Emergency City Council Meeting - February 19, 2021 LIVE stream

[0:00:00] you hear me now can hear your name morning tom ariel tom if i get a bad echo y'all let me know this is coming through my tv to my speaker i'll just meet out hi tom okay we are live on youtube are we ready to go we're ready all right i am calling this um meeting to order it is 8 32 a.m on the 19th of uh february for this emergency meeting uh verdi by audio video broadcast it is february the 19th it is 8 30 3 a.m and we will start with our agenda item which is the emergency provision notice in accordance with the texas government code section 551.045 this is an emergency meeting of the city council declaring an emergency urgent public necessity for the purpose of considering the following emergency agenda items we did not receive any public comments so there will be none read into the record the emergency agenda item a is update on the status of the san angelo water system and we have allison struby here today to present that good morning mayor and council [Music] since the last press conference held last friday february 12th the utility has been through catastrophic impacts to our operation while it provides me very little comfort or ease through this process we are not alone in facing water issues it has been stated that over 12 million texans are facing supply and or bull water notice issues due to the weather

[0:02:01] and electrical issues this past week as we provided updates to the pauline area issues we ended last week with massive amounts of water being flushed from the system specifically in that area our crews began executing a flushing plan late last wednesday february 10th these crews worked around the clock flushing over 90 hydrants in the affected area this flushing ended around 4 a.m saturday morning that same saturday morning we began taking samples throughout the pauline area in the do not consume area with the weather deteriorating as it did we were unable to get those samples to the lab until after we had already issued a city-wide bowl water notice on tuesday due to a pressure loss in the entire system sample results were received this past wednesday and forwarded on to tceq all samples were clean but at the time of receiving those results our system was not pressurized enough or stable enough to discuss the restriction restriction lifting which is with tceq the city has requested a discussion with tcq later today to further reduce the restrictions for this area we will provide an update to the public soon after those discussions occur when it comes to the events that happened with the contaminants in the water of the pauline area it's been discussed or rumored that this was an intentional or malicious attack on our water supply we have found no evidence to confirm or support that these chemicals are common in a multitude of commercial industries from car truck repair to agricultural businesses all of these type of industries are present in the do not use restriction area today late last week we had the assistance of mcallen city employees performing customer service inspection on these facilities unfortunately due to the storm they had to go back to mcallen before the road conditions deteriorated

[0:04:03] but while they were here they were able to go to many of these facilities for inspections the result of those inspections did not provide solid confirmation of the source with the declaration that you are extending today we will be able to continue to receive assistance from customer service inspectors available across the state to continue those inspections that will hopefully result in a confirmation of the source of chemicals while we are taking all the steps we can to identify the source of last week's contamination we will also be taking steps to prevent future events from occurring these steps include implementing a more rigorous backflow or cross connection program continued inspection of customer facilities to ensure water system is protected and continuing to ensure backflow assemblies are meeting their annual testing requirements while we have been asked if there will be criminal charges filed against those responsible for the spill the city's attorney office is reviewing all options available both civilly and criminally however future actions taken will be determined whether we can clearly identify the source that update brings us to this bitter cold week on tuesday a city-wide bowl water notice was issued this notice was issued due to the loss of pressure and ultimately the loss of water to large portions of our distribution system as i discussed a moment ago we went into this winter storm event with a massive flushing plan being executed we were able to maintain deliveries for the first few days despite losing power at our river pump station and tank pumping stations because we had backup generators to utilize when those systems went down we did lose the ability to pump water from the hickory due to power outages on that system but our river pumps were able to keep up with demands currently our surface water source is the concho river

[0:06:04] as supplied by lake nasworthy and twin buttes ohiv system has been down since mid-october while crmwd re-coats the distribution system tanks that feed water to their customers with us being one of those customers on tuesday the battles we were facing were many but they included freezing lines that wouldn't allow for pumps to start pump control cabinets at the pump stations that were completely frozen a frozen fill valve and ultimately the last straw to affect the system were the leaks that have been numerous as the freezing weather continued to stay in san angelo we have been working continuously to re-establish the pressures in our system ever since the loss it's been a very slow process but we're making slight improvements every day on wednesday plant pressures are around 40 to 50 psi when the normal is above 80 to 90. thursday those pressures improve to 70 and 80 psi and we even started to see some volume make it into the lakeview and loop tank storage facilities last night we were able to see those tank levels increase and even start to be able to bleed water pressure into parts of the high plane for reference our southwest tank is 9.4 million gallons abilene is 3.5 million gallons our loop elevated tank is 1 million gallons lakeview elevated tank is 1.25 million gallons and ultimately the bluffs tank is another 2 million gallons currently when i left the plant this morning we had water both in the loop in lakeview elevated tanks and some in the southwest we have yet to start filling the bluffs or abilene tank our flow rate of deliveries yesterday was approximately 21.5 mgd this is typically a flow rate we see in the peak summer heat and even then sometimes we don't see that type of flow rate we have seen a lot of questions asking why the city can't simply shut off water to the low plane and fill the high plain in theory that's a great idea but that's

[0:08:08] not how our system works the water treatment plant supplies pressure to the majority of the low plane and although water does leave the treatment plant through large mains that feed to tanks there are many feeds off those bigger lines that feed the low plain the low plane must be full and pressurized before water can make it to the tanks that feed to the high plain the tanks and additional pumping systems throughout the system feed the full pressure to the hot plane we are asking and at this point i personally am begging customers to conserve and be responsible water users use it for life-sustaining purposes only which include flushing of toilets and boiling water for consumption the less demand we have on the system the more water we can be dedicating to filling tanks city-wide re-pressurizing and ultimately rescinding the bold water notice it will take everyone's assistance to get through this i want to also make sure everyone is aware that we're not just asking this of customers in the low plane and we're not just asking this right now we will be able to send more water into the high plain and we'll be asking those customers to do the same thing it will take large amounts of water to completely fill our high plain distribution lines rega and regain pressure in those areas and we'll be right back to refilling tanks as we are now until pressure is regained city wide and tanks are returned we'll be asking for this conservative use of water the bull water notice will be in effect until we can get tanks filled system repressurized and then sampling can begin as we've experienced before these samples take at least 18 hours to run and we will be collecting a large number due to the massive dewatering of the system so it will take time to rescind the bold water notice i also think it's important to set the expectation and to warn citizens that as temperatures increase and we begin to thaw out we will see more main breaks

[0:10:09] and likely additional leaks on the customer's side these past couple weeks have been painstakingly hard i want to thank our customers for working through these difficult events with us and i know we will get through this i'll be happy to answer any questions that y'all may have allison would you once again talk through the issue of the low plane versus the high plane because many people still believe that the low plane area is consuming too much water preventing the high plane from receiving the water they need it there um i believe that we need our customers to be as responsible as possible because yes the the usage in our low plane will dictate how much water makes it to the high plain at this point um but last night and after a lot of the messaging i believe we had on our social media accounts last night and the news that we've been putting out we did see those elevated tanks be able to regain some volume and we were ultimately able to feed some amount of water into the high plain and so i think that the urge or the you know the outcry that at least i'm begging of our customers to conserve water i believe we're seeing it at this point um and we are able to see those tanks start to fill does council have any questions for allison i have one mayor go ahead billy all right allison first of all i just want to commend you and your staff for the tremendous job that y'all have done and you know working through all of this these were unforeseen circumstances and we just appreciate so much the kind of around the clock work you've done and one of these days you and i will have a chance to laugh about me asking about whether my husband should go to dental appointment i know it's not now the time to do that but um could you just allison reiterate um kind of on what the mayor was asking about

[0:12:12] you know the the low plane area versus the high plane area could you um share again how the system works that the low plane has to reach a certain pressure before anything can flow into the high plane would you just reiterate what you said about that yes ma'am um it's so much more easy to explain this with visuals or to show you on a board but ultimately there are very large transmission mains that leave our water treatment plant those provide the pressure to the low plane there are feeds off those lines that go throughout neighborhoods in the downtown area of san angelo and all the way up to the north and south ends of of the system those are the mains that are ultimately also feeding water into the tanks themselves but as there's more pull off all those distribution lines it leaves less water at the very end of that system to make it into the tank we don't have a way to just turn off the water to the low plane and dedicate it strictly to the high plain that's just not how our system was built throughout time um and so it's just the nature of the distribution lines that we have to have full pressure in the low plane to be able to reach the extents of the high plane thank you i don't know if this is the appropriate time but i have received emails from people who say that they are seeing a lot of people in car washes and the laundromats are packed with people can we just talk through that a bit i'm i can't imagine people are taking their cars through a car wash but i've been told that that's happening is there anything that we can put out there for the public to please restrict car washing and um as a as a step to help conserve water and get the tanks full mary that

[0:14:17] was the same question that i had thank you so i guess what we're saying go ahead allison i guess i can't speak to if we can shut them down or not but all i can say is you know we are putting out that message and o'brien's you know putting that out on facebook as much as possible that the essential or the life-sustaining purposes of water right at this point are flushing of toilets and boiling water for consumption but as far as those businesses i i can't speak to that part we can't do the declaration much like we did you know during the early covet stuff we can issue um some orders to restrict their ability to operate for a period of time if that's something council wishes to do tommy what were you going to say or ask look i i want to be even more specific allison when we're talking life sustaining i know people love to to to bathe if they haven't bathed in three or four or five days i assume so that it can be clear for the public i assume we are even requesting folks to conserve water to avoid bathing themselves and their children until such time that we get the system back up to pressure so that then everyone can can take care of of of that need is that an accurate statement through a question yes sir i believe that is correct we are um obviously we want people to be sanitary and hygienic but we're asking people to not go you know go don't go soak in a 30 minute hot water steaming shower as well so if you need to rinse off real quick or those type of things i think that is sufficient but we're trying to minimize that usage as much as possible

[0:16:19] and make sure it's to you know to serve the purpose of getting clean and then moving on with turning that water off well i think the key thing is quick showers not long showers i've been telling everybody to like the scenario if you're bathing in a uh in a camper you want to turn the water off shampoo your hair turn it back on rinse it off real quick that's as best as i could do to tell people how to shower if they need to get in and out is that is that a correct scenario allison i think that would be a conservative use of water if you were turning off the water while you know you put shampoo in your hair and those type of things because are there questions or comments from anyone else on council before we move forward lucy you're on you okay so let me ask do i need you lucy lucy well go ahead tom yes lucy yes i just wanted to ask uh alice and alison again thank you so much for your hard work and your crew and all the city staff uh my question is can you tell us again allison when are we to receive those samples for the plan edition we have received the samples and they were clean but we have sent those to tceq and so we are hoping to have that discussion with them later today on what restrictions we can start lifting from the pauline area okay thank you so much tom alexander got a question for you i'm going to kind of explain it so if we look at our water system we're almost like an upside down wedding cake all right as it feels and then it worked its way up correct would that be a way to categorize it i got somebody don't understand that if we don't conserve water how long is it going to take us in your

[0:18:22] estimate before we get to a point where we can come off of water boil is that five days seven days if we don't and if we do can we possibly cut a supply down to maybe get those tanks full in two days i think with the headway that we made last night if we can have another night like that nighttime is when we can make up a lot of uh ground when everybody's asleep and not using water um and so i think if we can repeat last night again tonight i think that we will get a lot closer to having better pressure in the high plain and at that point we could start pulling samples possibly tomorrow if not sunday so maybe we can look at rescinding the bull water notice either monday or tuesday all right but the message is quit using water shut down as best you can emergency you don't yes sir okay another quick question allison did i understand you as you were going through the chronology of what tanks would be filled that the bluffs tank will be the last tank to be filled yes so our bluffs tank does not have a dedicated transmission made to it from our treatment plant that facility feels from our abilene and loop tank facilities or sorry i misquoted southwest and abilene fill the bluffs tank so we've got to have water in those two ground storage facilities to fill to the high plain or to the blood tank okay daniel you wanted to make a comment yes ma'am i just want to stress something that allison said a while ago it's really important to really put it out there she had mentioned 12 million customers without uh actually under the well water notice across texas i read a report this morning that that number has gone up to 13 13 million customers that's half of texas residents that are on a boil water notice

[0:20:24] and the reason i bring that up right now and that's actually over 700 water systems that have been impacted across the state of texas the reason i bring that up it's imperative for us to really work together to conserve that water so that we can actually get our tests done and get the uh the boil water rescinded and notice we send it that has to go through tceq if you have that many water systems that are under the boil water notice they're going to have a tremendous backlog you know so we want to make sure that we can get our testing in ahead of other other water systems that are having the same issue so that we can rescind ours as soon as possible so again i just wanted to say that so we can stress to our citizens to help us out at this point so that we can get our testing done and get that to tceq as soon as possible mayor tommy yes tommy brian um you have done an excellent job too with the public information um if you can just keep emphasizing to the the folks that follow us on facebook and twitter and other social media to conserve water as much as they possibly can i think that message still needs to be repeated as often as possible so that people that keeps it at top of mind for them maybe it might stop them from doing something that they would otherwise normally do they don't need to conserve quite as much water so good good job on what you've done and keep it up yes sir thank you hello i'll give a i'll give a shout out now that everybody has power that our partners in the media have done a tremendous job in getting the word out and we could not do this without them so thank you to all of our media partners well i want to say the following and that is is that there are folks who live in the dellwood area of the area off of south chadburn and old cristobal road as well as the metcalf area they received power last night around nine o'clock which is the first time they've had many of them not all of them but many of them since sunday 2 a.m or basically monday 2 a.m so those folks

[0:22:30] haven't had water haven't had power for five days almost six days so let's also conserve so that they can finally take a bath and finally take care of themselves because they have not had the opportunity for many days they have carried the blunt of this power outage they cried yesterday to bring him up it kept going down finally at 9 00 p.m last night they were able to split some lines reduce the load and finally get those folks power that stayed on for several hours so that neighborhood has really paid a huge price for all of this winter storm so um i just thank them for being patient they've really gone through a lot uh mayor um yes i just have a question for you and our daniel um you know on social media at least that that i was looking at i didn't see where aep was partnering with the city in getting communication out about the specifics of what was happening and why we couldn't get power and i'm just wondering did we have an aep partner in this we may have i'll answer that yes we do we have our representative in our area his name is blake for sharks and i know the mayor and i were in constant contact with him but again we were wanting to get more pressure releases uh and i think at this point especially with uh aep they're waiting for ward back from ercod as far as what uh how much power could be released into the system so i think there was a communication issue there because we would really appreciated more uh press releases coming from them so we knew exactly what we could anticipate a lot of the calls that i made to to uh blake and i'm sure the mayor as well we were hearing the same thing is that we were they were not getting the authority yet to release the power uh to

[0:24:34] our area and er caught you know is under fire for that i know that we had uh the mayor worked very diligently with all our state and federal elected officials to put pressure on aep uh to not just ap but ercod also to get that electricity back to our area but again that's what we kept hearing and really what we needed was better pressure releases i think more layman's terms to really explain to our citizens exactly what was going on there so again on our part we're hearing the same thing and there wasn't much to report back from from blake as far as what he was hearing from urquhart or not hearing from merton right and i understand that daniel but it would have been nice if the community as a whole could have heard some of that and not just you and to the to the mayor because you know the citizens of san angelo hold the city leadership accountable and it would have been nice if they had been on you know social media and at press conferences letting folks know the specifics of what was going on is you know just my concern that we didn't see or hear from them as much as i think we should have and i understand that they were under the authority of ercot but you know they're our local representatives and i just think they should have been out there more with with you and with the mayor partnering on this i think that and i can say this too i know that even with aep um there's always this this concern about throwing a certain group under the bus especially at her class so i think that uh there's probably uh some concern as far as sharing certain information uh maybe pointing i'm just conjecturing here you know as far as pointing the finger at earthquake and saying hey we're just not giving that authority uh i don't know you're right billy i think that's something definitely that uh blake or aap uh should have come out and and done a little bit more presenting on that uh because we really didn't get that presenting uh portion of it so again uh that's lessons learned as well and in the future of course just push to ensure that that

[0:26:35] organization really is out there doing everything they can to get information out to our citizens i think that the other issue that complicated it all as you are very much aware is even the klsd and ksan's power went down foster communications lost power so many people in the city didn't have power so even though um we might have had limited information getting it out to the public with reduced media options was very difficult aep was reluctant to put some of the information out there because the minute they put it out there earcot pulled back the amount of power that they were giving them so if they said we are going to be able to put i'll make up a number 30 000 more people with power today and then all of a sudden earcot pulled back that power one hour later then that went down to a thousand people so it was the unreliability of the information given because at any point what was said changed hourly and so it was hard to put out a press release with solid information because solid information did not exist mayor and i do want to point out that of course every single press release we did receive brian groves was on top of that and he did put it out to the media so again those press releases released by aep uh our public information officer was really quick to put that information out there as well mayor let me yes tommy nobody has said anything to shane shane's sitting here in this meeting too like and we're it's like we're looking looking beyond shane i want to personally thank you and every one of your operations people i know many of you including yourself allison u2 brian you may have been a part of this too but i know there were a lot of people that didn't go to bed

[0:28:36] tuesday night because they were outside in the cold weather looking for water leaks and the rest of us were in bed undercovers if we didn't have power um shane thank you to you thank you to all your staff allison thank you to you and all your staff brian to you and lorelei for the getting the information out and daniel please relay i'm going to speak for the council here please relate to all city staff for what they've put up with really for the last year through this covid um and now through the last two weeks of an unprecedented situation we use that word but people put their lives on hold when they when they i'm talking about our employees they put their lives on hold um to deal with these sorts of things so i think we we say thank you i don't know how we show that appreciation other than saying thank you but i say thank you i have had two or three constituents this morning text me while we're sitting here in this meeting saying thank you um to the city employees for all that they have done specifically the last couple of weeks through this this tough water situation from paul and then to the the the low pressure the no water so thank you to everyone shane your guys and you need as much recognition as as everybody else so thank you shane i think it goes without saying that all of council supports the comments that tommy just made it doesn't help sometimes to know that that many other communities are going through the very same thing that we are going through but we have not been unique in going through the pain of the power and water issues that with that said obviously we live in san angelo and it is the quality of life our citizens expect from us as a city but it must also be

[0:30:39] said that this city has gone to every possible level of work work ethic to try to deliver the services that people expect from our city it has been a lot of lessons learned a lot of pain a lot of anger as we all know many situations of are our inability to impact the decisions for example on power the city does not have the power to turn on or turn off electricity and i know that through this process many people believe that we i the mayor daniel allison shane whoever had the authority and the ability to turn the power on just didn't do it we are that is out of our control the one thing we do have is obviously our ability to communicate to the public what is going on as much information as we possibly have and certainly there was a lack of information so we ask that you continue to allow us to get as much information as we can get it out as quick as we can with everyone having power today i think that we have the ability to get out the information at a better level than we've been able to but not having tv stations and radio stations to help us in the communication we can do all we want on social media if you don't have power at your house it doesn't matter what we're putting on social media so um the most that we had is really neighbors helping neighbors family helping neighbors uh many people talked about my neighbor across the street has power i don't this is when we all have to you know lend a hand and help our neighbors and our family and the elderly we as a community have to help the community and that i know that's people are going to criticize that comment but it's truly what we are as a city

[0:32:41] it's a city full of citizens neighbors family and friends and we continue to lean on you and ask for you to help us in the communication and the support that all of our citizens need lucy i just wanted to make a short comment on behalf of the pauline residents they were so grateful to the city for going out there and delivering the water for them to drink we are so grateful to the city and they kept on sending us messages telling us thank you thank you thank you because this was done in the middle of the afternoon when it was pretty cold and the city truck was going down the street of every uh road in the pauline district so um on behalf of the pauline residents thank you very much shane and his crew all right go ahead daniel it's just one other thing mayor i know that there's a lot of moving parts and uh there's much going on behind the scenes a lot of people really don't see uh thank you for all of you all to for expressing your gratitude to allison and shane and the crews and the tremendous work that they put forth you know to get everything up and going it's still a work in progress you know but we still had of course our civic events guys carl sid and steve that worked there you know behind off to make sure that we had a the warming shelters in place uh to make sure that we had a place for citizens to come in and not just get out of the the cold but also to be fed uh have someone to talk to uh i think they did a tremendous job as well uh police and fire you know just keeping people safe on the streets as well we just did a wonderful job they're just a it was a an all-out effort and again my gratitude to all the staff i it would take forever really i don't have much time to thank every single person individually but we are absolutely grateful mayor harry thomas yes just quickly uh i think everything's been said uh tommy you did a great job of reiterating exactly what i was thinking i had the opportunity uh on wednesday there was a crew out

[0:34:44] here working on water leak right beside my house in the street and they were finishing up the job and i visited with them and thanked them for what they were doing i we we certainly have a tremendous group of city employees that are dedicated to uh to taking care of the citizens the one item and and i'll go back and say this and and billy said it earlier mayor you've said it the one item that i struggled with during this whole time phone calls emails of facebook all social media type stuff was the lack of information that we were getting from aep uh and and and the mayor you said it people think that we have the opportunity as city leaders to to flip a switch and you're going to get electricity we've got to do a better job of getting that information to the citizens and i really depend and i said this to blake uh on wednesday morning as i was driving around trying trying to stay warm in my car is we've got to find a way that they can do a better job of educating the citizens on what and what cannot be done in in in from their situation uh i i just think that once we get through this uh we should have blake and fred hernandez uh try to try to put something out uh hold some informational meetings or whatever the case may be uh because as we go through this and and try to reiterate secondhand to the citizens uh sometimes information is not i don't do maybe as good a job as it was coming from directly from from aep so i would encourage them to do that and try to educate some people ahead of time now this may be one once in a lifetime event uh hopefully it is but in the same token uh we're going to get through this in the

[0:36:48] next few days and i do appreciate everybody help on this so most citizens were supportive of the city the staff what what the mayor and the council was doing they just really had a tough understanding why aup couldn't do more so i think some education may be in in line so thank you all right uh julian got a question for allison real quick yes allison can you um one more time reiterate the the tank levels and what tanks fill up the other and kind of if you have those numbers in front of you on what percentages the down tanks are uh before we need to uh have enough to fill up the higher planes tank what tanks fill up the other one i'm getting messages about that can you reiterate that okay um we can operate the system in a multitude of ways but for right now we are filling the lake view and loop tank the loop tank is the the large one you see right off the loop it's elevated up in the air we are filling those two tanks first right now and then we will begin filling the abilene ground storage tank which is near abilene street and southwest ground storage which is back behind walmart and lowe's that is the largest ground storage facility we have once southwest and aveline are filled we can use those pumping stations that are at those two facilities to pump water into the bluffs tank which helps stabilize the entire pressure for the high plane i hope that answers your question thank you i will i will add we're going to put allison's statement out after all this is over to send everyone so all this information that she has said we're going to send out to everybody so those who haven't watched can read that that would be great player let me let me bring something up here my my both my personal cell phone and my city

[0:38:50] cell phone as we have been sitting here have just just lit up with people asking if we are going to do anything about the car washes and the washington's of are we going to ask are we just going to request that they can serve are we going to take some action on that again my both of my phones have just blown up here in the last 20 minutes with those two questions about car washes and uh washington's are we going to send uh you know maybe some of our code enforcement people around to visit with them first i mean what what's um what what what what what are we going to do here with those that may be super users well let's do two things first of all let's separate car washes from laundromats because i'm sure uh one is a necessity and one is would like to have a clean car there are people who haven't had water in their homes i don't know what their situation is relative to needing to wash clothes so i think we need to make sure we talk about those separately and deal with those on two separate issues we do mayor and we all we can address that i know that right now we're doing the updated status in the san angelo water system so we may be kind of going off of uh what we should be discussing but that's something that i can address with theresa james afterwards and uh do everything we can actually to get that ward out to those businesses that they need to be restricted so we'll work on that daniel i would say initially let's see if we can we can ask them let's say firmly but ask them to comply with conservation if they do not choose to comply after being asked once or twice um kindly i would say then maybe we have to restrict restrict them but let's see if we can get them to come into compliance with with requests first and then if other steps need to be taken we can take those steps

[0:40:52] whatever they need to be we'll do okay okay so um do i need to read the disaster declaration um you need to go go ahead julia uh if you'll just read uh if if everyone's discus um finished discussing the water system update we can go on to item b if you'll just read and then uh teresa's prepared to discuss that and then we can um have action on that okay so item b is consider reauthorizing and extending a disaster declaration related to water contamination in the paulin area and authorizing the city manager to execute all related documents for emergency purchases up to one hundred thousand dollars do i need to go ahead and read item c as well um you can if you want me to talk about both of them together or we can just do one at a time it's whatever you prefer i think i'll go ahead and um read item c as well and we'll talk about item b first but item c is consider a local disaster decoration for winter storm yuri authorizing the city manager to execute all related documents for emergency purchases up to one hundred thousand dollars and waiving permit fees through march 18 2021. thank you mayor both of these declarations are necessary for us to continue to receive services and um things from tdem um as you may recall with the issue in the paul and the contaminants in the water system the mayor did do a declaration those declarations that are executed by the mayor only good for seven days so that initial declaration has expired so what the first item does is it reinstitutes a declaration by the mayor and then allows the city council to continue that declaration beyond seven days um we also are finding that the testing costs are already exceeding or getting close to exceeding the fifty thousand

[0:42:54] dollars that we are authorized to spend without council approval and it's anticipated and allison could probably talk more about this that we are going to be having a significant amount of testing going forward to deal with the concerns um of the contaminants in the water so we are asking that the city manager be authorized to enter any emergency contracts related to the water contamination issue and to pay any invoices that do not exceed a hundred thousand dollars that are necessary to conduct testing and repairs related to the contamination um the second declaration is very similar it has to do with winter storm yuri um which is the na i realized last night it actually had a storm and a name and that's what it is a jury um and we're declaring a declaration there's already a governor's declaration but his declaration from what we understand only covers um the relocation of people and you know doing the warming centers and those sorts of things it doesn't necessarily address any local issues like broken pipes or broken infrastructure so we are also declaring a local disaster pursuant to the texas government code related to the winter storm similar to the other one we are authorizing asking that you authorize daniel to enter into emergency contracts um and pay invoices not exceeding a hundred thousand dollars that are necessary to alleviate any of the concerns that come up um we also if you'll recall during our disaster related to the tornado waived fees for permits to make these repairs if people's pipes do break there is going to be a permit process that they'll have to go through and so we're asking that you waive those permit fees for the next month to allow people to make those repairs i'm happy to answer any questions do we have questions for teresa from council i'll go counsel my counsel so tommy do you have any questions uh no ma'am i i do not billy okay sorry okay

[0:45:03] um teresa are there any income restrictions on repairs due to the water line breaks and things like that we are doing an item coming up that bob will discuss the program that we do have and we are going to be asking you to make some changes to that program but that's coming up on another item okay but as far as um getting those repairs done and the permission declaration it doesn't have any dollar amount tied to it no we will waive all permit fees regardless of income thank you tom did you have any questions or comments no man lucy no ma'am lane no man okay then may i have a motion to approve items three a b and c right here tommy hebert so moved up i think i had three seconds on that so really whoever you captured all right with no public comment um we will take a vote on items three a b and c all in favor say i were there any opposed with none opposed items three a b and c or path we will move on to item d id is update on emergency repair program in consideration of a resolution modifying the income thresholds related to the city's emergency repair program and i think bob solis is on for this presentation uh good morning council uh i just wanted to take this opportunity to remind council and our citizens that we still have funding for our emergency repair program i'm sorry bob i can't hear you i'm sorry i don't know how about now can you hear me now that's better yes thank you okay i guess i guess i need to uh speak up a little bit okay i just wanted to take this opportunity uh to remind council and the

[0:47:05] citizens that we have funding for our emergency repair program that can assist at no cost with issues affecting the health and safety of our homeowners to include things like water and sewer line repair and replacement a water heater replacement and electrical issues the program is funded through our hud cdbg funds and is limited to low moderate income homeowners or 80 percent of area median income limits said by hud i think it's also referred to as median family income i think you hear both terms used define that number bob define that number what is that number uh that number 80 of ami uh for a family of four is six thousand dollars so that again bob how much it's 56 000 for a family of four and then you add or subtract six thousand based on family size so you said five six fifty six five six zero yes yes sir fifty six thousand okay thank you okay now we also have approximately nineteen thousand dollars from royalties received from our service line warranty endorsement which currently follows the hud income limits however a council can adjust the income limits to these royalty funds to assist homeowners that exceed the 80 ami threshold if council agrees uh staff can adjust the program designed to assist homeowners um without insurance that meet the 100 of ami which is 72 400 for a family of four in our in our msa this will provide us some flexibility to deal with unique circumstances that we otherwise could so we're kind of looking for directions from council to see if you want to go that direction the quiz the first question i would have bob is if we adjust it upwardly is there really the funds to take care

[0:49:07] of that because it all gets down to we can adjust but do we have the dollar amount that could support adjusting that number upwards well we have 19 000 uh but that would be that would go that would go pretty quickly however that could give us a little bit of flexibility for a few folks a few a few families that are unique uh we could come up with uh some kind of uh design that would kind of uh provide some funding for those special circumstances i can't define those what they are right now but i can put my uh staff to work and come up with something now let's start i could let council know at that point what those are and then it gives us a little bit of flexibility like i said uh to deal with that just in case it comes up otherwise we are limited to the 80 ami what would seem to me without any definition without any presentation on exactly what that would be we need to stick with the 80 percent of the 56 000 until we have you come back and present to us what the new parameters and issues are for adjusting that sure heir harry thomas yes go ahead harry i believe based on phone calls that i've gotten and social media posts that you're gonna find that there are enough people in san angelo that meet those original guidelines that can take advantage of of what we're trying to offer here through those programs that money is going to be exhausted before we get any special circumstances so i would suggest that we stay where we are today and and uh if we at our next council meeting if we find that uh citizens are not taking advantage of that and bob has some specifics outside of these parameters then maybe he can present an

[0:51:10] end but i would say based on what i know about people's lines that were frozen and broken that we will have a tremendous amount of citizens willing to take part in this that meet those guidelines thank you harry any other comments from other council members all right then what we'll do is harry would you like to make like to make the motion um to approve item d with them what you just said is to keep it at the 50 80 percent of the 56 thousand dollars until we have further information and guidelines knowing that we'll probably use up all the money just on this original authorization up to the 56 000. right i'm i'll motion to approve item d staying with the eighty percent of the fifty six thousand dollars for those citizens that require that need the city the city's input on this cbg community development black grant money and those federal funds that are coming through okay thank you harry do i have a second car again i think there's a lot of seconds so julie capture one of them because i can't differentiate from the voices so with that we'll take a vote all in favor of the motion say aye aye with none opposed that motion would carry 7-0 we will move on to item e which is the discussion of financial impact of what water i'm sorry a winter storm yuri and possible options and tina you're on thank you mayor i just really wanted to take this opportunity to update the council on what we know so far i've been in discussions with our tdm our texas department of emergency management contacts to find out what kind of assistance if any may be available to the city for the storm event right now funding can currently only be approved for shelter and evacuation

[0:53:12] expenditures and so we're taking steps to at least seek that approval from tdm we're also taking the steps to make sure that if and when additional funding may become available we will be ready to seek it at that point you know things like tracking expenditures for everything that any of our staff is doing and any supplies or anything like that we are already tracking those through a project code and so if we do receive additional funding we'll be prepared to report that to tdm at that point they can also assist with issuing cots blankets and some other supplies if requested or needed so if you're aware of anything like that please let us know and we will begin to work towards those ends as well since the thresholds for assistance from fema and tdem require you know the city and the county and the state expenditures to get to a certain threshold it can take a little time for that information to be compiled at the state level um but again city staff is doing everything we can on our end to compile that information do um counsel do i have any questions or comments from counsel for tina there's no motion needed on this issue it's just a discussion at this point in time and and allowing all of us to know that tina and the finance department is working with them state and federal to see what support financially we might be able to uh use and with that we will i will ask for a motion for adjournment please mayor yes tommy i guess maybe i need to ask teresa this question first we have shane on here is there any possibility um teresa that shane could give us very brief overview and what with respect to republic services and their um uh intentions and abilities uh now that we hopefully are going to start seeing things warm up with respect to

[0:55:14] them picking up recycling bulk and regular household trash can well we did do some research on whether or not there would be a financial impact to us as far as um fees that we are paying to republic and so i think if he stays pretty close to that we can squeeze it in under this discussion of financial impact i've got one more question maybe for daniel wait a minute lane wait a minute let's have shane to answer tommy's question first and then let me preface it let me preface shane's comments by saying that we looked at the contract yesterday and the republic is able to have up to 11 days without service and so shane maybe you can address how many days it's been and when their service might resume to know if we're going to meet that threshold the um service services was suspended last thursday due to road conditions uh about the same time that we started seeing the ice move into town so uh services are going to resume today uh as uh the roads as the sun comes up and the roads start thawing so uh service will resume today it will start with the thursday service that was left off when they suspended service last time so we will start with thursday services today they will collect everything in the thursday area today and then we will then they will work through tomorrow and friday services will be tomorrow and then they will start over again on monday just like a normal week uh and and progress through that and they have uh they will be running extra trucks with extra bodies to collect the additional trash that has been built up due to lack of service jane will they pick up everything when they come or will it be on our normal bulk day normal recycle day they're they're going they're going to try to collect everything

[0:57:15] as they come through uh they will have their they're running boat trucks they're running their recycling trucks and they're running their standard trash trucks uh and they're going to try to do that all all basically at this at the same time through this next week to try to really push hard and catch back up on the days that they uh were that they suspended their service due to road conditions all right shane okay lane did you have a comment yes i've had this question asked me from a few people and that i think all of us need some clarity on um from aep in the in the electrical commission there's been a lot of talk about rates uh electrical rates and how they are going to start charging people in this emergency situation uh daniel do you know anything about that can you clarify that or can we get more information about that to where we can give to our citizens uh it seems to me that right now that with ercod uh there was a message as far as some of the needs for the for the grid uh that they may have to adjust uh the what they would actually charge for electricity but i can tell you right now that there's a lot of our state legislators that push back on that so i don't know where that's going to go and uh again uh we have a lot as i mentioned a while ago our legislators are pretty upset about this so any talk about increasing fees uh there's gonna be some pushback on that so on our end i can guarantee you that we'd be doing the same thing but uh that's the only thing that i've heard at this performance okay thanks daniel hello and mayor brian grubbs ask a question real quick hey teresa i don't know if this fits in the financial item but do you want to address the price gouging with the attorney general and that we've been seeing some of that locally yeah we have had especially when our shelter was open we had some concerns raised to us that there were um some hotel facilities that were increasing the price dramatically of a hotel room um that is considered price gouging since we are under a declared

[0:59:18] emergency at the state level and people can look at our website we have a link for you but go to the texas attorney general's website and just put price gouging in the search bar and you'll come up with their page and it describes what that is um it doesn't apply to everything but it does apply to things like food and housing and supplies and also a form to report that and the attorney general's office will handle investigations into those concerns but to be clear teresa we the city do not fill that out it has to be on a customer by customer basis it's not the city that files the gouging issue that is correct individuals need to file those forms okay all right uh anything else before we ask for an adjournment man yes billy um you know what tommy said that we all endorsed and what has been said numerous times about you know the thank yous to allison and shane you know you're my buddy you know i didn't mean to leave you out so um but i just may i please just share something that just popped up in my email um and it won't take long but it was sent to me and one of my constituents was letting me know that he also sent this to allison and it says mrs truby too often departments such as yours only hear complaints about service or billing and never often enough do they receive notes of thanks or congratulations as someone who understand what goes on behind the scenes i want to extend my thanks and appreciation for the work you and your whole department especially those who have worked long hours in the sub-freezing temperatures to get our water supply operational again i have worked outside at night in similar temperatures i know what it is like i live in the high plains area it was a real morale booster this morning to see water flow from the faucets i know the

[1:01:22] tanks aren't full yet so we will use water judiciously as requested and appropriate but there is a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't a train please pass on to all of your staff especially those involved in working in the cold wet environments of a ditch my sincere thanks i know they would rather have been in a warm home with the families but instead they stood up for the greater good they are heroes in my book most sincerely and i won't say his name but i just thought um you know as we're talking about this and and we do receive a lot of frustrated calls but here's someone with sincere appreciation and i just wanted to share that for whatever it's worth so shane allison daniel mayer everybody thank you thank you thank you thank you for sharing billy that is greatly appreciated i'm glad you did that okay so do i have a motion for adjournment right here i'd move with adjourned tommy hebert thank you tommy do i have a second second again julia pick up that second and with that we'll take a vote all in favor say aye with none opposed motion passes we are adjourned at 9 35 a.m on the 19th of february thank you everyone and without you thank you to everybody thank you

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