetings. What's that? Development task force. Development task force. they trying to keep the community informed of things that are being discussed. So, it's not designed to be a surprise or a catch you. So, those have been discussed in that time. Um, the latest thoughts are that there are drafts of what a landscape ordinance could be and what a park dedication ordinance could be, but it might be better to bring those when you're doing this comp plan. Yes, it may be better to talk about it then because you're having a lot of public meetings and a lot of input and that might be a good time if council chooses to include it at that time. That's a that's a good idea. When you were talking talking about the um your goal is to have a green space 2 miles from is that what you said? Two, five miles, whatever. 10

[4:31:43] minute walk. 10-minute walk. Whose goal is that? It it's a national standard. I mean, the council hasn't formally adopted that as a but as a professional parks recreation person, it it it is a professional standard, but the city can choose to develop how it wants to develop. I think that this I I do have a many many many more questions and I I like what Rick said about having that in a different uh in this discussion in a different setting. My biggest problem is that we have over 80 green spaces. I was told a lot of those are not being utilized at all and why can't we sell those? Now that's a I've been trying to get that information so that we can pursue that. The um the other thing is the the the homebuilders have just stopped. They have dug their heels in because when you try to make them be uh responsible for the for the detention ponds, for the the curbing, all this different stuff that adds to the cost of any of the houses and stuff around. It's going to it I don't know. I'm not as big a fan as is as of the park part until someone can make me real understand where it is um financially beneficial. And I'm not being critical. I just of you or any of this. I just I need a lot more information, a lot to if what our goals are since we've not you've brought this, you know, this up like the national standard goal and what have you and we've not ruled on any of it. So, that is a that's the perfect time to bring to talk through all this at that um that other meeting that Rick was talking about. I don't think it is a financial deal. It's more a quality of life. Yeah.

[4:33:47] But but you know it costs money to to have there's a cost there's a cost to it. In this case it goes through the developer to the purchaser. Exactly. And that's um you know I love Metacree Park uh by our house in Southland but I'm not going to if it quit being a park I'm not going to move because of that. And I don't let my kid my grandkids walk from our house over there anyway. I mean, there's I don't know. I I I'm call me a Scrooge. I'm just I need to be sold on this. I understand. And in in terms of the 80 properties, I can show you the list. There's a list of about 33 parks. Then there's sports complexes that then there's a list of about 40 parcels like medians, triangles, unnamed parks. These aren't parks. I'm talking about green spaces. Most of those are parcels. They're just like medians of triangles. Carl on uh the one that's kind of close to my area. It's in between the two north two orange circles on the far north side. It is a there is a city building there. Which location? Um so on your map it's between your two orange circles up here that are identified as need. It's um it looks like maybe it's labeled as a neighborhood park service. It's the one green spot. It's there's a city building there. It's I think it's a gym. Uh there's some old tennis courts. It's the north side. I don't know what you think about off of Maglin. That Magglin. It used to be a I think it's this spot here. What was that? Okay. It used to be part of a Boys and Girls Club. I'm curious why that's just that's an open space. That was Lake View Park. It's not a park anymore. Uh it was downgraded to open space during I say the recession 2008 2009. was one of five locations that were downgraded from park to open space. Um, it still has some elements there. We had start we had started to remove

[4:35:51] some of those elements and a previous mayor from before told us to stop. So that's why those elements haven't been removed and that's why those two circles. I'm sorry. What? It seems like it would almost take away those two circles if that was re put back into service. It could it could it could cover part of that in the middle of that circle right there. There's going back to the property you're talking about. There is an issue with that property. It's lower than the grade. It's it's basically the storm water plan for that area. It fills with water with the 2-in rain and so it's not really good place to put really a park or a recreation center. But in the center of this circle right above there is the old Lincoln Junior High site and that's one of the properties we've been talking with the school district about acquiring somewhere part of that just acquire and then at some point in the future develop it as a park like a neighborhood park and then I want to be talking some time so this could be a further discussion but my um biggest worry or or thing about our parks is we spend a lot of money on the Bell Street complex and I think it is highly underutilized. Agree. What would it take to get that more utilized, more tournaments in town, more revenue coming to our city from outside the city instead of taxpayer funded? What would it take to get that done? That's a good discussion to have. That's not a short answer. I mean, that's what I'm just Yeah, you're going to deserve an hourong conversation with them and I would suggest that for these questions to keep us on task, try to get that 230 spot. But no, they they bring us up. The parkland needs to be addressed. The drainage needs the storm water needs to be. There's several parts here that that are hot buttons that we need to go forward. But Patrick, to get you the time we need, we can't we can't do it 10 minutes. So, it needs to be a 45minut discussion or an hour somewhere. Thanks for your willingness to to do that. I'm not trying to be combative. I just I got I got a lot to learn, but I also am very

[4:37:56] frugal. Carl, good presentation. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you, Carl. Thanks, Carl. Up next is Laura Lai and with communications, formerly known as public information, but [Music] Hey guys, best for last. You can be quicker. You can be quicker. Yeah. 2 2:00 4 minutes. I'm just kidding. I will be very as quick as I can. Okay. So, I am Laura Day. I'm the deputy communications director. We are formerly the public information office. We've changed our name to the communications department a couple years ago. I don't know. Am I echoing? Am I echoing to y'all? I'm good. Okay. Good. Sorry. I'm cognizant of sound. Um so our mission is uh to basically communicate interesting impactful uh important information both to the citizens and employees of San Angelo. Um we do this by um through marketing educational efforts and that's internal and thank you internal and external but primarily we we communicate uh internal information to the public external um our primary responsibilities and that's Brian Groves and myself uh media relations press release coordination I can go through this whole list, but social media, that's our Facebook page. We used to do Twitter, aka X. Um, we

[4:40:00] don't do that anymore. We didn't find it valuable. Uh, we didn't delete the page, but we have our automatic um emergency alerts going there, but it was kind of just tedious and not um I'm hearing that go not valuable. So, uh, we do the website updates, of course, our new website, sanangelo.gov. Uh, this includes the full redesign for ADA compliance. Um, internal external communications. So, the internal communications, that's sending emails to to uh all city employees. We do uh the videos like city select highlighting uh just employees who uh I think uh director select and we sorry I'm a little brain dead right now. Um but we like to send those out quarterly I think or maybe every month. We were doing it for a while but um things like that and then um video production that goes along with that. Graphic design can entail anything. Um new hiring graphics those are we aim for quarterly but it's triggered by um by amount of a certain amount of hiring. So if we have I think it's about at least five we require and then we push it out on social media. um public education campaigns. Of course, those are going to be um on our TV channel, which is SATV Optimum channel 17, and that goes to our YouTube channel as well. Emergency Communications is also any questions there. Heather, any questions? um our strengths. Brian and I are our large team.

[4:42:06] Oh, I'm sorry. Um so Brian and I, we both kind of have our our talents. Um I am the writer primarily. Brian is the the video guy. [Music] Uh that being said, we both do a lot of different things. We handle audio and photography, graphic design, social media, all those things, web, web content, web management, social media. Um, we also have a broad community reach through social media. Uh Tom, you were saying earlier that something about social media not being our or we don't need to rely on that as our people don't need to rely on those to make them subscribe to like and Patrick pointed that out. There's two different trains of thought there. I'm not responsible nor should the city be responsible for somebody coming to our page. And what I wonder sometimes while we look at that as our way to convey information, it's not the only way to convey information. And and I sometimes lots of times hear people say, "Well, I didn't see that. You didn't." I'm like, "You know what? We put it on Facebook 87 times. There's other ways to get it. We can't be responsible for social media content. We can put out everything we want. We are not responsible for it." I got you. Okay. Um well, just to give a little bit of content context, um we have about just a little over 40,000 likes on our social media page or on our Facebook page. Um that's kind of what we call a vanity metric. It doesn't really matter that much because just last month we had about um 80,000 people reached from our content. That's you could dive into how they're seeing our things. you know, Susie shares this, Sally saw it cuz she knows her boyfriend, sisters, cousins, mom, whatever. So, um, our website, on the

[4:44:11] other hand, reached about 46,000 people last month. Um, we haven't really stopped and analyzed that right now just cuz we're kind of swamped. So, uh, but that's still pretty good. Another strength, we've got consistent visual and textual branding. And what I mean by this, whenever we put our messaging out, you see our logo, you see our image imagery. Um, just the messaging, it's consistent or we try to keep it consistent. We try to keep it sounding like it's from one person, you know, not somebody with multiple personalities. Um, careful there. Yeah, I mean, that's fine, too. Um, no offense to anybody who has that. Um, so we believe that's a strength. Um, moving on to weaknesses, limited staffing of course is going to be a weakness and then a lack of crossrain personnel which could support us. Um, and that's going to that's going to take some time to to be able to do that. And then reliance on outdated tools. While we do have plenty of updated tools in this world that we are in there, it's like you get a whole new system and then like Bucky said, uh you get today's new camera, tomorrow it's old. So, um unfortunately, and we're thankful for what we do have, but um so some of that is it's just hard. It's just a hard to be in the technology world and rely on things like that. But then some of the things like a lack of software. There's so many things out there that you see other municipalities have like like texting systems. Um there's something called text mygov that's pretty cool and they can alert you like it's like a chatbot but it's for um I can't remember. Oh, I felt like I was ringing.

[4:46:18] Okay. Sorry. Sorry, guys. Um, it's like a chat bot, but it can text you. Um, like if there's a street closure or something, it'll text you. It's kind of like Nixel, too. So, like water and emergency notifications, of course, there's things like that. So, we don't have that, and that would I think that's kind of a weakness, but it's it also costs um money. And then we can lean a bit reactive over proactive. And that's something with that goes back to limited staffing. So for example, our pool closing. There's also things you just can't anticipate. How do you check in on the pool every day? like, "Hey, do you think you're going to be closing anytime soon for chemicals or I I don't know exactly the the latest issue, but um we are often reactive and we'd love to be proactive, but we we can't please people." Correct. Can't please them all. Correct. Hold on one moment, Laura. Everyone, if you have your microphone on, would you turn them off? Other than Yeah, I keep hearing this. I even know it was on. got turn. Thank you. Um, so for opportunities when we have downtime, Brian always takes that opportunity to uh work on video content and increase our channel uh content. So for storytelling engagement um Thank you. I can't do more than one thing at once right now. Um, transparency through live streaming, digital dashboards. What I mean by digital dashboards is uh like project tracking, public input, road repairs, things like that. That would be something to look into. I I don't know specifics right now. It would be something to work with on other departments like the water department, uh, development services.

[4:48:22] Um, yeah, there's a ton of software out there that we could potentially utilize. And then we know that we're growing, so we can always reach new people, new audience and businesses. The threads, as we've seen, there's misinformation all the time, especially on social media. And from that, we have limited control over things like that. And not just from social media, but from, you know, from Tom going to tell Patrick something. I can't control that. Or somebody else telling somebody else something. Uh, and then the budget limitations affecting our staffing and tools. Tools being software. Uh, and then the reach. So questions there. [Music] Y'all are easy. I was just kidding when I said don't ask me questions. Okay. Uh, our one-year goal, we have pretty much um achieved a good amount of this. So, the Department of Justice has um Can Yes. I'm sorry. I told you. Uh the Department of Justice has set for this is not just St. Angelo. This is all of America. America. Um Angela, she's my emotional support coworker. Um she's for 88 things. Um, so by 2026, all of America has to be in uh compliance for for ADA standards. So that's why we got our new website, sanangelo.gov.

[4:50:24] Um, and basically our biggest uh thing that we're going to have to overcome right now and we're kind of we're working to think how we are going to have uh overcome it right now is the PDS and documents. So you can't just it's more than just me learning how to update a document to make it uh ADA compliant. it's it's likely using a company to like we would have to pay them to update every single document on our website. So probably the answer is cleaning up the documents on our website and and then paying for those doc the existing documents the necessary documents to be updated to uh the DOJ standards and ADA compliant. So that's we have until June, next June, we have a year. So not only do we want to get there, we have to get there. I think it's a f I don't know the fine, but there is a fine and and we want to be there anyway. it. So, but this will be a good thing anyway because we have so many documents on our website that people our departments look at them and they're like we don't even know that we have these on here. What is this? This is from 19 this is from the 1900s. I don't know. Um so this is a good thing. Um the required resources on this IT collaboration it's going to be minimal. we we might need them. They typically do not really touch the website, but in case it's just a in case um the budget, we don't need the budget for launch promotion cuz our website already launched. So, ignore that. But we will potentially need the budget for training our staff and access for accessibility

[4:52:28] training. I just don't know yet what that is, but stay tuned. Um, and that's also going to be so me and Hannah Murell and then just Hannah and me. Okay, sorry this is new. Uh, we are going to be ADA coordinate coordinators with alongside Angela. So, we're going to have the knowledge. We're going to be trained, certified like Teresa was, and that'll be a good uh tool for each of our departments to have and that um we're working on that. It's just a process. Um ongoing CMS technical support, that's just through our website and they are great about that. I don't think I need to elaborate too much on that, but are there any more questions about our one-year? I just I'll be quick on this. Can AI do that? I know it can summarize so many things like the the PDFs and and and I'm I'm sitt here googling if I know AI I can actually build a website but can it do since that information is already there can it for lack of a term convert that to to make it ADA compliant? I don't think so. Not to my knowledge because it's like creating tags going in there and I I don't know what all it entails but it's pretty tedious. Um, unless you know, Angela, not that I'm aware. I wouldn't see how it could do it cuz it's it seems like it's a manual thing, but we can certainly look into it. Okay. Our three-year goal. Um, so the bottom line here, make things more efficient. Um

[4:54:30] we have already implemented a system where we're asking employees, internal employees to use a um communication service request form and this is just to streamline things. So uh it makes it more transparent. There's just multiple benefits, but there's paper trails of things. So, if people make requests like we'd like a social media post for date night, I'm just using an example, but um they give us all the information. It's all right there. Um we we've got all that to reference. So, this is something that's just an example again, but um we'd like to do this for video requests for um for our PR requests, too. So that's just again I think we started this it hasn't been a year but we'll we'll get it. It's new. There's a learning curve. There's growing pains but we'll we will get there. Um we would love to have additional communication staff. That's going to require the budget but um I know we will start probably with some graphic design interns. Um, and after that hopefully we can get a full-time employee, full-time graphic designer. I think after we have some interns, then we can see the need for that and go from there. Um, perhaps an additional videographer or video production assistant. Um, we'll we'll talk about that later on. and Brian might have more input on the the video need um we'll need budget for that of course for for tools licensing I don't know what the licensing is and then support from

[4:56:33] all of you all out um but we do need people to to utilize the form that we the service request form. That's about it. That one's just making us more efficient and organized. Any questions? [Music] There's one more slide. I just I'm on my three. So, yes. Do you see things within other departments of other cities of similar size that we don't have that are obvious that are things that you think will be easy grasp of us? You know, not a deep reach that's deep into a budget. Those are the things we need to look at to put us in, you know, comparable space to communicate to get your what headwinds are you seeing that aren't too expensive that might be within grass. So, those are the things we're going to we've said it time and time again. We're going to ask do more with less, you know, and we're trying we hear you talking about people we get it through. Are there things that you think are just obvious we don't have? Uh, yes. So, I think we are the only department I can think of, the only communications department our size that is two. Most people have I know Round Rock, they're a little bit bigger, but they have like they've got like nine. Uh, Odessa has a few. Everybody has a few. Um, of course the pay is higher, the pay grade is higher. I know that pay is something that we're looking at citywide, but if you look at where they are at and the gap of from like for example from deputy to director, it's about just in Texas in about 100,000 size city, it's 15 to 30%.

[4:58:38] we are not within that. Um so I think that that would be something worth looking at especially if you want to talk about succession if you want to keep your employees. Um that's something uh that as far as like software uh I I think the the new website was absolutely needed and that was a great start. So, um, we've implemented Silk Tide, which is our our website scanner. It scans for ADA issues, for all sorts of issues. It does analytics on just the whole website. But, um, so we've done some some things that I think have silk tied. Mhm. It's it's very interesting. And I think that that was a big one. So, we have done some things, but there's there's like emergency alerts and I think we need to work with some other departments and if Brian were here, he could tell you a little bit more about about that. But, um, what is it called? Code red. Like whenever people instead of just Nixl, whenever people they're they opt in. I don't think they have to opt in. I don't know. Um, but they it's just more up to date. I wish I had notes, but uh I don't. If you if you had to pick one, say there was 35,000 in the budget, would you rather it go to raises for y'all and the rest software or would you rather have an extra person to make your life better? I would rather have raises for us because I think that you want to show that you value your current employees and then we will go from there. You don't want to spread too thin. I

[5:00:41] think okay any other or are we ready for five? Last one. Last one. Okay. Okay. So, this one transform us into a fully staffed. So, whenever I say fully staffed, I would envision that being a graphic designer, that's just a huge a huge wish list for us. Like, it's top of the list. So, a graphic designer, communications director, deputy director, videographer, um, and then probably an admin assistant to handle those calls. And then maybe you can call us public information again if you want. I'm just kidding. Don't. But, um, that's kind of the bottom line of that one. Um what we would need for that is uh sorry I'm reviewing this again. Okay. So basically in 5 years if we have all of this, if we have more employees, then we would be able to kind of revamp our social media and have more graphics put out, have that graphic designer, we would all be able to work together more. So a stronger in-house creative team, we would all be able to work together and have more content put out ultimately. So more budget for software tools and we would kind of maintain what we would have but um the more staff we would have I think the more the more we could and would use more software and tools. And I know that's kind of a confusing statement but um think what time is it? 2:30. It's past

[5:02:49] my bedtime. Um but cross department departmental cooperation we need everybody to work with us and um like if we implement programs that I'm that I referenced before um code red that is that um emergency alert the public safety the fire department police department we would just need or water department um alert systems so speaks for itself I think um okay leave out consultant support I don't know why I put that I don't want consultant support for the branding initiative um branding initi initiative so we could do perhaps um a logo redesign something like that um but I don't want consultant support so that's not really a resource um and then as far as data and survey resources that's think like community satisfaction surveys. Um, and this is where we would pay. This is like our silk tide where we pay for the ADA scans for the web scans. And that's just just for so y'all know that's like we pay for that per year and that's $6 to $7,000. I'm not sure the exact amount, but um that is an annual um contract we renew. That's all I have. I don't have any further questions. I think we see where we all have some shortage. And mayor, I do want to point out that both Brian and Laura U mentioned several times doing more with less. Uh definitely an objective that that we'd have, but they've definitely done more with less. It's an award-winning department. It seemed like every year you'all win state awards, you know, for the work that you do. So outstanding on that. So, thank you. and great pres. Thank you for the

[5:04:50] presentation as well. Thank you. All right, we're done. I think mayor, at this point, it seems like we covered the questions as we went along, just like yesterday. So, we're we're good now. So, the next time we come back be Monday morning at 8:30. Everybody 8:30. Thank you, man. Thank you.

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=24fndC05nss