San Angelo City Council 1-16-24

[0:00:03] good morning everyone and welcome to this January 16th 2024 got the year right got the date right and um I don't really want to quote what the temperature is because I'd hate to get that wrong today um I don't think we want to take a vote on whether we prefer 16 degrees or 115 but it's questionable which one is better for us but welcome and we will start as usual this uh meeting with our chaplain prayer and pledges and we want to welcome chaplain Dawkins to the front to lead us in both thank you good morning everyone and happy New Year happy New Year there you go let's pray father we thank you for a new year one that we've never seen before and we'll never see again I pray that you would make this year one that is filled with opportunities blessings and challenges all at the same time so I pray for those that are in this city and its Community leaders whom you have given charge and responsibility and the authority to watch and guide over our city and make decisions that affect all of us so I ask that you would work mightily in them today so we invite you to come into this room and cause them to have a productive meeting and that there be a sense of agreement and cooperation and come to Peaceful solutions for the benefit of our community I pray for warmth and shelter for those who do not have it those that can come into a place where they can find shelter and and comfort during these cold weathers and Lord you said in your word in Jeremiah 29:11 that you already know the plans that you have for us plans to prosper us and plans that are not for evil but plans that will bring us to a good future and a hope so I pray and lift up the mayor her staff and the assistants the City Council Members the city manager the City attorney and all the persons that are instrumental in

[0:02:05] leading and directing our city I pray for the police chief and the entire police force the sheriff's department and they that that they would continue to protect and serve our the residents of this city I pray for the fire chief and the fire department and all the First Responders who serve our city and lastly I pray again for this year that you will bring continued economic prosperity and safety for our city may you draw in and attract to our city industry businesses and corporations that will produce jobs and revenue and help us to grow and prosper in Jesus name amen and amen let's do the pledge pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice all honex flag i al toex thank you today we have one Proclamation which is our recognition of our school board month and so I would ask that all of you here today representing sisd and the school board please come forward to accept this Proclamation hello hello hello we might start with the introduction of the new sisd

[0:04:09] superintendent I think this is your first meeting in your first month on board so you want to introduce yourself to our um members in the audience today yeah I think it would be good if you would well good morning everyone my name is Christopher Moran it is a pleasure to join you as the school superintend tenant of St Angelo ISD it's an honor to follow Carl deff and to join such a talented and caring School Board uh I think you all know that uh the school board here in St Angelo is committed as stewards and advocates for the more than 13,000 students that attend our school district uh to provide a safe and caring learning environment so that every student that comes through the doors of our school tools is provided the very best we've got work to do and we know that but today and in this time is a time that public schools have come under attack like no other and these seven individuals have stepped forward to serve this community as volunteers they don't get paid much in fact nothing but they do show up faithfully and they do Advocate and they do uh serve this community faithfully and I'd like to say thank you as I get to know them and as I assimilate into your community uh it's a pleasure to be here and we honor our board this month uh really every month but especially this month and so Amy miselle Flint Dr Taylor Kingman Dr Kyle Mills Pam Duncan uh Gerard gagos Bill dendle and we're missing one member and that's Lita aroyo who is not able to make it today so mayor Gunter thank you for the opportunity to be here today and council members I look forward to getting to know you as well uh in a time to honor our school board and our district thank you I think he covered almost everything

[0:06:17] so I don't know if I need to read this plation but I'm required to so I'm going to go ahead and add some words um to the to his wonderful comments the mission of public schools is to meet the divers educational needs of our children and to empower them to become competent productive contributors to our society and an everchanging World our s Angelo ISD board members are committed to the children of s Angelo and believe all children can be successful lifelong Learners and that the best education is tailored to the individual needs of each child to support each child's hopes and dreams this distinguished group of servant leaders includes board president president Dr Taylor Kingman vice president Mrs Amy mzelle Flint secretary Mr Gerard ggos treasure Mr Bill dendle Mrs Pam Duncan Dr Kyle Mills and Mrs leita aroya sisd board members work closely with parents educational professionals and other community members to create the educational Vision we want for our students they are responsible for ensuring the structure that provides a solid foundation for our school system and dedicate numerous unpaid personal hours to support and Lead our St Angelo schools our s Angelo ISD school board members are strong advocates for public education and are responsible for communicating the needs of the school district to the public and the Public's expectations to the district therefore I Brenda Gunter mayor of the city of St Angelo Texas on behalf of the city council declare our appreciation to the members of the S Angel Independent School Board and proclaim the month of January 2024 at Schoolboard recognition month in St Angelo Texas and urge all citizens to join us in s Angel ISD and recognizing the dedication and hard work of the saisd school board members and to partner with them to mold an education system that meets the needs of both today's and tomorrow's children and

[0:08:19] produces Future Ready graduates Taylor would you like to come forward and accept this and offer some comments thank you um so first I just want to say thank you to the city council and everyone for recognizing us this month um obviously the board spends a lot of unpaid hours and to be recognized for each of the hours that all these people volunteer is important so thank you um we're blessed to have a great relationship with the city and Community leaders and that makes our job easier so thank you all for that as well um our our district is filled with wonderful teachers administrators staff they're working diligently to prepare students for success and it's our job as a board to support that um is our job to support their successes and then help also support the areas where we need to improve and as a board we're working very hard to do that and we understand that Community relationships relationships with our city our community leaders and Industry is important so that we can create better students that have more success and that's good for St Angelo and so um we're going to continue to do that work and we appreciate all of you all as well so thank you very much oh yeah would anyone else like to offer comments this morning okay let's move forward over this way and we're going to have a picture e

[0:10:58] have we will now move into the public comment section of the agenda issues or concerns not on the regular agenda may be raised by the public at this time citizens should speak from the Podium address all comments to the D Begin by stating their name and address or single member district number and limit their remarks to less than three minutes do we have people here who would like to offer public comment mayor I'd like to start if that's okay yes ma'am okay I'm Teresa James I'm The City attorney um I have been asked multiple times in the past couple weeks why we allow people to speak at our public comment period who have such negative things to say about us some of these questions are specifically about Mr bario and his self-proclaimed so-called citation that he issued to the city of St Angelo city council so I would like to address those questions the city of St Angelo has for a very long time had a tradition of allowing members of the public to speak at every regular city council meeting they can speak for three minutes on whatever they choose most citizens discuss upcoming public events or concerns they have that they would like to be addressed but there are also a few who come with personal agendas and use their time to air their grievances with the city of been through unspecified accusations of corruption or wrongdoing on behalf of counsel or staff and we listen to them every time and we allow them to speak every time because they have a constitutional right to address their representatives and we will protect their right to do so so even though Mr bario has alleged that there are attempts to silence him we will defend his right to speak during public comment regardless of what he has to say the second question I'm often asked is why don't we respond at the meeting and part of the answer to that question is the council is limited to what they can disc discuss during the public

[0:13:00] comment period to avoid violations of the Texas open meetings act we can provide information as I'm doing today but there's no ability to have a dialogue with the speaker or to decide on the matter at that time that is typically the reason there is no response in the case of Mr bario self-proclaimed citation we do not respond because there is nothing to respond to Mr Bario's citation that he issued a council is not real but just a way in which to make his public comment seem more in official when in reality it carries no legal weight Beyond information regarding grievance he has with the city this is also why when Mr bario claims that legal consultations with my clients about their personal responsibility to the public is a violation of the open meetings Act is not correct the open meetings act ensures that matters of public concern that the council has legal authority to decide or decided in a meeting open to the public since the self-proclaimed citation issued by Mr bario is not real but rather just a public comment airing grievances there is no official business that needs to be decided therefore discussing it cannot be a violation of the open meetings act I will say that one benefit of Mr Bario's comments is that the Press is very interested right now and what happens at City Council meetings and I hope the press That's watching this morning will remain interested for the remainder of the meeting because the real work of government carried out by real dedicated public servants will take place here today today this Council will consider action to complete a water project and a sewer project that will help provide secure water and reliable sewer sewer for decades to come they will consider the appli ation for monies that will help our fire and police departments better protect you and themselves there will be discussions on tax abatement programs that will assist the city in tracting new businesses that will bring jobs and revenue to the city and there will be decisions made on how property will be utilized decisions that will impact the uses of those lands for decades I have no doubt that Mr bario is going to draft some official response to this comment and allege we are trying to quiet your voices and take away your rights that argument will also not be real we understand there are citizens that are unhappy with some of the actions of the city we speak to those

[0:15:02] citizens every day and every citizen is able to call the mayor their council member the city manager one of the directors or myself to discuss their concerns but in addition to that if any citizen has grievance with the city there are multiple real paths to have a grievance heard and resolved if you've been injured or had property damaged by the city contact our R risk management department and they will send you a claim form if you believe you've been discriminated against because you have a disability go to COA x. usada and provide a comment or file a formal grievance if you believe the mayor or a council member has acted unethically you should report what has occurred to either the mayor a council person the city manager or myself and we will gather facts from you and initiate an investigation into the allegation and if you wish to file a petition to create a new ordinance to remove a current ordinance or to recall a council member the city clerk is happy to work through that process with you as they have with many other citizens before you or if like Mr bario you want to come issue self-proclaimed so-called citations to city council there is a public comment period at every regularly scheduled council meeting where you can do that as well we will protect your right and Mr Bario's right to do so thank you further public comment today Jackie you want to come forward hello good morning Jackie Chestnut I am a local engineer I'm also a Rancher a sheep and goat Rancher and I own a ranch and a wildlife preserve out in nickach Texas and this is my primary place of business in the city of San Angelo because y'all are the closest city where I do most of my business and things that I do and so my first question is on public on the public comments is it 3 minutes per item or 3 minutes for total comment cuz I have a couple of items pleas and I'd like to know the answer to that okay uh public comment during this time of the meeting is three minutes per

[0:17:08] speaker per speaker okay very good if you have a public comment regarding an item on the agenda after Council has discussion mayor calls for public comment um citizens can come up give comment then that is also limited to 3 minutes unless they are the applicant uh proponent um of the item then they get five minutes okay and so and you can only ask that one time so if you have a question in that it can only you can only do that once I'm just trying to delate so I'm clear and understand your rules okay okay thank you okay um so um I have a timer so um the first you yeah there there's your timer now well I'm starting now because I had questions okay but I have my own timer because I had question first okay excellent why I brought my own so because sometimes I can talk well Jackie you're running time okay very good the first thing is I want to turn in a file uh this file um relates to some things that have occurred with me over the past three and a half years in this town and in this city that most of you are all aware of this file is called the wanted to know what to do with the dentist situation in the 3 to 400 acre ranch my Ranch and I'm turning this in and this contains the Adult Protective Services files and the lawyers files where they tried to steal my Ranch for three and A2 years and I'm think I'm done now because I just quit this so I'm turning this into Miss Gunter and you can have these files because I asked you to investigate this excuse me I asked this to be investigated when I was assaulted in this town and my husband's truck stolen and nobody would do so second thing is um do I understand we're putting a Peta sheep in this town excuse me are we second item the Pea sheep that we have a Peta sheep that you to answer that we've had a request by Peta to install a sheet but they have not finalized that request not on city property I assume it would have to be on city property oriv I'm a sheep and goat Rancher and we're in the middle of sheep

[0:19:11] and Goat Country and I find that very inappropriate that we would take my public space and put a p of sheep directly against something that I do for a living so I'm just stating that publicly now I'll be happy to take that sheep and put him in my barn uh with my other sheep and she or he can live there but not on public property and I have a problem with that that direct we are sheep and Goat Country I for 25 years have raised sheep and goats and though I'm a fan of protecting animals big time and my animals and my animals live like queens and kings so yes ma'am next thing is I hear a lot lot lot of discussion especially over the past few years that parks Parks Parks Parks Parks do yall know how many parks we have in this town anybody 69 I think we have enough I think we need to focus on things like sewers water the primary focus of our town which should be the services you provide for us as the people that live here and even in the county and every place else so I think we have enough parks and I think we have enough baseball fields and I think we have enough everything else cuz we built about half of them could you wrap it up unfortunately your three minutes is up okay we're getting close no honey so the file okay no honey so anyway so and then so I'm glad we're focusing on sewers thank you all very much for your time and I'll be following up with some other things in writing further public comments I know we have someone over here you dressed appropriately today smart woman I apologize I'm on my lunch break um my name is Mary Robinson and I live at 2008 Lindell Avenue so I'm new to your community in the last two years and I've never witnessed the animal crisis like I've witnessed here so I'm not coming here to tell you everything you guys have done wrong cuz everybody knows what the animal issues are I have a few suggestions that might help so one thing we would really help is if we did a chicken wire Roundup if we reached out to all the ranchers and goat people and get fabric wire or chicken wire and go

[0:21:15] to the communities from 6th Street to 42nd Street and say how can I help you nobody wants their dog to run away nobody wants to wake up and their dog is a nuisance and bit someone nobody wants to go outside and the Chain's empty or the backyard they've dug under so a lot of people don't realize if you attach chicken wire to your fence and you bury it 3 to 4 in under and you put it out this way parallel 12 in your dog cannot tunnel under it it cannot dig down and then back up so if we start with fixing the fences and the alley fences in that quadrant are being used they use bricks plywood 2x4s bags trash cans anything they can to block the holes so the first thing we need to ask them is how can we help you keep your dog in one I understand that there's vouchers that help with spaying animals they allow you to have one voucher a month realistically everybody has more than the people that like animals here have more than one dog and a lot of times if you pick a dog up off the side of the road it's now yours nobody claims it there's no way to tell if it's homeless or if they're just letting it run free because they're Reckless owners there's got to be a way to do a sweep team people that are comfortable with animals to walk the streets or even make contact with your local trash company ask them where's the target house is as I used to be a delivery driver when I first got here there's multiple places I would deliver and all you hear is puppies barking there has to be a paper trol of the statute that says if your dog's over four months old we're going to ticket you how many tickets were issued last year do we know how many people are actually getting money taken out of their pocket for not getting the dog neutered because the biggest issue is containing and multiplying every dog we rehome a litter of puppies is born so we have to have an accountability where people are actually putting money out their pocket or they're not going going to stop we have to say besides we're going to punish you how can we help you what is your problem why is your dog running away there's a a statue here for multiple pet permits how many permits have we issued for multiple pets do we know I mean there's a permit in the statue that was established it says if you have more than I think five pets you have to have a permit how many did we

[0:23:17] issue last year did we go by and check the quality of those pets are we making sure that their fences are contained to own that many pets and then the second issue I notice is when we do adoption campaigns right we're doing it in the same town that all the animals are running free in is there a way to Outsource to other communities that don't have an animal issue that don't hold adoption events and transport the dogs there and have the adoption event outside of our community not giving them a dog and putting in their their shelter can we hold an event in a town that doesn't have 40 dogs running free every day that people might want to adopt that dog and be able to contain it better so just a few suggestions my biggest one is the sweep team thank you for your comments I think those are some great ideas and things that probably we haven't all thought through we will be having a presentation in today later on on the agenda about the animal shelter so if you have time to stay here and listen to it and maybe you can bring up some further comments yes ma'am thank you further public comment uh good morning Bob soles uh director of neighborhood and Family Services on behalf of the uh homeless Co ition and the city we want to thank the Salvation Army for opening up the emergency shelter for inclement weather especially during this uh uh cold spell not only does it save much needed Grant funds for the Coalition but it also saves lives and we want to extend our appreciation and I believe uh major Martinez is here to say a few words well Bob can you uh please just talk about where there is you may come please come forward take the two of you together can cover some of these issues that Council might have um would you please state where uh warming shelters are what's available just cover that whole conversation well right now the only shelter that's open is the Salvation Army uh at one time last couple of years the city has stood up warming stations

[0:25:20] but with the opening of the of the Salvation Army that's no longer required um so that is the that's the sole location at this point all right good morning good morning and uh thank you for allowing me to to uh present what we've done as you know St your name and your position Martinez Salvation Army here in San Angelo I'm still new to the area to St Angela I just got here September of 23 uh but since we got here we knew that the Salvage Army had their shelter closed for various reasons and everything and and when I met I said we would would do what was needed to get that place opened uh for for the inclement weather uh while I do bring up the news that on December 25th uh we did open up our our Center and haven't closed yet to this moment uh our CLL we we've been running pretty much close to near capacity uh with our folks uh in the in the community I also do want to bring to the fact that uh while we do I have a full Capac a full functioning kitchen we do offer some of the the the over the counter condiment I mean foods that they can eat they can warm up warm up in the microwave but we do not have a refrigerator as funding a little tight we do have a we are open for the warming center right now and have been for the last couple of days there at the at 122 West Second Street and then we're transitioning over to the next street our next building uh on Third Street at 34 West Third uh due to funding and uh because we are I'm limited in what I have and uh but I just want to bring you bring the city and the community up to date to let you know that we have been running this the center and as long as we can uh we will continue to do this uh when the needs there for thank you yes Lucy I just wanted to

[0:27:23] ask you can you go ahead and say again the address of the Salvation Army yes ma' the warm the inclement weather station is at 1:22 West Second okay which is uh it's that way yeah I get I I get turned around I even at my office I keep on pointing South and I no it's north and so if you go up chadburn Street yes ma' behind behind City yes behind City Hall you turn left on Second Street yes ma'am and you'll see the little flag flying out of the coold out there on the on the the in front of the building and then allow of our our clients our residents or neighbors who have been staying with us they know to go on Facebook and they see our our little State Little W out there L night hey go ahead and come on in we're open you know even if we have to lay out a couple of pallet on the floor and everything but we won't turn you away you know we'll make every effort to house you for the night okay thank you Larry did you want to make it yes ma'am how many beds do you have and what other amenities are there at the at the sh we have 60 beds uh currently in place we have our our we've made available to our our friends who are staying with us the the showers of course during the daytime and in the evenings uh the laundry service we have our washers and dryers up and running thank goodness a little bit of tweaking here and there and the water heater kicked up and uh it's been running has been running good the only thing that we do not have is a a refrigeration for the to keep food closed uh cold but most of them have uh it's it's crazy they just stuck them outside and and they stayed cold I have one more question thank you very much I just have one more question what hours do y'all have that you accept people uh basically uh we start our intake at 6:30 and it stays open basically all night our our attendant our monitor who paid to be there uh has the door open is

[0:29:26] at 6:30 am. or p.m p.m PM PM p.m. yes ma' and then they and they already know that after hours that uh if St Angelo police bring somebody in we we accept them in Larry yeah you indicated that you've been close to full up uh what's the closest you've come to that 60 beds 60 yeah I think uh 48 and we do got we do have a we have a family and a few women staying with us but majority of all men they have been staying with us thank you very much mayor oh wait yes one question major how big a refrigeration unit do you need or what would be ideal ideal oh ideal oh goodness you're hoping that uh a double door I mean if you tell me something I mean some they could just open stick their drinks and and their their food gender overnight I'm not picky okay thank you yes thank you very much thank you right further public comment please come forward good morning good morning my name is howdy Johnston I'm a I live at 2136 River Valley Lane I own uh multiple commercial Residential Properties here in town and um uh we do a lot of work uh to help try to beautify the city and my issue today is um I own the the property on North Bryant between 11th Street and 14th Street we have a huge homeless problem across the street as I'm sure everyone in this room is aware of um the issue is I I I don't know where to go or or who to talk to about this issue the police have been outstanding and helping us you know uh we do have issues um but the environmental concerns I have over

[0:31:32] there right now are extremely bad um you we can smell the the feces and the urine blowing across Bryant um you know all all in the surrounding areas not to mention that the river is running right through there and so there's a lot of environmental concerns we've had over there um I used to have a property over on 29th Street that was also on the river River and we had the same issues there and we ended up selling the property because of the theft and drugs and uh environmental issues that were going on over there so um I would love to work with somebody like the Salvation Army work with the city you know anything we can do to help solve this issue but I have um people that lease these properties from me um and like across from that area right now are storage buildings you know and they're nice they're clean we worked with the city to get everything trees planted look make it look you know beautiful over there and they've been really good renters for us for a long time um just the other day uh the owner was checking his buildings before he went home for the weekend and there was a man in there and he politely asked him to get out the man kicked a cup of urine and feces all over him and this is it's just unacceptable and and again again the police have been outstanding and helping us but uh we need we need to do something about it um I don't know if the the man who owns the property there is getting fined or or you know what's going on with that I know it's a Humane issue and understand but um I just wanted to address it with the city council and you know if y'all can steer me in any any direction that would help solve this issue uh it would be great greatly appreciated we will follow up with Bob solz Mr Martinez maybe Michael DNE we will try to address that issue specifically but uh there is a Homeless Coalition we

[0:33:37] perhaps can utilize that commission as well and I just want to say it looks like you brought some tremendous support with you this morning I did yes ma'am she looks like she's given you all the backbone you need yes ma'am Brenda yes sir so Mr Johnson I think Rick and I worked at one point in time there was requirements that they needed for the facility where the portable buildings are for sale there yes sir how often do they get into those buildings um I would say in a 7-Day week it's probably at least minimum four times a week um the he the guy who owns it uh has cameras security cameras in the area um we pay for a lights you know to to light the thing up to try to deter that but uh Windows broken out they break into his office they break into the buildings um they leave needles pipes you know all the all all the trash everything over there it's it's a constant battle and I'm going to lose a source of my income possibly from this if it continues and we don't figure out some way to solve this issue okay and that's it's what amazed me as I started to hear that it's probably almost 50 times a month you've got broken windows or or broken doors absolutely it's it's at least 70% of of the month okay for sure all right thank you thank you further public comment good morning good morning I'm Evelyn Smith smd5 and the end of last year giny church was here and put in application for nonprofit uh organization uh funding and it was passed unanimous unanimously by the teers program but when we submitted it to the city council everybody voted yes on it except for two people and correct me if I'm wrong it was uh mayor and U Mr Thompson and correct me if I'm wrong Mr Thompson you did say you would reconsider it if we

[0:35:39] would put a cap on the $775,000 cap we already have right now that you reconsider it and when I talked to the uh tear board they said they did submit a request to the city council whether you guys were going to consider that or not and so that's my question has there been any um consideration about that or any decision on putting a cap on the nonprofit organization fun so I will I will say I was one of those voed that I've been against nonprofits getting money out of tears that went back to the tiar board they brought us a proposition to change how the tier structure was and we left the tier structure exactly as it is if I remember that right we had no changes to our tier structure so there's no changes in the programs will there be a reconsideration for it or what do we need to do to have you reconsider that well I think these things come to me as policy to vote on that would start with the tears board and work back up through them is that correct Heather Teresa that is correct and from what I understand they have submitted something to you all and heard nothing back so that's my question to no we've voted on everything that's come to us EV you have okay thank you very much Evelyn further public comment ma ma'am yes um I just wanted to um speak louder and the microphone Sor I was trying to pull up my notes uh I just wanted to announce that the filing period for the May 4th chief of police election does open tomorrow January 17th the filing period will close on Friday February 16th at 5:00 p.m. um those who are interested in running can submit their applications to the city clerk's office at 7 to West College and applications are available online at costat tx. us or they can pick up a application in um the city clerk's office as well um the last day to register to vote is April 4th and I

[0:37:43] think that's all thank you further public comment U Jackie do you have a separate item she's already had her I forgot and y'all this is the list of all the city parks and all the County Parks and there 59 city parks and 38 County Parks I'll take that Jackie thank you any further public comment or announcements seeing none we will close the public comment portion of this agenda and we will move into the consent agenda as usual I will ask each of the city council members to to uh see if there's any item that they would like to have pulled for discussion and I will start with Larry e okay Karen no ma'am Lucy no ma'am Harry no ma'am Tom no ma'am Tommy with that we will take a vote on all of the consent agenda items with the exception of e so may I have a motion for approval of all items except for e so move by Harry seconded by Larry any public comment concerning any of the items on the consent to agenda with the exception of item e seeing none we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I with none opposed the consent to agenda with exception of item e has passed 7 to zero item e is consider approving change order number seven and change order number 8 to es-01 D21 Southwest Boulevard improvements project with rebert Incorporated in the total amount of 91,9 187 utilizing project contingency and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related

[0:39:47] documents Patrick you're on for Larry's questions or I just want to publicly thank Patrick and Shane for the work that they did on that Crossing down there by McDonald's it's working just as it's supposed to work I think most of us have forgotten about the barricades that used to go up when a rainstorm came through we don't have to worry about that anymore on top of that you're doing some refinement to the project that's down there where you see there's some things that need to be done like those dog gone rails that I asked for thank you very much Patrick yes sir um I don't know if I want to make a comment after that like that yeah that's it thank you very much yes thank you all right with that uh Larry do you want to make a motion to approve item e yes ma'am there's a motion may I have a second second by Tommy public comment on item e seeing none we'll take a vote all of those in favor of approving item e say I I hearing all Ys or eyes the motion passes 70 we will now move into our regular agenda we will comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above applicants proponents and appellants are exempt from the time limit above and instead must limit their remarks to less than 5 minutes the first item is consider resolution of support for the proposed development of the Bergman Heights senior affordable housing located at scq Petro drive and Ben fckin Road as part of the 2024 annual low housing tax credit lihtc affordable housing program for kcg Bergman Heights and Bob you are on uh good morning Council again um kcg

[0:41:50] Bergman Heights LP is the second 9% proposed low-income housing tax credit proposal Al asking for a resolution of support the project is a 44 unit apartment complex on Ben fckin and um unfortunately the presenter Mr CJ linter is uh stuck in Colorado his flight was cancelled so he won't be here this morning to present uh I'll go through the slides and hopefully be able to encourage you to support this um and I think this is the main one right here it is 44 units uh over there uh near Ben fckin it is new construction um it's going to be a three-story elevator designed serve designed um and you can see the investment is relatively large for S Angel $14 million uh again it's competing for the 9% which is very uh competitive across the across the country especially here in Texas um is that competitive in in our district only so are they applying for this region or do they have to compete nationally they uh they compete for the region and for us happens to be uh Midland Odessa and St Angelo um uh so again they have projects as well uh in fact we had one we have two projects here s Angel competing for that and in the past Council has approved approved them all and hopefully that one of them will succeed and this is the second of the of the two here locally um and uh I kind I'm sure what else to tell you about this um uh I think this is the timeline basically uh uh they do offer those in July sometime and at that point we'll know whether they get it or not uh and then we if they do get it they'll be able to uh they have two years to to start uh then there's a there's a timeline for completion as well you can I think that's it you want to go back over what the mission of this

[0:43:54] 44 units is in terms of who they who will benefit from this new this is uh I believe it's elderly uh for which is 60 and older and again it's much needed uh elderly support for affordable housing um as you know if you look at the at our demographics it's one of the shortfalls here in s Angelo so I again it's it's helping it's helping meet some of the critical needs I agree yes Tom so Bob yes there is a shortage for or let's say senior rental housing in here is this the only thing that keep us from gaining more is this tax credit no uh absolutely not there's just one one uh arrow in the quiver if you will it's one tool in toolbox that we use uh uh it's um attractive because there's um there it's not a lot of cost to the city in fact there's no cost to the city itself um so it's uh it's uh we we like it because uh it it it it provides um seed money for projects in our neighborhoods in our targeted neighborhoods which are hard to find unfortunately but no it could be uh private sector is can can do if they want to okay we don't we don't have other programs though unfortunately for for us anyway go all right thank you Karen can you inform us please if whether or not current zoning supports this project who does current zoning in this area does it support the project of this it does fact uh they went to uh our planning department exactly that for that so they are it's just not called out there no it's it's I believe it's okay other questions comments then may I have a motion for approval approve Tommy makes a a motion and Lucy is seconding that motion any public comment on this item a of Jackie

[0:45:58] U my comment on this is yes this is definitely a need in this community um it my my other comment is that though you say it's not a cost to the city um the city facilities the sewer and the water and the utilities are all going to have to be supplied by the city and I go to my former questions of is the city prepared to supply the services to these facili coming in while lovely and G to house a lot of people you're fixing to add a big old fat load to the Sewer the water and the utilities right here in the smack in the middle of town and while you're zoned for that are you prepared for that and where's the backup showing you've got that because we're adding lots and lots of load and the elderly or our new poor particularly elderly women and we need these facilities and we need them to be accessible which is another problem we have in this town is accessibility those are my questions back to the city as we decided to approve these projects are y'all ready to to provide the the things you're supposed to provide the city water sewer and utilities so these operations can come in and do what they need to do we stay very much on top of capacity of sewer and water that is an ongoing conversation and this um Council has made uh great strides in terms of making sure we have longevity in terms of water supply and with our new Lake nasworthy sewer project we are ensuring that sewer capacity is up for future growth for many decades to come so we're excited to have this project we know there's a need and I would ask if there's any further public comment concerning this item seeing none we will take a vote those in favor of approving item a say I I hearing seven I we will consider that approved 70 we will move to Item B which is discussion and Direction related to the community accessibility connectivity project Grant award and related projects and Patrick you're back on and I'm sure

[0:48:01] Shane kilton's back there somewhere support all right good morning again mayor council um we are very proud this morning to get this opportunity to present this this special Pro special project and the special award um to you guys uh back early of last year the city put was Tex out opened up an application for the teex the transportation alternative set aside Grant or the TA set aside Grant this is a grant that the city um utilized on chaper in Phase a to do some of the sidewalk improvements um along that stretch and The Pedestrian improvements along there so you can kind of see what kind of impact this grant was it was an opportunity that the city city did not want to pass up again and so we sat together we sat down and we looked at that funding opportunity that Tex or that Grant opportunity that teot put out um like I said it this is a grant that is administered by teot um it was a competitive grant that they had $345 million to allocate to different municipalities throughout Texas and one of the caveats of this grant is it can only be used for pedestrian and bicycle ad amenities as well as the engineering design for those projects so um it can't do anything that street unless it has a benefit toward um one of those two um B pedestrian or bicycle um improvements when we sat down and we became aware of the three different categories for this particular Grant um and the amount of funding that was available in each of those categories it became very clear that we really needed to put together a project um that could compete well and I say that because in the largest um funding category for this where the tech had put most of the funds

[0:50:06] um it was we were competing with municipalities that were over 200,000 in population so the Austin the fort worst the Dallas the Houston the San Antonios those big Metroplex Corridor areas that really frankly get a lot of grant funding I mean their population their density really um allows that opportunity for them so we sat down as staff and we we realized that we had to put together a project that was pretty amazing if we were going to compete against the likes of those kind of municipalities and so we did and we came up with what we called the community accessibility and connectivity project sorry I went back one um the community accessibility and connectivity project or the cacp is what we call it for short and if you'll notice in that that title there's some some some key words um within that Community accessibility and connectivity that was the goals of our project when we were putting this together we wanted a project that really connected all of our community to various parts throughout town and provided an accessible means for everybody um to to make that path and and to get to those different areas so part of the part of the criteria of the grant or the or the scoring criteria of it um Tech Stop was going to look at project Readiness how quickly could you turn that project around they were going to look at the impact to disadvantaged areas um and and what the project could do for those particular areas they were going to look at the the community benefit of it the overall benefit to the community as a whole and then um two of the the big scoring criteria was your community support and your competitive Partnerships we were lucky enough to work with a few entities um key entities throughout Town including Downtown St Angelo Inc the St Angelo bicycle Association and um St Mark Presbyterian Church who all gave us letters of support for our Grant application and I

[0:52:09] I think these these three entities support was huge in getting us um a a good score within that category the other thing that was a little unique within this project was they really emphasized Community Partnerships in this grant and so when we sat down and we pulled the project together one of the one of the entities that the project was touching was ASU and so we sat down with with that group over there um and they were extremely open to partnering with the city and and it was a great conversation from the word go and what was basically what what it ended up being is they gave us not only a monetary contribution but also pedestrian easement granted to the city at no cost to the city um to allow for the project to to go along their campus so and I'll go more into that here in a little bit we also talked to Shannon Medical Center who gave us some monetary contribution for the part of the project that's going to be touching their facilities um downtown as well so those are two huge competitive Partnerships that I think again gave us a leg up on our competition in this grant so ultimately um we're proud to say that in October of 20 of 2023 the Texas commit transport commission awarded kosa one of the 83 um projects that was awarded by by the commission on that day so um we were extremely fortunate to get an $18.7 million Grant out of the 343,000 to provide a a connectivity Trail throughout St Angelo um like I said it was one of 83 projects that was awarded and in that we were the second highest award amount out of all of those 83 so technically out of the 312 applications that were submitted to textop in this grant opportunity asking for $1.4 billion kosa got the second highest award amount out of all of those

[0:54:13] applications so and I emphasize that because I'm very very proud of that project that our team put together the application that our team put together and that we were uh successful in that application pck that deserves an Applause them man thank you for doing that wonderful job on I think the fact that it was the second highest dollar award given and our competitors as we know have consistently always won and we've kind of been left out um the fact that we qualified for this dollar amount against those competitors tells me that you and your team of people put together an unbelievable strategic plan that met all the obligations that the grant was asking for us to meet and that obviously this city had a need for it's I just I mean I'm just I celebrate this is fantastic it's actually I think it's actually the the highest competitive Grant the city of St Angels ever received is that correct that's to my knowled it is a largest construction grant that the city has ever received so we're very happy about that and again just to emphasize I mean we were competing with people like Dallas and Houston Austin San Antonio San Marcus I mean some big players in this game and and for us to come out where we did on that um I think it's a testament to to the work that we that our team and everybody put together on this so let's talk about the project itself um ultimately we knew that we had to shoot for the stars we knew we had to put together a project that was pretty pretty amazing and so I'm going to try to outline it on this on this as I kind of walk you through um the scope of this project so it really starts at Avenue L here and it goes and it makes that connection from Avenue L down to the river um and provides those pedestrian amenities there um we jump across chabr phase a is complete so we're going to

[0:56:16] tie into that chabr phase a and we're going to finish that little project downtown to the loop then we're going to continue on all the way down chabr street Street to 29th Street so you can kind of start getting a feel for the different neighborhoods this thing is connecting the different areas that it's connecting to we're going to pull across on 29th Street and come across to Edmund Glenna all the way down to the loop again jump move across the loop down to ardan Road continue down Arden Road across shwood way down Avenue in to the college at Johnson Street and then we're going to connect Johnson Street from Avenue in down to nicker we also have a little leg here that's going to connect right here by the city hall Annex and go down Bard and connect to Shannon down that Loop so what sorry oh where did I go there we go um how do I clear all that off maybe they can help me in the back um what this does is it it ties into not only everyone's well aware of the Tex do work that they've been doing along their roadways with the sidewalks and the accessibility improvements along there so we really wanted to maximize that investment as well as kind of strategically tie into their money by asking for their some more of their money um with our project so um you'll see that this thing really does that it connects the medical districts to downtown to schools to Parks shopping centers restaurants grocery stores and ASU and those higher education facilities so again it provides that connectivity for not only one certain piece of St Angelo but all the way through S Angelo and the different neighborhoods um throughout those corridors and it's very important for us to um to say that we put together 11.4 miles of sidewalk that's going to go into this project and and addition to 2.3 miles of shared use path which a

[0:58:21] shared use path is a path that's wide enough to both Bic on and walk on at the same time so um that's a total of 13.7 miles of improvements in the city it's something that I I feel like we would have never accomplished without this opportunity so I think this is a huge project for the city it's going to benefit the entire city as the whole and that's really what we wanted to do is impact as many people in as many communities and as many neighborhoods as we possibly could with this project um like I said one of the big pieces of this was the accessibil ility portion of it it does improve pedestrian Crossings with you've seen the hawk signal on Sherwood on Southwest to help those kids cross the road there you're going to see some more of those come out those key areas down like down by the soccer fields are going to see some of those that have high pedestrian traffic trying to cross over um by um Kirby Park downtown some of those key areas is going to have improvements to all of those um help cross safely cross those roadways as well as um you know ramps and and everything else that the our handicap Community needs as well let's talk about timing of the project and I'm going to go off of we attended a webinar with teot that kind of spelled out some little preliminary um information about this um and these timings are coming strictly from that web that webinar so in six to n months we have to sign an AFA with tech do basically an ADV an advanced funding agreement with tech do that starts the pro project says we're going to pay for our local contribution side and what Tech's going to pay for just spells out the terms of the of the grant after that we can start work on the design again that engineering design is a reimbursable cost so we don't want to start any of that until after the AFA is signed um and that they're expecting that to take 12 to 18 months I think that's a little um conservative I think we can we can push that ahead a little bit but again I'm going to go off of their numbers and be

[1:00:23] conservative here um and then within 30 months from that AFA execution is when they're expecting construction to begin so let's talk about the funding of this project this Pro this grant is an 8020 match meaning 80% of the project is going to be paid for by tech. funds and 20% is going to be paid for by City funds so what that means is 18.7 is Tech um $4.7 million is what the what the city needs to pay for um in addition to this money um there is a portion of the project that has to be constructed in in coordination with the street repair um or the street project Street re Rehabilitation project um it just it's not feasible to do this as a separate Standalone thing um so in total what we need for this project to make it happen is 10.5 $10.5 million um to make it all work we've identified some funding allocations to do that and you see that there on your screen that ASU partnership contribution you know again I said ASU stepped up I didn't tell you by how much $400,000 is what they're contributing to this project so again an amazing partnership with with that group over there um and that Shannon also contributed $225,000 um for the portion that's touching their their particular um facility downtown we have one of the key portions of this project was it already it ran along projects that we were already working on um Edmund glena 29th Street some of those chadburn Street some of those projects that we already had funding allocated to for pedestrian improvements so instead of paying for $1.1 million and just getting that I'm essentially getting you know five times that amount out of this out of that same money so we were able to maximize those bond funds of $1.1 million um use that as a as a matching portion of the grant um and to help eat away at that 10.5 churn phase a contingency that we didn't

[1:02:27] use um when we allocated that phase a contingency Council requested that we take any remaining contingency and we apply it to phase B so that's what we're doing here with that $928 um th000 the arpa funds are available at 5.6 million there's some bond interest revenue from the street Improvement bonds that we had of 1.4 million and then we're hoping to um get in front of the tear board here shortly and present to them um they had made a statement back when we were talking to them in the past that if we found some Grant monies or or project that they'd be willing to help contribute to that but they didn't want to pay for improvements outright but um they were willing to help maximize Any Grant opportunity and so we have that opportunity now so we just need to get in front of them and make that request toward to them and see what they'd be willing to to support in this project so ultimately um without knowing what teers is willing to do we're about a million dollar short on this to come up with that that full funding amount so that's kind of where I'm standing in front of you guys today to see if there's any additional Direction I think we kind of have it um spelled out pretty well here and and we can make up that million dollars fairly easily um but any suggestion ideas comments from Council is what we're here today to get yall's discussion and Direction on number one I want to make make one comment and that is is if I take a look at the total amount that TCH do has given us the 18.7 million and add this 10.5 million we would end up getting a project multiple projects for about $29 million of which today there's not funding for $29 Million worth of projects in any of our budget or infrastructure um chunks of money so the impact of this is huge huge the impact on multiple areas of town is huge so we're not focusing on a single entity

[1:04:31] we're talking about a community as a whole we constantly talk about connectivity Ada accessibility uh B uh our ability to address some of these issues that have not been addressed over years as we've not done these kinds of projects most importantly I just want to say thank you to you and your team for listening to these webinars because I know one of the great ways that you one of the big ways that you end up getting these grants is by listening to the language and the things that they're specifically targeting these grants and you listened and you made the grant applicable to the key issues that were important to Tex do so you guys did a tremendous job of executing this really really proud of the team to put this together um um so I'm tremendously supportive of U what you've put together I think it's a great plan it's the first time we've ever had this kind of an award given to us and I think um our support and vote to support you is hugely important based off of what you've just said other comments questions from city council do I have a oh Larry the short FS AV again that's that's what we need to work with Aaron and that that group that's managing those TI funds to really work for um most of the project that we're going to be asking for it falls in this North Side tiers area um so we we did have our Consultants look at what um the benefit or the the cost of those improvements along that north side is um if you look at the 20% of that it will exceeds the the cost of the project will exceeds what this million dollars would be so um the matching portion of those improvements would be this North would

[1:06:37] be the million dollars which is kind of what we're anticipating asking tear for again I I don't know what they're willing to do but um from what I understand within those budgets that there's a possibility there and again we don't necessarily have to do it all within this funding cycle it can be over a course of couple couple years if you saw the timing there 30 months we do have some opportunity there to kind of spread this out and and lessen that impact all at once further questions if you don't Patrick I mean this is a great thing it connects a lot um what we're looking for does that deplete our arpa funds from what I understand that is the full balance of what's left in that's all bound of the RP and and I'll bring up this this is a discussion at this point but the financing for the million you know needs to come back and and we'll see different parts of that but on the tiers you know I'm I have some uh concerns about that as far as it affects both sides and how we go through and how we pay it out and how we pay it back um glad to see it coming but I was just really curious about the arpa funds right any other questions or comments from Council may I have yes please I am so excited you did great and 11.4 miles of of a sidewalk is is exciting as well but I don't see my sidewalk on there so are we still working on that I've got a plan for you okay as long as I'm still on your mind but thank you so much for your hard work yes ma'am thank you I think what we are we are saying is move forward do you need a vote of support for your presentation I don't think I need a vote I just need a direction we're voting today we're giving you directions but I think there's a thumbs up on um the expenditures where we're going to find the money to do it and we will work hard and aggressively to come up with that million dollars that you're short but we've got time to do it and we don't want to hesitate in terms of giving you the support and go for it so I do want to say while I get the privilege of

[1:08:40] standing up here speaking the rest of our team is attending a six-hour webinar today um in conjunction with this so you've spent the time that that was needed to get the award and and that is key these webinars on these grants are big points when you end up applying that is it thank you thank you all very much appreciate it thank thanks Patrick item C discussion and review of chapter 8 article 8.10 parking vehicles on unimproved service of the code of ordinances and Bob youron mayor I think there's a request for public comment on that last item oh so sorry since we didn't have a motion all items on the agenda even if they're not actually perfect open for public comment thank you on this if you want to put the mat back up first of all I think this is a lovely thing to get done um it kind of reminds me back of the day when we did the poo and we worked with LC and all those people and got lots of all this done for the walking in the Ada and making our community tied all together and and lovely so I think that's a great idea um my question uh on this and comment on this as well is who directly is going to manage this large amount of money um and how it be managed and how it be decided what and how these things are done I see you're going to get engineering done and that's great but who directly is going to manage this huge budget for this city to see that things are not incorrectly done and then my other question is is part of this budget for the city and all of our things like this um and ADA compliance and putting in things for Ada as far as hearing and seeing and all those things on our facilities is there money in this budget or will there be money in this budget for maintenance of these things because that's important too because we're adding these things we need to keep them in good shape as part of this could we see that added in there possibly no we

[1:10:43] can't okay we cannot that's not why this is building this is okay this is building okay very good and so can the maintenance issues as we do every year in the budget session okay and so who do I talk with about that the maintenance thing well first of all we haven't even built it yet so worrying about the maintenance of it when we haven't even that's when you worry about it um anyway uh yes ma'am and so who's going to manage this Patrick would you like to come forward hi so I keep referring to our team and and that's a big part a big part of this um it's obvious that a project of this scale is not should not be assigned to a single person and we do not want it to be assigned to a single person due to the risk of that so we have multiple people that's going to be on this team um from a overall project manager to somebody that's overseeing the budget side to somebody that's overseeing the reporting and the compliance side of it inspectors that are going to be working on the ground to make sure everything is going in correctly and that all the daily reporting is being done correctly um again that's part of the trainings that we're going through and that's part of that team that we're developing and making sure that this is going through so these are all things that we've talked about already getting in in preparation for the actual construction side of this so we're going to have multiple people watching over this thing um just to make sure it is successful and I want to ensure yall that um and I I kind of want to throw a bone to to counsil real quick because last year y'all allowed us to hire a grant administrator yall added a position for that and I think that's what you're seeing here is that fruition of that so um she is not only instrumental in in this application process but she's also going to be instrument and that compliance and the reporting side of it that makes sure that we do get reimbursed on all of this so thank you yes here since P Patrick brought up the the this managing these particular this may be a large Grant but this is not the largest project this city has ever done we have people every day that look at

[1:12:45] all these things that's what I do for a living I'm quite aware of that that's why I'm asking the question but 29 million to come in and correct these things is a lot of money and I just want to make sure it's managed correctly as a public citizen these are my tax dollars that's all I'm asking the question of thank you further public comment on this item all right well then that will complete the discussion of Item B and we will now move into item C if we'll welcome Bob back up here yeah all right so today's the discussion review of chapter 8 article 8.10 parking vehicles on unimproved service of the code of ordinances yes um I think a council requested a review of the ordinance dealing with parking on unimproved surfaces that's art chapter 8 article 8.10 prohibits parking in the yard in the residential zoned area with some exceptions the two main exceptions are on an improved surface such as concrete asphalt kichi or Paving bricks and the other one if it's screened from public view with a solid or Peak fence or wall at least set 6 feet tall and conforming to the zoning zoning ordinance however there are um other additional exceptions uh one is the uh is recreational trailers or semi-trailers and RVs they do they must conform to setback requirements which is 10 ft from the edge of the street excluding the neck of the trailer um parking in the rear yard if the rear boundary is not adjacent to a street right away if the street is 36 ft or less in width um if it has a valid handicap license plate or a mirror hanger um and if the street is wider than 36 ft uh residence without a driveway but with a curb cut for a

[1:14:48] driveway with or without a garage or carport they can park perpendicular to the residents within the boundaries created by the curb cut and lastly the other um exception is residents without a curb cut can uh they can park perpendicular to the street on other side of the residents here's a uh picture example of a vehicle parking in the rear yard here's an example of a vehicle parking in the front yard because the street is less than 36 ft wide and notice that they do not have to park perpendicular to the residents they can park across here's an example of a vehicle parking perpendicular to the residence where there is a curb cut and a carport but not an improved surface they can park perpendicular into the the boundary of the curb cut uh here's another example of a vehicle parking perpendicular to the residence on an unimproved surface without a carport or garage and with a curb cut and all of these are legit in other words the ordinance allows yes all of these things that you're showing pictures of is that correct that's what's allowed here's an example of a parking on the side of the residents due to the curb uh with they don't have a curb cut and because of that they can park on the side of the residence and lastly here's an example of a car parking on the side of the residence again in this case there is a curve but there's no curb cut so the question is how do they get onto the property well if there's no curb cut there's a curb and there's your property you've got to jump the curb unfortunately and uh the last slide I've

[1:16:51] got here is this is the coding enforcement process uh the first thing our officers do they check the gis map for the width of the street uh next the inspect the um officer will inspect the property and issue a violation a notice of violation if necessary The Violator has seven days to comply and that allows 5 days mailing time for a total of 12 days and then the officer will conduct a follow-up inspection and they may Grant extensions if requested and if things are moving right along they they they they can do that if not they will file a criminal complaint for non-compliance and now we'll be glad to answer any questions or make comments my first question is on all of these exceptions and all the photographs that you have shown were all of those cars or Vehicles did they all have license plates if that's a different question actually um if it doesn't have a a license plate uh you can have a car on your property without a license plate if it doesn't it doesn't meet a junk vehicle description on the street they cannot at that point uh the PD will get involved with that so all vehicles on the street must have a license plate that is correct my understanding are there a limit are there limitations to the number of vehicles allowed on a residence or unimproved or improved um driveway no there's no limitation so a person could have in their front yard and parking up to 12 vehicles that all have license plates and it would be legal so what is the difference between that and a what one would call maybe I don't want to use the word junkyard but because it's not but it is a huge amount of vehicles on a

[1:18:56] property we do check for junk and un Sidle um this would be since there are no limitations on the ordinance uh we could potentially be selling cars that's a different issue that is a zoning problem and we get involved on that side of the is of the equation uh we get involved to make sure that they're not selling vehicles um but if they're repairing vehicles for the future sell that's again it gets into the junk vehicle uh ordinance which is a little bit different but um they can you can fix your car however you have if it shows um indication of it that it is junked in other words if the if the engine's on the side uh it's been there for more than 30 days that you start looking at a junk vehicle situation so all vehicles must be in running conditions so they must not meet the junct vehicle description okay we can't make you move your car because sitting there because you can sit there for a year we don't care if you move it or not but if your car starts showing um that it's looking like a junk vehicle the tires are off it's on Jacks uh part of the vehicles on on the side the engine transmissions on the side uh Big Oil spots then we start looking at a junk vehicle situation these are the issues that I get many phone calls on and complaints yes about are the multiple vehicles that don't seem to be in working order and have been on someone's yard or driveway or Street for extended period of time with the knowledge that the vehicles are not in running condition or usable but we won't know that if it does we don't know if it doesn't run until it starts showing signs of of a junk vehicle other in other words um you can have a like said if it's you can can have an ugly car we don't we don't legislate or control Aesthetics people can have red

[1:20:59] cars so as we look at your car we do have to make sure that again there's there's a criteria and I have um I have my supervisor here my co- compliance supervisor you can get to details if you need that but uh uh that's a whole different part of the of the of the uh of the ordinance So today we're just going talking about parking on the front yard how many can we do and who can who's allowed and that kind of thing so well I know that I'm just one of many city council members who get constant phone calls and complaints so Karen Larry who would like to go on first I have one house that had nine cars around it a truck that the registration was from 2020 just sitting there my major complaint is a visibility problem neighbors shouldn't have to look at a car lot next to their their house I'm not sure we have the answer for that problem yet well one thing they can do is they can uh put it behind an OP peque uh fence and keep it out of the public view that's one way of handling it um and again if it's in the backyard for example um they they can do that they can have a vehicle in the backyard um so that's that's unfortunate but you can't have multiple cars on your on your property if you meet the ordinance I know it's that the best solution and uh but we do look at it we always look to see if there's a junk card view situation uh we do check for all the things that I just mentioned earlier Karen I'll just vote with Larry on this uh metaphorically speaking the abundance of complaints that I hear from citizens that are distressed because they don't want to look at that right um they are not the perpetuator of the problem they are the witness to the problem and they appear to have no particular recourse at least that's how they feel so if you could advise this body and the public listening and

[1:23:03] watching what people might do to not waste your time and to and to also make a a productive complaint that might lead to resolution for the visual concerns that they have we'd appreciate it well we always encourage citizens to call us that's the really do that call us let's take a look at it because you never know what what you've got until our officers go out there they're they're trained uh they're certified they've been doing this for a long time they can they'll go out there and take a look and see if they in fact it meets the criteria uh for our actions um unfortunately a lot of times they do not um they're they just meet the criteria now can Council change that absolutely uh you can change the ordinance uh to eliminate the 35t uh um w crer but then you have a bunch of cars on the street where with narrow vehic narrow streets there will be no way to get around like you do in Ford war in some places well since you brought that up so then the question mark would be I have six cars my driveway I don't want cars in my front yard and I only have room for two in my driveway may I park the rest of those cars in front of other people's homes the legally so you can use the street for any amount of parking for any amount of vehicles that you have not just your curb or the curb in front of your house and the parking attached to it would that be correct uh you can park uh first come first serve on the street uh you cannot block a driveway but if you're not blocking a driveway you can park your car anywhere on the street that's that's doesn't have any no parking signs so yeah you can park in somebody in front of somebody's house yeah Lucy do y'all issue very many tickets do we issue a lot of tickets Cod violations yeah violations do you issue a lot of violations um I'm not sure what

[1:25:05] many would be let me uh have uh Mr hiara come up and see if he can answer that question should we Define Min so Min from 0 to 10 and then Mini Plus is 11 to 20 or so uh you want to know how many oh my name is Rudy with code compliance so what was your question on Rudy I just wanted to know as far as the U uh citations that y'all issue how many do you do a month so for parking as far as complaints go we don't get very many complaints about that about parking unproved maybe a handful a month citations we may have had in the past year uh maybe three or four and what I mean by citations we file criminal complaints okay on trailers are trailers repeat this for me again please because I forgot the slide are trailers allowed to park on the street with no license plate I'm G to say no let's see no a license plat allows you to park on the on the street but a trailer by itself unattached is not allowed to be parked in the street are construction trailers allowed to be parked on the street as a work vehicle with a li with no license plate or with a license plate again this may be a PD issue or question because it may be a traffic violation but the rule doesn't allow or the code does not allow for any unattached trailer to be parked in the street Harry Bob uh you're probably going to get inundated with phone calls you and R I can tell you this is a problem all over the city now I'm glad that Larry

[1:27:10] asked for clarification on this because we need to educate some of our constituents exactly what but I think there's a possibility that we really need to look at this particular ordinance and junk uh vehicle ordinance simply because we have multiple families living in one house today which is probably what happened 50 60 years ago but right now so now you've got a number of vehicles that are parked uh but we really need to take a look at this because uh neighborhoods are starting to look really junky because of the number of vehicles that are part there trailers that are on properties uh you know we really need to be looking at whether or not there's even people may be living in some of these particular trailers uh you and I conversed before council meeting today about one that's actually in Lucy's neighborhood but it's in my neighborhood I mean Lucy's uh area but it's in my neighborhood so I I always take a look at these things but we really this community is starting to look really junky in a lot of different areas so I if we can change the ordinance is there ways that we can and make make these clean up some of these neighborhoods I I sure would like to do that Tom so my question Bob this go back to Rudy I get a lot of phone calls about commercial vehicles parked in residential neighborhoods and there'll be cattle trailers stock trailers there'll be PL pling companies and they'll be in districts where they will park their um personal veh I mean it's their commercial vehicle that they drive during the day but they'll bring that home and park it in front of their house and it limits egress in and out of facilities can you bring a commercial vehicle and put it in basically an rs1 neighborhood and park it on the street I

[1:29:13] believe it's the size Rudy you want to come up here and uh help me out this here he's the expert so so if I understand your question right you're asking about a commercial vehicle par commercial vehicles I see them in my district all the time that will be parked on the street we've got to move out and around them but somebody that works at say for a specific company whether that be you know electric plumbing whatever they'll bring their work van home and they drive it daily they'll park it right in the middle of Catalina or wherever it might be and is that legal to leave it there so again there's may be a traffic violation may may not what is a commercial vehicle a vehicle a pickup truck with a commercial uh signage on it is not a commercial vehicle I have the ordinance if you'd like to hear that we just need to give it I mean out there I'm with Harry and Olive I mean it's just we we're getting more and more Vehicles stacked in everybody's yards we know they're not using them and people are educated those we've worked on one there where they know that they get out and they roll it 4T forward I don't think it has a motor in it but they roll it 4 feet and change it just to say hey I moved it I mean I'll go with Harry I I'll look at anything to just try to clean some of these things up I just we're all tired of it of being unsightly um there's another one that I'll bring up when we close the meeting day of something I want to go forward with as far as looking at new ordinance things to look at but I mean I'll get phone calls all the time somebody will park a truck you know in an 18 wheeel truck in the middle of Green Acres and leave it there they'll Park a cattle trailer down there on the street and we know those aren't legal and the person that purchased it said well it's my property well whatever but I'll go with hering bunches we need to clean it up just reminder if it's in the street and if it's it's a commercial vehicle traffic division or the police department may be able to help you it's on priv of property we can help you gotcha would you would you please uh Teresa read the ordinance the language so we're all clear yeah a commercial

[1:31:17] vehicle is one that exceeds 3 and 1/2 tons that is designed maintained or used primarily for the non-recreational transportation of persons and people is how it's defined so it's the bigger vehicles um it shall be unlawful for any person to park a commercial vehicle trailer semi-trailer Pole trailer truck trailer a recreation vehicle on a street or lot in a residential district or on a street bordering a residential district with looks like a whole bunch of exceptions um if it's used for transporting furniture and household goods while in the process of unloading or unloading um while in the process of loading or unloading other kinds of of commercial Goods mobile homes provided that their right to occupy the location appears affirmatively from other statutes trailer and semi-trailers used for recreational or homeowner utility purposes and recreational vehicles can be parked inside parking outside parking in a side yard not adjacent to and parallel to a street outside parking in a year lot rear yard as long as the unit meets setback requirements of an accessory building so you can see it's very complicated it's not that easy um but basically the answer is no unless they have a business purpose for being there good so an RV so I have a large RV that I've just come home from a big trip am I allowed to park that in my um driveway or on the street I'll have to read all these exceptions you you actually can park it on the yard is one of the exceptions to this ordinance uh what you cannot do is uh keep it plugged in and and live in it that's what you cannot do and we we get complaints on that so when we go check we check for see do they have sewage do they have water electricity um and you can have it for like 14 days to prepare your RV to go on a trip but you can't have it continuously so that's how we check to see if you're living on that of course that is a violation but you can't have your RV you know again on on your yard uh say with a recreational trailer but there are a lot of setback requirements

[1:33:19] and set very specific things 10 10 ft from the street Lucy so Bob you can can you have a trailer in the backyard and have it hooked up in yes you can yes you can she said live in the backyard you can have right she can you live in it she's saying if you have a trailer let's living in the trailer no no no no no you cannot I'm sorry you cannot live in the trailer you can use your trailer for recreational purposes and you can have a trailer in your backyard but you cannot be living in can you cannot you could have an overnight camping trip in your backyard yeah yeah you you C for the night you know for with the kidss come and live with you and you go you can live in the RV yeah you cannot live in the RV in the backyard no in the front yard anywhere so it using a trailer an RV for temporary living purposes is okay 14 days in the six-month period after that they're not allowed to live in it like an apartment yeah so wait a minute I'm Excuse me Brenda can I oh yes please let's talk about the one on 49th it's the worst one in the world they have what six five five trailers sitting on there it's an empty lot no house so you're probably talking about gr growthy Street that's the one yeah there's pending uh uh cases against that property owner no what she's doing there is not allowed by or zoning ordinance or any other ordinance that we know of right but I so I guess my frustration here and we'll try to keep it short because we need to move on but they've done this over two years they developed it the people in that neighborhood because of the people that reside in those campers are probably not the best people to um or let let's put it way they they say it's a drug deal I mean they say people are stopping there short period of time everything but it's taking two years for us to finally get to this point and I could only imagine how frustrating it would be to live on a street and it take this damn long to get it cleaned up and when there's something

[1:35:22] that's that big of a violation five RVs parked out there camper trailers and I'm I get frustrated because the the wives of the guys that are frustrated they got my personal phone number and they have worn me out in two weeks and I and I get it but I'm just saying it took five years you know or basically to get to this point so this item is a discussion item where you can direct us is it on to um make some changes to the ordinance to look at some changes to the ordinance um we came specifically regarding the parking on the yard which which you know it expands into all these other issues of parking on the yard as well um all addressed by very different and convoluted ordinances so one of the things that um it was Larry who requested that this item be brought forward one of the concerns he initially raised to us was that um people can park in the backyard and they don't have to Shield the vehicles under our code is that something you would want to see um one of the things we discussed when met last week Rudy and Bob and I was there's a little bit of confusion within the code itself as to this 36t wide Street um is that the only time we want people parking in their yard is if the Street's not wide enough to park on the street or do we want them to be able to park in their yard even if the Street's wider but have certain specific requirements and when the street isn't 36 ft do we want them to park in a certain way or is parking haphazardly however they want to park okay I mean those are the kinds of things I think that one reason Bob brings up that they Park however they want is that that adds to the look of the Clutter when you have Parks cars just parked Every Which Way so those are kinds of the questions that we saw in the ordinance some of it I think does need to be clarified because Rudy doesn't it's not very clear whether um all of those requirements to park perpendicular and all of those things apply to um streets that are less than 36 ft wide so if you have any guidance we're happy

[1:37:24] to take a stab at a new ordinance if you want to leave it as it is and just understand that it's very convoluted and difficult to enforce the parking whether it's Rudy doing it or whether it's PD um it's a very difficult situation and there really is no place else for contractors often to park their vehicles is what they tell us all right so I would say the following is that we need to review this ordinance and I would say we need to clarify some of the gray matter in it if possible because it seems like it's anything can go kind of ordinance and yet so that's hard to enforce I would say that based off of the number of complaints that perhaps you all have had that you know the issues that are top of Mind in terms of gray matter and too much leeway if you will not black and wide enough um I'm going to ask each council member if there's something specifically they'd like to see included or changed in the ordinance so that we're clear as you work on U amending the ordinance Larry yeah I think it needs to be totally reworked frankly sometimes even our laws step in and create conditions where we can't do what we'd like to do that situation I had five cars parked in the backyard two of them blocking another vehicle that's parked under a shed that's the one with the 2020 registration on it it's impossible to see from the street what the other registrations are my question is are does do the enforcement people have the power to go across people's property to inspect those vehicles to see if they're currently registered I don't think so we can get an administrative warrant to access

[1:39:27] property for that purpose yeah there is a process for that um but again on if it's the vehicle is on your property it does not have to be registered you know you just can't be it has to be regally go on the street then you have a problem but you can have a car and you just you have a personal car doesn't look like a junk vehicle and it's intact um and just in your driveway you can keep it there now now you can't use it for storage you can't use it for some other things but uh um it's how can we go around M you know ensuring that everyone moves their car we we just can't do that that's it's kind of uh overreaching I think so we have to just kind of trust that it becomes a as it starts moving towards a junk vehicle then we can take action but otherwise if it's intact it looks good it's sitting in the driveway old has hasn't moved because they don't want to register it they could have reasons for it it belong to a mom that passed away and they just want to not sure what they're going to do with the vehicle they they could do those kind of things so it's kind of problematic but we could clean that up I recommend that maybe let us go take a look at some U uh ordinances across the the state see what looks good uh some of the some of the your concerns I'll try to we'll work that out and then we'll come back to council with a proposal and see if you guys want to see if you want to maybe make some changes okay that's that would be my recommendation should should the focus be on cleaning up neighborhoods and aesthetic look rather than what we're seeing at this point so it's not so much what's in the backyard as far as registration it's what it looks like front where people come through I mean Harry would that be safe to say that that that's a big concern is the appearance I like the opaque fence portion of it because the one that that I'm talking about is right there on the corner okay so anybody drives down that street is going to see that this car lot yeah and is there an interest in having people park in the street if the street is wide enough or are we okay with

[1:41:29] letting them Park in their yards depending just regarding the width of the street T so the biggest concern there would just be safety purposes being able to make sure that we have a fire truck that can actually go through there if there's an emergency so we'd have to take a look at that from the aspect of is it safe enough to actually park there so I think we'd have to take a look at the 36t width again and see if in fact uh if you have vehicles parked on either side County Fire trk go through there so we're going to have to re-evaluate but again looking at from the perspective of athetics and how the neighborhood looks I think that's probably going to be the primary concern okay okay any other thing I just want to make a statement you know talking about this the street the width of the street uh I know that on Avenue X where my aunt used to live she the street is so narrow that if a car's parked on one side when you're trying to get out of your driveway you have a really hard time cuz that cars parked there and there was nothing they could do because they would say no they're allowed to park there so that's that's one of the problems I think they have in those uh residents where they do have real narrow streets so you the ordinance could read um something about unless it impedes someone else's ability to come in and out of their driveway then that's no one should not be able to get in and out out of their driveway because of the number of cars or Vehicles perhaps parked and that would be the same fire issue that you're talking about right with fire in and out then how would a fire truck get to that property any other comments Tom me just Bob as you investigate best practices around the state and other ordinances around the state other cities I would also encourage you to check on the enforce aspect of that particular ordinance may require a couple of phone calls with someone in that municipality but to see you know how how let's just say how

[1:43:32] enforcable are the provisions which they have in theirs so that we we operate by a complaint basis we know we don't have enough uh Code Compliance officers around so let's check check on the enforceability of whatever you come up with as far as best practice absolutely enforceability is is key uh we also don't want to overreach either you know the government must make sure that people can do what they want basically long not PE somebody else obviously well it needs to be reasonable it can't create undo burdens on individuals which is the key issue so our topic today is parking in yards do we want to also you want us also to take a look at the commercial vehicles portion as well I would say yes it kept being being brought up but okay all right so that any other comments or Direction um before we take a break okay thank you thank you all right we will take a break for 10 minutes oh wait once again I messed up public comment please um I I think the um Aesthetics of our city are definitely an issue this issue you bring up about cars and this happens to be particularly about cars because that's you're addressing um on private property um I have some issues about because um people what people do on their private property um with their personal things are somewhat Limited in what y'all can address my brother happens to be a car collector and he has old cars on his place and he does this all the time and so he's always restoring and rebuilding and all this stuff tries to do it nice and neat there are people that do many things on their property that you may not see visually you may not like them but they do them and they're not against the law and it's

[1:45:35] not against the law for people to do this and so I have questions about imposing your more further regulations on people on their private property for your Aesthetics especially when you look around our city and look at our commercial facilities and our commercial buildings and all these things which definitely need some aesthetic Improvement and some Code Compliance relating to things with fire issues and such and there are cars and there are people in town I know of a particular lawyer that has boats piled all over his property that nobody seems concerned about and I think it's rather trashy but that's my opinion so I have concerns about that so when you're making ordinances relating to people's private property and the things they have on their property because I may not like what you have but and the people next to me and I live out in the middle of nowhere but if the person in the ranch down the way decides to pull a an RV up there in their property and do something with it or in town if you pull up after a week of vacation and you want to unload your RV and you want to park it in the street why should anybody question that and these are things I have concerns about when we're addressing these particular things because there are many other issues of people think that doing things and again it's on their private property so I have a question on that well I think before you making more ordinances that most people don't even understand because they're so colluded and don't even have a clue there's an ordinance that you want to try to tell them how to park on their private property so I think what we're trying to do today is open up the conversation for all of the complaints that we get from phone calls and emails and don't have the answer for it so we're trying to clarify the mud in the middle for ourselves but as well for our citizens because it is because it's not only Aesthetics it becomes in fire issue and things like that and like I say you look at our commercial facility in areas like Stadium Park Plaza and areas like that where we have garbage what I would consider very anesthetically piled up but also a fire issue that need to be looked at so maybe it's an overall aesthetic and cleanliness aspect that we need to look at not just cars and people's private property and what

[1:47:37] they do on that thank you I do want to mention that it really truly is not just about Aesthetics it also goes to value of property as well correct so whenever you have a trashed out property next year is and you maintain yours the value of your property could be affected as well so know okay just just wanted to stress that thank you are we ready oh no Evelyn come on up I just want to touch base on what she said just a little bit because um and you're Evelyn Smith again did I have to say that again I'm sorry Evelyn Smith that's md5 um that um not only do we have clutter with the cars and so forth but own people's property and I think she mentioned that and some of it looks like a fire hazard so I didn't know if anything was being done about that or if there was a code violation where people would just unnecessarily junk in their yards and like you said it does affect the property next door the value of the property next door also so um is that included in yes ma'am what you guys are already talking about as far as the junk cars and so forth that is included looked at okay thank you yes ma'am everybody ready for a break we are okay we'll take a break 7 a.m. and we will reconvene and continue on with our regular agenda items today we are ready to open discussion on item D discussion and review of chapter one article 1.09 division three uniform tax abatement policy of the code of ordinances and Michael Dane you are on for this conversation thank you good morning mayor and Council Michael N interam economic development director today um here to talk about the current T well tax abatement policy in

[1:49:38] general what brought us here today we had a tax abatement policy for years it expired um and we renewed under the old terms that that policy we're excited when did it expire pardon me when did it the old policy expire and the new one pass I don't remember it I think it expired a couple years ago about 2018 I believe 2018 and we had a project come forward that was uh interested in that possibility and so we um reintroduced and Council passed the tax batment policy with the terms uh largely as they were in the previous policy and it's soon as we were done um we had another Prospect come forward uh that was non-conforming in other words not eligible under the terms of the ordinance that we recently passed I think that's important for a couple re well for one main reason regardless of what these rules are um staff and Council and the Costa DC board have a very pro-development attitude and we're trying not to say no for any reason we're trying to develop Solutions so whether we amend our current policy or not if we have conforming or non-conforming uh eligible or non-eligible projects we will be talking to you about your preference for that so why even have a plan well so that we can I mean if if it's that big and that Broad and we're going to do what come forward no matter what it is should there even be a policy or should all projects be brought forward for discussion that that's a great great question mayor under the current policy they have to be brought forward anyway we have not you have not delegated to staff any autonomy with regard to approval of tax abatements they all have to come to you by approving a set of

[1:51:42] terms we broadcast to prospects what we are ready to entertain and and um uh but the reality is we try to go that that extra mile and if a prospect has a valid U project we'll talk to you about it and so uh one of the answers to that question is trying to write that policy as broadly as possible to allow Council to retain that discretion Council will retain that discretion at least the authority moving forward uh but the discretion about what council's values are for what type of projects would receive how strong in abatement will change as we move forward you know we're struggling we've had this conversation last budget cycle the impact of um state statute on our ability to uh generate property tax revenue generate collect property tax revenue is evolving and uh as we as an organization learn to deal with adapt to those situations our values for granting tax abatements May evolve also so the key is to for Council to retain the authority and the discretion and if there are certain areas you certainly don't want to consider tax abatements we should write those out um what would be the recommendation if there was some that you that would be written out and not at all eligible are there those things do you have are we prepared to discuss those things that currently are in the policy that says if you ask for this the answer is no but you can't appeal it but what are they we don't have anything that we've thought of that we would say no to uh it's very much a values oriented decision what is our what is the

[1:53:47] organization's priority at this time versus what sort of um revenues would we be delaying and so we don't have anybody that we would write out which suggests a broader approach again a broader approach uh um a similar answer to the previous question you ask a broader approach allows the discretion to reside with Council and um gives more opportunity for projects to be eligible in a shorter time frame you know if we write if we don't do anything and we've got a project which is a priority for Council we'll bring it back and we'll amend the ordinance uh to uh conform to what council's desire is and so that'll take more time but uh uh the broad uh approach uh broad eligibility is consistent with a philosophy that started 10 or more years ago move try to move at the speed of business and so I know that from the kosad DC perspective they try to move things along quickly uh um I know Council from a Costa DC perspective would also try to move quickly and you know if we had a project today that was well we do have a project today that doesn't isn't eligible but if Council wants it to be approved we'll we'll line those Ducks up so we can knock those down one at a time and make that happen if we have to amend the ordinance it'll take more time but if it's currently eligible we'll just jump through the the process uh to create the Zone authorize the project execute the contracts but what you just said is you could amend the ordinance and vote Yes at any point in time is that correct Teresa or do you have would you explain that well the reason that we need the ordinance is because the statute requires you to adopt guidelines before we enter tax abatement agreements so we need some

[1:55:49] guidelines to start as a starting point and again as Mike said that is just Council approval so if a project came forward that doesn't meet those guidelines and you're still interested in doing it we would bring those guidelines back to you for Amendment and then you can amend them that way it's a fair playing field for everybody and everybody goes into the game understanding what the rules are but it is a requirement to have guidelines that are adopted okay I think the important part of that is that we don't see that as the end of the conversation if something doesn't comply if Council says we're open to consideration then that's not the end of the conversation we we want to try to make that option available through an a budget amendment process or I'm sorry a ordinance amendment process so all that to say we don't have to have a hard decision today I think what we're looking for is some broad guidance on on what to bring back to you and um and we'll go from there well I think the before we can do that we have to understand understand what it says no to yes Larry same thing I was thinking can we have an example of what would fit into this gray area where we need to seriously take a look at it that's a great question what we have the slides we've prepared show what we would say yes to I'm not I'm we're not interested in the yes we're interested in the NOS that's okay possible know because that's really what you're asking I mean I think that's what you're asking is we obviously say yes to the things on the screen in front of us but what's left behind Bob do you have any idea for a succinct way to get to that or will we need to work that up separately when I read through all of those things on this slide and I'm doing it somewhat fast I'm not sure what what the no is uh well for example uh we have a an

[1:57:55] application right now for a utility related company it's uh next code is under falls under utilities that does not qualify under our current uh ordinance as it's written so the idea was to first of all try to align our requirements more closely with what what the state allows under the economic development act but then also to give Council as much latitude as possible the reason we need this to begin with is the state says in order to have a tax abatement policy you have to have certain guidelines so so we do have to have the guidelines we can't just say well we'll do this any you know anything Council says but what we we can do is have guidelines as Broad as possible and then allow Council still an option to look at each one on an individual basis and you will still have to look at each project on an individual basis regardless whether it fits the list or not you're going to have individual approval on each one and that will include not only the eligibility of the company but also the amount of abatement the only restriction there is if you if you create a zone that encompasses is a number of properties um each property has to be given the same consideration now the way to sort of work around that if you will is when you create a Zone you create a zone for a single property that way even if they're next door to each other they're two different zones they can have two different set very property specific correct yes that help well Daniel you want to comment on tax abatement and economic impacts or for get to turn this thing on um again on our end and again the authority

[1:59:58] has given the city council but really in order for us to consider a project and and I'm appreciate to the chire I know you got you guys understand this we have to have the opportunity to look at the industry specific you doesn't mean that you say yes to every one of the ones that ask for a an abatement but you actually can at least consider that that opportunity for that industry that's already listed on there um as far as the economic development and looking at this what the state is looking at the state does allow for certain um industry and that's basically what we're looking at right now today is the recommendation to go with this uh this industry to include it in the amendment uh it is staff's recommendation that we move forward with that but again um including it in the amendment doesn't mean that in the future you have to approve a certain speci project just because it falls in within that industry that's that's absolutely correct Council retains full discretion and that's the key with a broad-based uh uh authorization you grant yourself then um you retain the discretion to say we just don't see the value in that at that level and you can trim a project back one of the one of the uh difficulties is in this table certain number of jobs certain capital investment there's there's less flexibility here than than could be if we eliminated this uh you would have greater flexibility if you had a very Capital intensive project but didn't create a lot of jobs you you would retain the discretion for what you thought the value was there on the other hand if we were going through a time or in a location where the jobs were the priority not necessarily a capital investment it would allow you to agree to craft a solution and agree to that contract for that solution without the constraints of the current policy and so um our recommendation is to align with the uh uh what the uh State what the ACT

[2:02:00] allows use language such as up to uh so we set those Outer Limits but we don't necessarily conform require that a project conform to a table but we have a table yes and and I think we would propose to get rid of that so that if you had again a project that was Capital intensive uh but didn't create a lot of jobs you would have a little more discretion about how you would grant that uh that uh abatement but not be required no requirement still still it's got to be a priority for Council and that's of course the item number three is that there's no autonomy gr uh created in this ordinance that every abatement has to come to council um and so if I were to characterize what direction we might ask for you might say leave it as is and bring back the non-conforming ones we won't we'll just we'll just talk about them if they if they're not eligible we'll talk about it uh the county has a an a policy which is a little broader than ours we could try to align with the county so that there was consistency so when our economic developers we're talking to prospects we could have roughly or exactly the same kinds of opportunities that they provide at the county but we would need to see those before we would agree to that exactly no dire it's just direction today no specific policy today and then the third option would be generally as broad as the state would allow to allow you to do what you felt was in the city's best interest when the prospect came forward all right so the next code the state allows for utility but the city does not yes ma'am that's absolutely and why would that the

[2:04:04] decision to exclude Utilities in our city was because that conversation occurred years ago and likely in an executive session and so I don't have a good answer for on that and but the state allows utility companies corporations to apply for tax abatement there are things we have not allowed that the state does allow and right now I guess where Bob and Nora and I are is we're questioning why we would unnecessarily restrict council's Authority and and uh and so we wanted to get that out in the open and get your sense for what your response to that was why would we unnecessarily restrict well I think it's appropriate Since U the council is obligated to put together a budget using all resources available which are primarily property tax dollars and sales tax dollars so um we know our economy is based off of continually developing new businesses um which include um developing product but also or property but also creating jobs which is more important I don't know I'm not sure which one depending on the company what that means and particularly as it looks at long-term um number of people I mean we have some highly intense uh developments if you will like a solar farm which really impacts the county does not impact the city and the traditional sense of property tax dollars being created and on a very short term there's probably an impact on our economy because of the number of people they employ but that's a short period of time at the end of the day once the solar farm is built they leave town and maybe keep one to two people employed so I understand some of that utility issue and conversation so I think it has to be in my opinion brought

[2:06:06] forward because we have to approve a budget and the only way you approve a budget is to find out how much revenue we have to pay for all the things that we have to pay for and are important to the citizens so I think it's appropriate that we leave it that they must come before Council for final approval I don't know why we would have next codes more limiting than the state if the state allows it I'm not sure why we wouldn't but again I still think it's appropriate that would come back to council for final approval uh because of the impact on budgets Harry as and Harry well I'm probably going to piggyback off of what you just said but I'd like to make it broad enough to align with what the state allows but bring it back to the council for every one of these things and so you use the word up to a maximum and I think that allows the council to make those decisions either based on the economic impact of in monetary investment or number of people or a combination of both so bring it back to to the council but let's open it up and align it with the state you know the latest statistics that have come out reflect that unemployment is U increasing again so whether it's the state or the county or the city right now Unemployment uh claims have gone up which means that in our economy job creation is hugely important we need jobs for our citizens and we need affordable wages um not not minimum wage but living wage employment and I would assume that with a utility company we're talking about wages that are above minimum wage I don't know that but I'm assuming so it has multiple issues attached to it I think coming back to council is the correct thing to do I

[2:08:10] think expanding the tax code the next codes to be equal to the state maybe I don't know CU I don't know what they are and I don't know what the counties are so I can't answer state or County I think we should look at those things and understand why they're allowed in the county but not in the city why it's allowed in the state but not in the city I mean you got three entities that don't all align and that's odd in itself we're with you okay good all right so that's the discussion all right then we will bring back an ordinance uh uh proposal uh consistent with a broad um broad approach where Council retains the discretion to execute or not execute contracts for for uh tax abatements yes and I think to keep in mind because as I just said before the county benefits aggressively by wind and solar Farms the city does during the time of building but we don't so what they might allow because of the huge bump and their property tax might not work well for the city so we need to be cautious as we have these conversations or you develop a policy to understand the impact in county is not the same as it is in the city or the city the same in the county and the state because the State wins no matter what okay thank you all right thank you we will move into item e which is discussion and review on animal services and challenges faced by St Angelo and other cities throughout the state and the country and today we have Morgan tagwood here to Pro pre make a presentation to us good morning good morning I have some items for you today to just touch base on what we're seeing on the national landscape and how that's really uh filtering down to the local level of course there's been some media

[2:10:14] lately that's reporting um some animal services um challenges some uh crises that we're facing and it's largely centered around dogs um so if you'll forgive the conversation we serve a lot more than that but today will be largely dog focused I do think that that's the majority of what y'all are seeing and hearing about and so that's what today's uh presentation will largely revolve around there's been some national reporting around puppies and pure breads um and I'll talk more about locally what we're seeing but um that's I think unique at the national level about pure breads um and and there is data reporting over almost a quarter of a million more dog sheltered uh in 2023 than in Prior years um and so some of that is that intake is up uh they're reporting nationally that intake is up about 5% uh which of course is you know thousands uh more animals and that adoptions are down nominally down about 1% uh but at this scale that does add up um and that there are groups that have um sought uh life- saving measures and been um you know even private shelters that have been at some you know metric a really high uh live release rate um organization that are now today um in late 2023 and going into 2024 making space based based euthanasia decisions for the first time in years uh meanings that they are euthanizing entirely because they're full not because of medical um not because of temperament or behavior simply because they're full so locally a lot of what we're seeing is pressures on owners uh that you know the inflation that we're all experiencing um is impacting sanalo families um dog food costs is one section of of of the economy dog food cost is up 16% um compared to the prior year uh we also of course see a a lot of restrictive housing uh where people are reaching out to us um needing assistance because they're moving um they have personal issues that they've got to move um and their new place does not allow

[2:12:16] pets or does not allow um dogs of a certain size or breed um we also know that our um managed owner surrender policy has some impact on it uh we want citizens to be able to call come by and get matched with resources immediately uh for someone wishing to owner surrender their pet we're going to refer them to a few steps you know we are at capacity which is another policy recently adopted that definitely um impacted you know what we're seeing in the community right now um and we just we have limited resources we have limited safety nets we're able to refer people to um so owners are um potentially leaving their dogs behind when they move out they're potentially letting their dogs loose when they move out um they're potentially um dumping them at my shelter for the last quarter um in 2023 we had 34 dogs dumped at the shelter that we just came to work in the morning and there's a a litter of 11 puppies or there's two dogs Tethered to the front pole um and so those are presumably uh people who reached out for res sources and what we could offer did not satisfy their emergency need and that was what they chose to do do we have security cameras around the animal shelter we do um and it is um insufficient for law enforcement purposes as far as trespassing or criminal abandonment um I certainly can't tell um I can say tell probably a make and model of a vehicle but not a license plate um even if I could the are they are is it really a abandonment when they have the presumption that the animal will get care so um it's something we refer to law enforcement um but has is pretty ineffective as far as enforcement the um so to address those parts of it uh we think that sinanan needs um pet friendly housing um there was um Texas State uh legislation passed around this this year uh but pretty broad um we would we would just ask for those that can lift the restriction on

[2:14:19] breed and size to please join this movement about increasing and improving Animal Care in our community um we also want to offer what what say that again because I'm not sure I understand that statement landlords and uh rental companies restricting what size and breed of pet you can keep with your family so there's legislation out there that's been passed that it doesn't address that part of it it it does address um something about pet friendly housing um but it was not enough to help Sanel l because because it it doesn't um remove the restrictions or ask to remove the restrictions around breed and size so the state passed legislation that we can't follow or Implement because our local policy says it doesn't matter what size or breed you have you're allowed to have that in your house or your apartment or your home it was a pretty broad support of pet friendly housing there wasn't much teeth in it for lack of a ter so who passed this I'm sorry who passed this the state itself the legislators passed this this most current legislative session correct in 2023 have we read that language Teresa probably at some point I have but I don't recollect it right now I'm looking for it though I think that's odd in itself but we need more s Angelo needs more than than what the state would adopt um Statewide but are we allowed to adopt something strict more strict than what the state allows so we can create our own ordinance within the city of St Angelo that is more strict than what that state legislation that was passed says yes we can uh the next item that we're recommending

[2:16:22] that we believe s Angel ens need is a home toome owner surrender Network and we've been slow to implement that because of the oversight and that we want it to be done responsibly but essentially we would host a a portal a um a platform where people wanting to surrender their pets can match with people who want pets and we want that a little I mean I I know we always have an issue with numbers of people available to do things but I don't know how we would have enough time in our schedules to I mean we you know we try to get animals adopted so that's timec consuming but trying to have an event where me and Lucy sit down together and discuss the pet that she doesn't want that I might want in front of you all and you decide whether that works or not is a little heavy-handed I think sure but in an eer crisis we can adopt something that is very little staff oversight and so it's simply the platform um owners and potential owners meet um connect virtually then connect in person and the city do that anyway I mean I would think they would do that anyway if I have a pet and I know you and you think you want my pet I would assume the two of us have been able to work that out between the two of us without any oversight and we do refer people to Facebook groups social media this would just be another resource and a platform where you know that's what you're going for right that um social media gets so bogged down with um you know home breeder selling puppies um against city ordinance um certainly marketing my pets for adoption and so just to know that if you're that this is the specific Avenue for this specific need wow so to do it right we would like the staff oversight and and and and ensuring those pets are going to a good home and ensuring those pets are current on city ordinance but in a crisis in an emergency we could adopt something that is simply the city hosting that portal

[2:18:25] um where it's it's free for for folks to use and and as they see fit yes Tom so we if I'm if I'm reading I'm reading that right Brian may not want me to talk um this would be something to where you can put up and say I'm new to town I've just discovered my apartment or my house is not going to let me have a pet that's over 40 pounds or blah blah blah they could actually Google and go to a platform we've created so here's a place you could go and research and here's a listing of people that might be interested in adopting a pet would that be similar to how that portal would work correct rehoming your pet but don't we have I might be crazy but don't we already have posted animals for adoption sure so these would be pets that are not sheltered they're not the city's Municipal shelter this is home toome owner surrender so the pet is in my home and you want it and we meet and you get it yep so basically Morgan um so I'm assuming that of course you have a pet and you love your pet but you just you're in a situation where you can't keep it in the apartment they're not allowing you to do that so you want to make sure this your pet goes to a good home uh so is that part of the process is to have that that ability to know whom's going to be who's going to be adopting the pet and involved so I think that kind of eases the that individual releasing or letting that pet go at that point yes and of course for our specific portal we'll adopt what we set the standards to be and then owners and potential owners can dialogue of what they're comfortable with so we would say um the pet um must be spay neutered must be microchipped must be rabies vaccinated must be going to a home with these things or what your must have landlord permission must have all adult in the home position permission will set forth those parameters it will also set forth parameters for potential owners you know make sure you're not getting scammed

[2:20:27] never should someone ask for this information um ask to see these things about the pet and um but then the city would be largely hands off at that point I work uh closely with a group out of New Jersey who um has a similar uses one of the portals that I'm familiar with and they're very Hands-On and so they handle it almost like an adoption so they approve what pets are coming onto the portal um know this pet has a bite history we do not we recommend that this not be rehomed or this potential owner has um some history that we would not recommend it get this pet and so that group out of New Jersey um is is is handling it almost like an adoption and they're vetting each of those pets coming in they're still not onsite at the shelter they're going directly from their previous home to their new home um and that would be my preference of how to launch it because we want to ensure that these um animals are well cared for and people are responsible um which is why I haven't proposed it before um but in the event of you know we've got to do something um that is an option uh to consider excuse me uh just to speak in support of Morgan's idea which I think is really interesting uh what she's describing goes on all the time in the community undertaken by private individual other rescues but the missing pieces that that her suggestion might cover which is a good thing for us to consider are things like somebody posts on Facebook that they they can't keep their dog and somebody else says that's a cute dog and I'd like to have your dog and it could be that the original owner was a a very responsible person got their dog microchipped fully vetted vaccinated Etc but when the dog is handed to the new owner no transfer of the microchip is done the first owner moves abroad who knows what um the initiator of the microchip is the person that has to initiate the transfer so Morgan finds

[2:22:30] the dog on the street and it's linked to the original owner and cannot be tracked and so what she's proposing could help overcome some of these very practical problems that they encounter daily and Hope y encourage um or discourage repeat offenders in in that Arena and also the span and neuter issues because we know that they are released onto the streets it's not a judgment against Morgan and her staff but but enforcement is hard so they may be cited but it may never make it all the way through the system so I think this is an interesting idea and it gives Morgan and her staff the opportunity to be more involved in the community in a positive way and and to here more approachable instead of like adversaries and the complaints that we hear may be mediated by something like that I'm interested I think it's a neat idea I'd like to learn more good and that could be one of the terms of the agreement of the portal is if your pet is already microchipped we'll work with you to get that conveyed to the new owner um if your pet is not yet microchipped the new owner needs to come in and participate in our microchipping um to get that registered that um one of many things we would ask them to complete as part of that transaction ma'am yes Larry sorry aren't there aspects of this kind of network and existence already in the state for example um we contacted some people on the internet that were fostering a dog over by Dallas and they vetted us and we went through this process so I think there are aspects of this in existence that we could tie into do that whether it's moving a to another location in another state or you know somewhere outside of St Angela yes and this is a um Nationwide um portal so it may not be Sanel and to Sanel Owen if you've got a um particularly desirable

[2:24:34] pet that you're trying to rehome um you may be coming from Colorado to get that pet because you saw it on this portal um it's not simply searching by ZIP code or by um yourr current location it's searching by well I'm looking for this breed or I'm looking for this type of of pet so it it it does have um potential to be wider this works I've I've personally seen it in action and we have the staff to manage this it would be um a setting it up and and walking away is is is what would be on the table today again we would like to have more oversight of it because we want that compliance and that responsibility but um current Staffing can accommodate setting it up walking away uh doing a bit of marketing regularly making sure it's on the website and uh easily accessible to folks okay could it be a potential opportunity for Approved volunteers absolutely okay all right good conversation keep going uh the one other item I'd like to recommend to support owners is and to really speak to the the pressures on our system is to offer free microchips if you reside in a Target neighborhood um that the target neighborhoods as defined by Hud that U the rest of our department supports and neighborhood and family services are also the areas where we see the most calls for service um the highest intake um the fewer owner redemptions I mean if you lose a really desirable pet I have a very um cute little purebred dog come in but you live in a Target neighborhood the likel of you coming to the shelter for your pet is very low so we want to paper our Target neighborhoods uh with microchips we want uh large scale microchips offered in our Target neighborhoods one so we can get those pets back quickly

[2:26:36] potentially even without a shelter intake we impound it onto the um ASO truck deliver it to your home um you get your you know tickets to municipal court and uh but that pet is back home with you and it's more affordable than the daily cost of Care at the shelter um but also to track down you know we suspect um but can't confirm by data that when someone calls me and says I'm moving I can't have my dog anymore and we say we ask you to go through this process and they I can't do any of that I'm just going to move out and leave my pet behind or I'm going to turn her loose then she has a litter then it's a bigger problem then we're responding a lot and it's um a large number of dogs at that point loose in the neighborhood at that point that female was microchipped to you and I can make contact with you continue enforcement um continue followup um which is I think is something that we're all hungry for um to make those that are causing the problem be responsible for answering to the problem um and so free microchips to Target neighborhoods is something that can be launched at at any scale uh we get our microchips at a cost of $7 um so even $2,000 could fund 300 microchips um but at a larger scale if we were able to fund multiple iterations of that um and just know that if you live in a Target neighborhood if your address shows that we'll offer you free microchips while supplies last or for the month of May or whatever it is I think that that is a big answer to one of the pressures on the system and those funds are where do you have that in the budget undetermined I do not have that in the budget and you know we we work with other um organizations other government shelters we ask you know what are you doing that's working well um what what experience do you have with this issue that we're seeing in s Angelo um and we come back again and again to the data tells the story and I think that the media that was shared recently um relied on a lot of data so I thought it was

[2:28:39] important to report back to you on um the data here locally that in fiscal year 22 um our intake nationally they're reporting intake up about 5% we're not seeing that locally um that in FIS school year 22 our intake was about 4,000 animals 2,200 were dogs um so dog intake was down about 38% for fiscal year 23 when we took in 2900 total animals almost 1500 were dogs and that is a couple of things one it's our managed owner surrender process that lots and lots of folks were needing to rehome their pets and the I have didn't serve them well so I just didn't get those pets and progress has been made in terms of I mean to to have a reduction from 4,000 to 2900 intake in animals is a significant Improvement it is it's a it's a it was an important thing to accomplish um you know Nationwide uh those rural shelters which although we're a booming bustling economy of 100,000 people we do serve largely a rural um uh population a rural mentality and so for those shelters that are more rural um your metric is generally 25 animals per thousand residents well we were so high above that at 4,000 for several years in a row so it was important for us to get that number down to an achievable um number but we do think that that led to more dogs at large and now we're in that Balancing Act of um we swung so heavily from 4,000 animals taken into 2900 did that create more animals in the community let's go address that next thing now and did it yes one second Harry and so did it were there more animals at large reported I'll get to Animal Services officer's case worked in a moment I do think it's important to note and I hope this answers your question that although intake was down and the number of pets sheltered was down our workload was not down our calls for service were not down

[2:30:42] our walk-in traffic all of that maintained uh year-over-year here that's hard to swallow that it was more work but thousand less animals but Harry I just hope those thousand aren't the ones I see running on the streets exactly I I mean because there are more more dogs today on the streets than there's ever been and I don't know whether people are just not responsible or whe they're turning them loose or whatever the case may be but uh I mean the opportunities for Animal Control Officers are greater today than they've been at least in the last 40 years since I've lived in this one particular house well Nationwide that is true as well so when the nation's that way the states that way the cities that way so there's been a big animal intake is or animal situation in I think every city I don't know if any City who's conquered the the problem continue um so one other metric we always look at is um the number of pets um released alive the biggest component of that is those that are adopted and rescue transferred so for fiscal year 22 our rescue partner KRA Valley P moved 2200 animals or about 53% of our um total outcomes last year they moved, 1500 animals about 50% of local outcome so or total outcomes so we are looking for more Community Support around adoptions um I think it is important to note for fiscal year 23 um our euthanasia decreased to just 9% of our um total outcomes what in Asia before down from 641 animals died or euthanized in fiscal year 22 to 275 so a massive decrease in the number of pets euthanized and that's largely to speak to our our intake being down and and other resources we deployed but um it you know the the the mood wasn't

[2:32:45] celebratory that we achieved 90% in fiscal year 23 we knew that there was a big demand on Animal Services field operations that was not being addressed and so um it's hard to be I want to be proud of our our team and what they did um but we also know that that's part of the story it's one step towards addressing what's going on with field services so I mentioned that our workload our calls for service our traffic um was not down so we worked over 60 100 cases um in fiscal year 23 so that is any response from an animal services officer whether that's to check conditions for a pet out in this weather with no shelter whether that's um you know a a um a call for dog at large a call for a cat in a trap a call for possums raccoons in a trap it's just any skunks yes all all of that um so that's the one I hear about all the time the skunks Although our intake was down down our cases were not down uh lar largely unchanged from the prior year now one item that's really concerning to me and what we look at is our animal toop person bites we're up 56% from about 150 to 264 such cases last year and so that's something we've got to get on top of and have got to tackle that um we've mentioned uh in the past that we need to additional Animal Services officers I do not think in fiscal year 24 my team can work much more than 6,000 cases simply because of the number of uh staff that we have we have four Animal Services officers and so to address uh more enforcement preventing uh and and this could be dogs at large this could be your own pet in the home um this could be cats so just any animal to person bite um but still that metric being up 56% is something that's quite concerning to me from the um public health and Public Safety um Viewpoint that has has got to get some attention

[2:34:46] to prevent that from going up and get it back down to a I don't know if any animal to person bites is manageable but definitely uh decreasing that as much as possible is that in t would those animal those animal to person bites be in certain targeted areas that that could be focused on or is this something that is all over the city or is this something where we see the repeat off fenders having animal that are aggressive and it's more of a person persons or areas neighborhoods is it something we're seeing all over the city it's give us a little more detail on that because that really is an issue that is an excellent question and I don't have that data with me um I can certainly get it to y'all in a in a followup of where you know mapping it out geog graphically where is that happening um as far as our repeat um customers we often see um pets the pets that we see more frequently for bite events are largely animal to animal meaning um my dog gets out and and bites your cat then it's not uncommon that that happens again because I still have a fence issue or I still have a whatever issue um and so certainly we equip um the owners of those victim animals to you know pursue additional um um channels through Municipal Court um but those that are animal to person bites um citizens generally take that more seriously and so when we're having a Frank conversation with someone saying look your pet bit your mother-in-law or your pet bit your neighbor you can't have a pet that bites people so either spend this time while the pets in quarantine absolutely reinforcing your fencing doing all the things necessary to prevent a bite from happening again or consider Humane euthanasia at at your vet for that pet if you can't control this pet biting

[2:36:49] somebody then some something's got to happen and so that's not an uncommon um occurrence where that happened this past year did we have cases of that absolutely and we had a case of that this morning where an animal bit a person over the weekend we went ahead and impounded the animal and now we're meeting the owner at the veterinarian today to euthanize it um because they they understand that this this cannot continue so I will get you more data on that um but just um what we are seeing as far as repeat offenders is more on the animal to animal side the animal to person side is is the big metric that uh but unfortunately you have one animal attack one child and you know that's like it's to think about a child being attacked by um or an elderly person or a handicapped person being bit by an animal is just something we can't afford for sure and those are the ones often escalating to my level where I'm having a franked conversation with the pet owner saying you know you can't have this pet in your home any longer um so we would you are at the end of the line we do recommend Humane youth in Asia we don't recommend you go to like the home to home surrendering platform that we'll be hosting soon we don't recommend you go through like an owner surrender process just disclosing that by and the adoptability of that pet um that this is this is where you are is considering euthanasia at this time yes Karen um she gives me that look she's ready um a couple of questions and I want to acknowledge councilman Thomas's comment about the roaming animals as as part of my question I don't think any of us are in favor of that going forward and would like to see that remedied and then I would also like to say that councilman Miller and I are curious to know uh and it may be difficult to quantify but over time it's seems like free microchipping of animals would help resolve a lot of the issues that you

[2:38:51] were bringing up is that correct and and that in turn would save money for the animal shelter so for example we were speaking about microchips earlier you offer a free microchip it's registered to Lucy because it's her dog the second number on that list is the animal shelter now so the the mystery of who owns the dog is forever resolved if they can't find Lucy they can find you and go forward from there so theoretically um you've you've solved a couple of problems you got to complaint about a loose animal that seems aggressive you can find out who it belongs and who's accountable it seems like the ripple effect is potentially there for a lot of good things to happen is that logical yeah I I I agree the um you know any microchip we implant we're already attached to and so we encourage folks to listen as many you know list list yourself list your boyfriend list your mom list as many emergency contacts and we manage that data and have it available um it is it is so we we love our microchip for that reason um that you know if you forget to pay an annual fee some microchips won't release the owner information well the city's microchip is is free for the life of the pet free to update any information whether you contact the microchip company directly or animal services um to update that for you and we'll all of that data is there and available and a really good resource you know if that is not voluntary is it microchip is required by city ordinance for All Pets over they have to do this and at seven bucks a pop this is a great deal for us because we don't have that animal in the shelter for two weeks trying to figure out who it belongs to right that the average cost of care is $35 to $45 a day for every um pet that's in my care puppies are more expensive um repeat visitors are less expensive that first days is more expensive but on average it could be you know $40 to $50 a day uh for me to care for that pet but if it's microchipped um some Good Samaritans say

[2:40:55] I'll call the owner right now looks like he lives two doors down from me or the animal services Officer says I'm around the corner I'm going to go knock on the door so um we do charge $13 for a microchip right now which is still a bargain um but um reach reaching those um most at in need where perhaps you have three pets and $13 a piece is is prohibitive to your budget then sure let's let's match with the target neighborhoods and and paper those folks first with with free microchips is is my recommendation but if you can't afford you know you and by city ordinance you're required to be microchipped if you can't afford a microchip how do you afford a pet thank you so the um that is a previous school of thought that we we observe multiple times it it is something that we pivoted from early on where well if your pet wound up in the shelter you don't deserve to have it back you clearly don't deserve to have this pet and we did a large pivot um uh largely that if if your pet winds up at my facility and you don't come for it and you live in a Target neighborhood you're going to have a new pet in two months but I'm committed to life saving so I'm holding on to your pet so can I just do some case management keep that get that pet with you do some referral to some lowcost services that there are people um who are experiencing homelessness that provide adequate care for their pet their pets have a current rabies vaccine have been spay neutered in their prior history um they have access to to pet food um even our our most indigenous indigenous s I'm sorry Indigent s Angel ens have access to care and meet standards of care for their pets so uh that's mindboggling I'm sorry that's kind of mindboggling it it's a it's a big shift in school of thought for sure but we've seen it again and again happy heal apprciate the information because you're providing information I think most of us are not totally aware of statistically for sure we anyway continue um so just to wrap up um all of

[2:42:59] the staff recommendations one anything around pet friendly housing whatever we can do on that um two increasing adoptions uh local adoptions out of a town adoptions whatever that H however that happens um launching this home toome owner surrender platform uh where pets are not having a shelter intake but still have a resource to uh move their pet um and then F uh funding for Field Services the two Animal Services officers and then the Outreach with microchips and Target neighborhoods um I also would recommend um we are running we have of course our big facility Improvement project going on and we originally had a plan to break ground in November 2023 uh we had some complex engineering um issues and so we're working through that uh we also are working on the Make Ready of the temporary facility uh which is going to have some expense and and then housing to facilities when we first came to y'all for this project we didn't know if we were completely moving out of our shelter um but it is it is going to be a situation we're essentially running two facilities for that time frame so having some additional part-time um help at the second facility um having them make ready for that facility to be able to serve our our pets um and looking at breaking around in May summer 2024 at this point uh for that project and completing in November of 2024 one of the issues that I hear regularly is that we allow too many animals to uh be picked up that're not neutered or spayed what's the ruling what's the ordinance on that issue well there's a few things that govern the spay neuter requirement that one um any adoption so any P pet leaving our facility via adoption the uh new owner has to um have that pet spay neutered or sign an agreement that they're going to and we of course do that our um our rescue partner Contra Valley PA facilitates schedules and funds the Spain uter of all those adopted pets so

[2:45:02] they do that you you turn that over to pause corre manage and overse cor state law says we have to do it we assign Contra Valley paw to do it and they do it the um for owners city ordinance states that the owners are responsible to spay neuter so if my pet is uh for City residents it's an occasional time that I do get a pet of somebody who doesn't reside here in which case they have no requirement to spay neuter their pet so the state doesn't have legislation relative to that issue not for owned pets no um only for adoptions so um it is not the city's responsibility nor do we have the resources to spay neuter owned pets there are also exemptions to the spay neuter ordinance and we wouldn't know those um on intake of a pet so um that is why the enforcement and citations issued to the owners is how we pursue that I can't keep a pet from somebody if I have your pet and it's unaltered and you come in to redeem it I can't hold that pet from you I have no legal recourse to do so uh even though the city ordinance says it must be microchipped and it must be spayed and neutered and it leaves microchipped uh we implant that ship at the time of redemption um so and but we can't administer the rabies vaccine and we can't administer the spay neuter those three things are required for any owned cat or dog so when they come to reclaim and the animal is not microchipped at that point in time we microchip it and charge them for the cost of that microchip correct and before we surren before we give it back to the owner correct and we cite them for failure to spay neuter that pet and give a deadline to get that spay neuter and vaccine you when you were talking about certain targeted neighborhoods in those targeted neighborhoods is it more about people whose animals get out or is it neighborhoods that people have a tendency to surrender their animals in those

[2:47:07] neighborhoods because a surrendered animal running wild is different than if I own an animal and it's not microchipped in one of those targeted neighborhoods right if your pet gets out we have our first interaction with you we site you for dog at large the odds of it getting out a second time are low the OD odds of it getting out a third time are even lower um so the reped offenders or The Chronic issues or the items that escalate to y'all as packs of dogs at large we believe that to be an owner simply let their pet loose or abandon it in insufficient um enclosure we don't know that cuz the pets aren't microchipped um so that is simply a hypothesis I want to be transparent in that but um you anecdotally as we're having conversations with people that is the flow um from first cry for help to Ultimate enforcement and response um that we believe is happening the the lady who came forward earlier today who talked about things that she thought would improve one was the chain link fence to back up a fence so they couldn't crawl underneath it is that a policy that we uh suggest to people who have frequent pet who have might have a frequent pet that constantly digs out from underneath and runs wild yeah absolutely and we um have recommended a oh sorry we've recommended a a fencing program that would be largely funded with donated dollars but could continue um seamless of if donations are low where animal services officers actually provide a fence inspection um have some fencing material to do like a patch job of hey you've got this one spot where your dogs are getting out all the time or your dogs are climbers your dogs are diggers your dog whatever the issue is of that dog getting loose um that we would equip some basic uh fencing material on the truck with the animal services officers um to be offered at

[2:49:10] that time um certainly our officers are working a tremendous number of cases and are strapped for time so that's one um item that's prevented launching that program but also Simply Having um the supplies for that um and I did connect with the lady um earlier as she um was on her lunch hour and I said you know um here's my contact info let's talk more um you spoke before uh about the difficulty today and that we used to have cities that needed pets and so we could transport pets to other cities or other states who were in need of adoptable animals talk about that in today's environment you know early on 2017 probably well through 2020 um doing those large scale transports were our bread and butter they were the only thing saving us uh we we sent fully a thousand animals out of town every year on um these rescue transfers um and uh kcho Valley paw is excellent at that these receiving agencies all have a different criteria of they what they want to see they want this additional vaccine or they want videos of behavior and temperament or they want this medical workup or they want the pets spay neutered and Contra Val PA jumps through whatever Hoops to satisfy those to send pets um out on that so that infrastructure was built up we knew early on looking at our numbers that that made us really vulnerable um that made us really vulnerable to if there was a natural disaster in America then those folks were going to get attention instead of little old s Angelo where a crisis is every day um we also knew that as those receiving agency stayed full because that national uh media coverage that I talked about earlier even private shelters are staying full considering euthanasia their length of stay is up and so at this point everybody's full we um San Angela was early at being really good at those large scale transports and now a lot of the rest of the state and South

[2:51:13] and at risk animals have gotten good at it too and we have filled up those receiving agencies so um that's not to say our um rescue transfers and large scale transport is zero um if there is a uh there there are Outlets that we're still pursuing um but it's nowhere near at the level that um we were seeing in Prior years Karen I know you've been intimately involved in the animal shelter Services area what other questions do you have or comments um that have not been brought up today that we need to have a conversation on I again refer a councilman Thomas's comment about the roaming animals I think that that um while the that might have been an interesting possibility the the notion of releasing animals to Rome is not working for our community um and perhaps we need more education to understand how that came to pass and what we can do to turn it around I also frequently get um comments from other rescues or members of the public saying they want to help they don't know how to help they don't understand the process and they're confused by the relationship between the city and cono Valley paw so we need to be better Educators so that so that that relationship is understood who does what is more clearly understood um occasionally there will be comments about funding who who's funding this um a comment came in during our discussion about about people who don't own pets do they have to pay for this because they're citizens and so you hear you hear the Broadway of of questions and concerns I think um um concerned members of the public people that would be willing to volunteer they're very interested in forming relationship with paus and with with Morgan but they're not sure how to do that I don't know if there's an opportunity to uh improve our volunteer services improve

[2:53:17] our access to volunteers do we need to have a town hall meeting where we bring everybody together and see if that doesn't resolve some of that and open up the doors for communication absolutely and all credit to Morgan I know that she has been considering that very thing on a on a repeating basis um that would that would give public access to her to answer some of those questions the first few meetings might be very painful but I know that we'll support you should you decide to go forward with that uh once once everybody's had a chance to air their agreements is hopefully we can go forward with some solutions Talk About Pets Alive that organization just tell us what that is because we hear that kind of conversation going on a lot American Pets Alive is a group that was founded gosh probably around 2010 um in Austin um and they identified that after years of large scale investment in free space neuter um that that did not decrease um the euthanasia at the the government shelter there in Austin and so they would that be true to S Angelo as well I think that the spay neuter ordinance was adopted um and for years thereafter our save rate was 20% 40% um so spay neuter alone did not uh facilitate large scale life saving in San Angelo it's everything else we changed around Community cats disease prevention um large scale rescue transfer um increased return to owner those components also had to happen um and so American Pets Alive works with um atrisk shelters like s Angelo that are still euthanizing you know a good many of our pets um and offers resources so they offer resources in a variety of ways whether that's um training um site visits here um training for uh government shelter staff to go to Austin um coordinating uh

[2:55:21] transport taking high-risk medical um early on when um Contra Valley paw was in the early stages of standing up their um their infastructure around parvo treatment we were sending any puppies positive for parvo to Austin that they could take um and those were pets that would previously not have aive outcome so um they they they their tagline is safe more pets faster do we need to have um our Communications Department uh focus on more publicity as it relates to animal bites because I'm horrified at the numbers and I'm horrified to think that any day we could have a child or somebody who can't protect themselves bit by an animal um I just wonder if we've done enough Community broadcasting marketing if you will about um what happens if your animal bites a human being what our policy states what will happen to that pet Etc yeah we've built out um a lot more res resources on our website to spell out um common items we also have like an FAQ um in the um in need of review to publish um and we had planned to schedule a number of um PSAs or quick videos of just our most frequent calls what um the owner of um the pet That Was Bitten needs to know what uh pets need to pet owners need to know of the aggressor suspect animal um on a variety of topics um and and bites and calls for service would be is one of them um it's just the the staff time and resources to uh create that content I just that that bite thing is an issue we need to deal with it and I think if we need to change how we do it how we communicate what whatever the issues are

[2:57:27] on bites we need to gbly go after that single issue it's just too key and I think that is more enforcement um that we could we could create content we could create more Communications we could um do more on that site of it but I still only have four Animal Services officers serving 6,000 cases a year how do we serve 7,000 cases a year how do we do more proactive enforcement and less reactive enforcement um that that's simply more bodies which is easy to say um uh and tougher to fund and I recognize that um but until we do um I I think anything else we do will be nominally marginally impactful I would yes no I question yeah um Morgan on these four officers that you have are they all over town or do they have certain districts that they Patrol or that they are responsible for they're each assigned a quadrant of the community um when but if someone is working a bite case in um your district and then another call comes in in your District I'm going to pull somebody from L's District to respond um also for the um after hours call outs for holidays week begins overnight um that one animal services officer is responding across the city and so he may be um near the shelter for livestock at large with two dozen cows loose and then a bite comes in it's at the emergency department and that person's got to cover both regardless of um geographic location what I would recommend if Council supports it is that you've mentioned several issues that all require funding outside the context of the existing budget I suggest you work with Tina Daniel Michael Dane Bob solz um and come up with some sort of targeted numbers because we're talking several different issues we don't know what those dollars are we're going to have to find the money to pay for it if

[2:59:28] Council agrees to fund it all or part of it Etc so we need specific dollars attached to specific things a presentation made on those things Council can decide which ones they will fund or not fund and then Finance Daniel Michael will need to to come up with where those funds might exist to cover those requests is there any uh other is it does a council member have any other ideas or suggestions Etc Larry I just wanted to ask about the uh feroc cat program please ask we haven't talked about that uh there were a number of large colonies of cats out there I just wonder if yall have noted any reduction due to the neutering of some of those animals we've absolutely seen a decrease in our cat um calls for service our annual cat intake uh which is a cross-section of the community that there are just fewer Colony Cats um in the community uh We've invested heavily um in neighborhood Colony assistance that um with with donated funds and taxpayer dollars both um the the lingering ones that you might see uh we need property owner permission uh to provide that Ser that service we also need uh ideally a willing Colony caregiver where they would withhold food on days that we're trapping so that we can work those animals through the surgery schedule get them back vaccinated um and overtime decrease that population so ideally we're doing both we're working with property owner and Colony caretaker and because of the amount of area that a cat roams those might be different people um but um we have had a lot of success with that um we've in been investing now for over 5 years um in uh the bay neuter and return of community cats and have seen a decrease in our cat population hundreds hundreds fewer cats being born hundreds fewer cats coming in it wasn't uncommon that on a you know Tuesday after a holiday at 10:00 a.m.

[3:01:30] there would be a line of Trappers of guys that over the weekend had caught a cat and were bringing it in and um that's that's just not happening anymore because we've got those pets spay neutered returned and they no longer need that service have decreased nuisance behavior and over time decreased the size of the colony may I ask what the ordinance says about people who come onto your private property and feed cats certainly the the animal services section of the code states that the colony caregivers have to have permission um but I think that there's a bigger issue around trespassing and a penal code violation and a law enforcement component um that if if there is someone coming on your private property without your permission to care for cats we would we would recommend that it escalates to law enforcement at that point other questions or comments I just wanted to compliment the people who were involved with those 25 dogs that were supposed to be euthanized sometime around Christmas who are apparently adopted or fostered out I I know you were involved in I assume paw was involved in I don't know the all the volunteers but but thank you very much St Angelo showed up uh for those pets and um our role in it is identifying who's at risk of euthanasia at that point cono Valley pause runs with it uh we gave a number of days for response and it was looking pretty bleak and it was down to the wire the final hours each and every one of those pets was saved and uh we are we're grateful to the community and KRA Valley P for stepping up for those pets that's a good point up Tommy Morgan you may be going to do this anyway but as you work through your uh your requests if you would just if if for no no one but me on the council PRI prioritize those and those that would have the biggest impact in your judgment in an overall sense so that if we literally have to say we can

[3:03:32] do one and two but not three four and five that would be helpful for me yes and to even just test it to see if you funded one and two and then see if there's an impact before we move on to the other others but we certainly want it all identified and and financial numbers put to the the proposed items yes of course other questions comments um we will open it up uh which I have messed up every time to not allow public comment so I'm not going to do that go around we're going to open this up to public comment at this point good morning I'm Jenny Wilson with KRA Valley paw and I just wanted to um actually make the recommendation uh and and and hope that perhaps there was some kind of uh way we could present um CLA Valley pause to you uh to offer some more education on some of the programs that we do offer in our partnership with a city because I think that would be beneficial and it's a lot more than I can do in 3 minutes of of public comment um but I I do think we would love to have you all know more about what we do and pose those questions to us I think it's when we all come together that we make real uh real change um I am a huge advocate of Spain neuter I do believe that that is the answer um to the issues that we Face we are in crisis um and some of the things that did touch on but I kind of want to reiterate with you from our Viewpoint is our adoption pool is greatly affected by the type of animals that populate the shelter and so we're in a community that is uh largely consist of senior citizens college students military um and a lot of renters and what we see in the

[3:05:36] shelter is a lot of your large breed uh pitbull shepherd mixes um and so those are the unfortunately those are the animals that are discriminated against by a lot of rental uh properties here in s Angelo which makes our Poll for potential adopters so much smaller uh now we do have a robust adoption program that I'm very proud of our team we place over a thousand animals locally um where we did see a decreases in those transports like Morgan mentioned um this is not just a problem um specifically for S angel as far as the population crisis we had um our world changed in 2020 and I don't think anybody has really realized how many uh changes that uh 2020 impacted um on us especially in the Animal Welfare industry but you had um a full year where the country was not operating as normal there were fewer spay and neuters uh some cities were not enforcing their Animal Control practices as normal uh based on what they considered um those vital services to be during that time and so it there's it's a trickle down effect it's affected all of us and so therefore we've seen communities where we would normally transport animals for adoption um not have a demand for those pets so this is a very complex convoluted situation and we are trying to address it from many different angles but one of the things I think the biggest thing that we have to be honest and say that we can't do anything about is the responsibility of the pet owner it all boils down to that every animal in that shelter is adoptable um we've worked with Morgan uh to the point where she and her staff working with the PA staff we're identifying who's adoptable and who's not adoptable at a very early a very early stage in the process because space is such that you can't you can't keep an

[3:07:39] animal that you would like to work with because there are more animals that are highly adoptable waiting to come in um and so having said that every animal in that shelter is adoptable every animal in that shelter has been interacting with humans to the point where it is a pet quality animal and so that means that somewhere somebody failed that animal I think the community needs to be reminded that it is against the law to abandon an animal and there are programs out there to assist you in rehoming uh we have a program called Second Chance is very much like the program Morgan was talking to you about um we have over 50 animals enrolled in that program right now and all we ask is that you're a responsible pet owner you call us the minute you find out that you're having to move to a place where they can't take your pet and we start working to help you place it the problem is is we get the phone calls that say I'm moving tomorrow and I have nowhere to put my pets I think what would be I think is that the time or did it go off so what I would you have a lot of information and a lot of good points that I think need to be heard I would recommend that we put you on the agenda for presentation on next Council agenda I think it would be appropriate to do uh your points very well taken um and we always say the responsibility lies within the you we have a people issue that's created an animal issue the animals didn't create the issue people created the issue and it always goes back to people so we look forward to having you at the next city council meeting making a presentation wonderful thank you so much okay anything else folks yes yes we still have more public comment um my name is CNY Flores and I am on the board of Contra Paws and I wanted to reinforce that spay neuter is got to be at the core of it you can't kill your way out of it you can't adopt your way out of it you can't transport your way out of it spay neuter won't happen quickly you won't see the numbers

[3:09:42] quick quickly but as we saw with a c population it will take time but it will come down the communities that we transport to have a strong enforcement on spay neuter and that is why they can take animals from us my other encouragement is if you have any questions and you want to learn or people have brought concerns please reach out to Contra Valley pause to speak on what we do come see our facilities come look at our records come educate your yourself do your due diligence and come do that we want to work with the city we want to work with the shelter and we look forward to continuing to do that to improve it but we encourage you all to come out and see yeah I would encourage Brian Gross and Laura Li to create some video that we put out on our social media Etc that go through some of these specific things that you really offer this community yes but I would encourage you all to come out and see it firsthand as well I would agree and I would again I know Brian Brian grov is back there listening but so this is a bigger broader issue yes and these uh seven people can certainly come visit and become more knowledgeable about it but we need the Hope public the citizens of s Angelo to be aware yes and I agree it starts with you all and then we can spread it out perfect thank you I am Mary Wilson and I reside at 1641 Park View Drive I am a director of cono Valley paw and have been on the board for almost 20 years as evident by the sheer number of animals in our shelter especially puppies that are impounded it is only a matter of time until our community may be forced back to the policies of

[3:11:45] capture and kill as a taxpayer and a homeowner I do not support killing for space and I am not alone I want my tax dollars going towards Humane care and solutions that save lives prevent suffering and places the responsibility back on the irresponsible people who created this situation therefore I make the following recommendation appoint a group of animal well welfare professionals and volunteers to review the ordinances of our community with other communities that have successfully addressed overpopulation concerns this group would advise the Council on drafting new ordinances or tweaking current ordinances with the oversight of the city's attorneys seek a budget amendment that would allow animal services to employ an animal control officer for the specific purpose of investigating problem breeding advertisements for sale of pets and enforcement of the spay neuter ordinance this enforcement would be the first ticket would be from the first ticket to compliance it would be this officer's job to follow up with all pet owners found to be in violation until compliance is achieved even even after the court has heard the case and assessed fines cono Valley paw is willing to assist violators with the uh spay neuter of their animals adjustments to the ordinances allowing breeding permits to exclude permits for pitbulls and large breed dogs as the shelter population is evidenced that our community demographics do not support the breeding of large breeds we are a community of senior citizens apartment dwellers and a transient population of college students

[3:13:48] military personnel and renters small to mediumsized dogs do not languish in our City's shelter but large breed dogs do especially the pit and pit mixes they are incredibly wonderful dogs and they deserve so much more adjustments to the existing ordinances that would allow breeding permits to be revoked if an unaltered animal is impounded by Animal Control more than once work with shelter management to advise on policies and procedures which would ensure that 100% of the violations are reported to Municipal Court thank you further public comment there have been a lot of issues brought forward a lot of uh suggestions that have been brought forward which I think all have Merit and validity um attached to him um today is has been a great presentation make Morgan so thank you for coming forward and updating us on the animal shelter we will look at some budget amendments we will consider the items that were just brought forward we'll have some Town Hall meetings um to bring everyone together to to better discuss this issue um today was just sort of an open door to get this this subject um more in the Public's eye and um conversation and change happening so thank you everyone all right uh so what we'll do now is move to item F thank you all for hanging around and waiting for item F to come up uh first reading and public hearing of an ordinance for z23 -17 to rezone properties from single family residential zoning District to two family residential zoning District located at 1212 1210 and 1208 Roosevelt

[3:15:54] Street Aaron you're on thank you mayor uh city council and Mr Valenzuela got a short presentation for you for a rezoning again my name is Aaron Venoy assistant director of Planning Development Services this is zoning case z 2317 on Roosevelt so you see these three properties outlined in red were platted back in I want to say 2020 or maybe 20 uh 2021 they currently have an rs1 single family zoning they were platted at a larger size uh with anticipation of possibly going to rs2 zoning if they weren't able to be sold or built out as rs1 uh there's a property owner and developer that has come forward uh that has come forward with a resoning on this and is looking to rezone those this is in District 3 uh councilman Harry th in the fort koncho East neighborhood and it's in their intent is to build three duplexes uh Roosevelt comes right off of Rio Concho right as it crosses the the koncho river and so this is just to our east of our downtown area so you can see our zoning there are some areas around that uh to the South are fully developed and to the uh West have not fully developed that are rm1 lowrise multifam uh that is kind of a homestead uh where the property owner that owns number of these uh they built a house just to the west of of Buchanan there kind of up on the hill overseeing the koncho valley or the Concho River uh excuse me the kcho river there um but they are looking at how do they develop that 1104 um uh property there so you can see South of the property there's an apartment complex uh that goes through uh off of Benedict and then there's another one there that is zoned uh rm1 and then you can start seeing that the rs1 starts uh past Irene heading back towards Bell Street um this property here is fairly unique there is kind of a mix there on Irene there's a couple of uh single family homes there are a couple of single family homes at 1204 and 1214 Roosevelt that uh uh the

[3:17:58] property owner had brought in uh from the uh Baptist community that they brought in two moved houses there and restored those and now they're looking to add some new development there behind them City staff is recommending approve as did Planning Commission uh they saw this as a good transition from that single family and the RM just kind of having a buffer in there they are looking at adding potentially some more duplexes if these three go very well uh in that area and so this is an area that they've got some smaller size houses that are around 1300 ft that are coming in that are duplexes they're large enough space and the traffic the road and traffic we do believe will will hold them with that rs2 zoning any any questions um Harry I think this is uh this will work very well over there that property's been vacant for as long as I've been in the city so I think this transition to rs2 into the regular neighborhood is is good I recommend approval second second by Lucy public comment seeing none we will take a vote all those in favor say I I seemingly no one is opposed so that means a 70 vote that concludes our regular agenda there are no items on the closed session so we will move into the followup and administrative issues which is Item B consider approving various board nominations animal service advisory commission Jen Murphy smd2 to third term ending January 2026 Civic events Advisory Board Norma Bronner smd4 to second term ending December 2025 fort conel museum board Lisa Marley smd2 Colleen Hadad smd3 and Sarah Clemens SMD 5 all to a second term ending January 2026 Planning Commission Luke urick smd1 and Joe self smd2 to a third term

[3:20:04] Michelle Miller smd6 to a first fullterm all January 2026 tax increment reinvestment Zone John Mark H smd1 as chairman of the board for a one-year term ending January 2025 the Zoning Board of adjustments Lorenzo Lassiter smd1 to a first term Terry Jackson smd3 to a first fullterm Linda Lyndon Roberts galendo smd5 and Don bonhart smd6 to a second term and Gary Cortez mayor to third term all ending January 2026 would a council like to consider any of these separately or would you like to consider these uh board nominations as a whole as a whole okay we will take a vote as a whole on items B all those in favor uh say 8 public make a motion no I have a motion Harry made a motion it was seconded by Lucy right oh no wait that was another item before back up okay may I have a motion for approval of the board nominations so so move by Harry second by Tom we will now open it up for um any public comment seeing none we will now take a vote all those in favor of 8 B approving all names and board nominations say I I motion to approval is made 70 announcements and consideration of future agenda items we brought up several during today's meeting and Tom said he had some additions to that so one I would like to bring up is the I'm not sure what our ordinance is we have trees that overhang into the street um I watched one ripped the air conditioner off of RV the other day and so I think that needs to be addressed there's several in smd2 and I don't know Michael if you're getting this one but I think we need to have a policy that governs if you have a tree on your property or in

[3:22:07] your easement you are responsible for it and if it gets out into the street it becomes an issue of which you are liable but I think we need to bring that one up and revisit it because you could write a ton of ordinance violations in my department uh number two and this when we go back to Morgan I think there's a policy on dogs and what they are contained they have to stay within a yard some of these are proximity yards that don't have a gate so the one that bit my wife still has an open gate where they can get out but there's a proximity fence and they don't know where number one if somebody's walking or jogging by they don't know if the proximity fence is on so I think we need to address something as far as what qualifies for a containment of a pet in a yard speaking of the pet issue because it's a s Angelo animal shelter right so if someone lives in the county outside our city limits are we obligated to take into our animal shelter animals that are not registered but we don't know where they came from because they're abandoned so yeah I think Morgan's left but I think the answer to that is no we do not bring in animals from the county all right any other items for future consideration Karen do we need to formally ask for Morgan's Town Hall proposal to be on the agenda for our approval she'll proceed without that yeah okay good yeah okay then I need a motion for adjournment so moved so moved seconded all in favor stand up motion passes 70 man

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=PKMuvlmJLb4