San Angelo City Council 2-4-25

[0:00:00] February the 4th 2025 city council meeting it is 8:34 a.m. and this meeting is officially called to order we will start with our chaplain prayer and pledges and today we have art MAV Road here to lead us in vote oh like you could do it better mayor you're forgiven let us pray have father I thank you for the privilege of serving in this fine City I pray father that the agenda is that is discussed and our policies are crafted we would always put our people's interests ahead of our own remind us father that we are in this position not to be served but to serve the public just as Christ who is King came not to be served but to serve and ultimately die on the cross to save us I also pray father that we will uphold what is moral and rational in Jesus name I pray amen amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty Justice for All honor the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to thee Texas one State under God one and is visible we will now move into the public comment section of the agenda Heather do we have anything uh for public comment Chris Moran okay good morning good morning mayor Gunter

[0:02:02] council members um my name is Chris Moran superintendent of St Angelo ISD 1621 University Avenue in District 1 and um I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to share updates from the district during the summer of 2024 the school district engaged in a comprehensive facility study it was followed up this past Fall by a committee of more than 60 citizens and leaders of the city of St Angelo reviewing all of the information from map facility study and other presentations with the goal of recommending capital projects to our Board of Trustees the Board of Trustees heard the recommendations in December and have met twice since then to discuss the projects and consider calling a bond election for May 3rd it's very likely that the S Angelo ISD board will call for a bond election on February the 10th in the amount of $397 million to address old and failing facilities across the district District if the bond measure passes the average taxpayer in St Angelo ISD would pay about $32 more per month in school taxes the future success of our city is tied directly to the quality of the public schools in St Angelo St Angelo ISD is certainly not in competition with the city but has intentionally included City citizens and leaders in our facility advisory committee process I feel certain all of you are fully aware of the intentions of the school board to call this bond election for May 3rd as you consider your business and the future agenda items I encourage you to be mindful of the work happening in C Angelo ISD and I sure appreciate your time and consideration thank you thank you Dr Moran is that it hether all right so we will move into our consent agenda Larry is there any it none is that what you said okay Karen Lucy no Harry no Tom nothing to pull Tommy no ma'am with that may I have a motion for approval of

[0:04:05] the consent agenda so so move by Harry seconded by Tom any public comment concerning the consent agenda with no public comment being offered we will take a vote all those in favor of approving the consent agenda say I I motion passes or consent agenda passes 7 to zero we will now move in the regular agenda comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above to participate please sign in with the city clerk prior to the beginning of the meeting speakers will be called in order they signed in comments are limited to less than three minutes applicants proponents and appellants are exempt from the time limit above and instead must limit their remarks to less than five minutes we will start with item a consider resolutions of General support for construction of affordable housing projects as part of the 2025 annual lowincome housing tax credit program the only item that we will discuss today is item three the meline which is located at 4125 Ben fckin Road the other two item one the cono cono his to Residents and the Commons at s Angel have been pulled thank you mayor a Morgan chewit and interim director of neighborhood and Family Services um as you mentioned the meline is uh before today asking for a letter uh a resolution of support and this is to go to the tdhca as uh they continue through their application process um so that they bring low-income housing uh to our community and get tax credits in um in um in that project so I do have Mario Travino here to speak to the details of the meline project uh located at 4125 benlin Road perfect thank

[0:06:14] you mayor guner council members uh thank you for the opportunity to share some information about our proposed project my name is Mario trino with I'm representing Roundstone development uh so our proposal really consists of The Rehabilitation of a 50-year-old property that is in severe need of repairs I'm not sure if you're familiar with bell Vista departments but it's located on Ben fiin Road and right off South Bryant Boulevard not a great picture here but this is the current site plan um it's 80 units total we are planning to add a clubhouse with an amenity Center and an extra two-bedroom unit where the basketball court is right now um top right of your screen um we are going to fix the pool renovate the laundry rooms uh hopefully at a fence along the east side of the property uh we're we're going to paint the exterior wall improve the Landscaping fix the roofs as far as inside of the units you know it's granite countertops new Cabinetry new flooring uh new windows new uh doors um new Appliance sances um you know new uh Plumbing fixtures it's it's going to look like a different Community once once we're done with it some information about the development uh Team uh Roundstone development's been around since 2004 uh they've developed uh over 2,000 units uh they currently own 612 units and they're we're very excited to uh to work on this on this project um it's just a list of their experience really highlighting um they experienc in multiple States we've worked in Texas Mississippi Florida and Arkansas this is uh a project they worked on in 2014 in Temple Texas now this was new construction so I'm not

[0:08:15] suggesting Bist departments will look like this but we'll absolutely try our best to beautify it as much as we can just a different um picture of the same project Temple another senior housing project in in Plano Texas and you Aldi Texas uh 80 Senior Living units we're planning to add a fitness center uh in the clubhouse it will look very similar to this and we're looking for space to add some sort of Business Center uh within the site um hopefully to look something like this we're open to provide references upon request and with that I'll open it up to any questions you may have thank you would you describe lowincome housing in terms of what is the income level of the individuals who would uh be able to live here right most of the units will be 60% units we do have some 30% and some 50% uh units but so what income is 60% talk about income uh I believe the area Medan income here is $65,000 so residents that make 60% of that will qualify uh for these rights or 50 or 30 depending on is it currently a loow income housing apartment complex it is not no so would convert correct So currently it's a market yes questions for this project no I see no questions at this point so that means I would ask for a motion some move by Larry seconded by Karen public comment none let's take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes 70 thank you Item B consider calling and ordering

[0:10:21] the May 3rd 2025 elections authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute an agreement for election services and provide Ving for the holding of a joint election to be administered by the Tom Green County election Administration 41 a resolution calling the general election for mayor and council members for single member districts two four and six and two an ordinance calling for bond election for improvement to the city's Coliseum presentation will be made by Heather and Tina and I'm sure a few other people all right so item are you up first Tina derki Director of Finance uh yes mayor I'm going to introduce Justin Jonas he's going to come up and speak about the project and then I'll follow up with a funding plan if council is interested good morning mayor good morning councel thank you for allowing me to be here today thing that we want to talk about is we're asking for you to put a uh bond election out for our citizens to vote for $41 million uh reconstruction of the Coliseum as y all know that the the Coliseum has needed renovation for many many years and youall know that there's a lot of things that we've needed to update for us to continue with that Coliseum the way it's going forward uh it's been 66 years old it's been touched a couple of times hasn't been touched in many years uh you know that when we come to the RO it's really hard for us to our main goal today is to try to get more grandstand seats put in that Coliseum uh last year when we put our tickets on sale we sold out in just a few hours and we had over 880,000 IP addresses that were trying to buy tickets we had 13 performances this past year we added another performance in had aano day and had a uh Mexican

[0:12:25] rodeo in the Coliseum and it brought people to town into our Coliseum that probably have never even been in our Coliseum and that sold out immediately as well and so what we're we're asking for when we first started was uh many years ago when Rick went with us and some uh of my uh officers and we went to uh the Corpus Christie and looked at a new venue there we loved that venue but we know that we can't afford a $200 million col brand new Coliseum we know that's not possible and we would never ask our citizens to have to pay for that that's one thing that we have over 1,200 volunteers that serve uh the community every year um the last two years uh the chamber put a economic impact study out that the the stock show in Rodeo was bringing in $78 million to the city of Stan Angelo uh when the half sales tax passed about 20 years ago and the spur was built the livestock barns were built built uh that was a $13 million uh reconstruction of all of the Barns and the and the spur out there after five years there was an economic impact study done by Harold Dominguez and it was $33 million that was generated uh at the Stock Show and Rodeo at that time so $13 million turned into $33 million to the city and now we're looking at a 78 million dollar economic impact there's no doubt that we have the largest economic impact event for the city of San Angelo I want you to know that I travel all over the nation and we talk to other Rodeo committees and San Angelo is definitely on the map for our rodeo that we have in this town I know mayor I've heard you say to me many times that you have always wanted to try to make the dot bigger on the map for San Angelo and I will tell you in the rodeo Comm community and all over the nation that San Angelo is very well known but our problem is that we're hamstrung on a lot

[0:14:28] of people being able to come and see our rodeo and we hired an architect an engineer just to do a look at the Coliseum to see what it looks like and what the bones are like and if it's even possible to renovate it fortunately 66 years ago the concrete was a lot stronger than it is now and and construction workers NE back then really built that Coliseum and it's very strong it has great bones in it it's very old and it needs a lot of updating but he told us when we asked him if there any way we can at least get to 7500 seats that we can have in that Coliseum after they did their work and they looked at it they said the Coliseum the the bones are very strong they were able to put the grandstand seats and get us up to 8,000 seats and our Architects and our Engineers got together and they looked at it and they showed us that we could not only just put grandstand seats that's only where Grand s we never want to change the feel of the atmosphere of the Coliseum it is very well known to being one of the loudest rodeos in the country all of the Cowboys love it and that's why and our citizens know Rodeo they know that if you have to perform to be there the guys want to come and they want to compete for us and I know all all of our citizens are very well knowledged in Rodeo they love our rodeo and they continue to support us and they continue to allow our volunteers that we've had for many many years I'm pretty nervous up here because we've had many many presidents over the years uh the the stock show on Rodeo has been around for over 90 years it was started by you uh in the Great Depression because it was built so people could come together and they could have joy try to lift their spirits that was coming out of the depression that same spirit is still out there today people that have grown up here many of you have grown up here have always known about the rodeo we want our kids when they go off to college we want them to come back to San Angelo we want them to keep moving forward we want us we want the the the stock show to and Rodeo to grow and in return that's going

[0:16:32] to give just more and more recognition to San Angelo I'm asking you today to allow the voters to vote on it I'm not asking you to be for it or against it I'm just asking you today to approve it and let them vote and let them decide if they want us to keep moving forward that we will continue doing that and we will continue our rodeo can grow we can produce more economic impact just because people from out of town that have never been able that we get hate mail we get calls all the time that there's not enough seats well when we put them for sale and they sell so fast people say don't have season tickets I've never seen of a venue or an event that you don't want to sell season tickets we sell season tickets our patrons from this town have over 50% of them already bought before they even go on sale that's why it only takes a couple hours and that's why people get upset when we sell out so fast but I want to tell you that give you some slides here that when our Engineers we we hired them to do we paid $1.4 million to come up with plans and uh plans for a new Coliseum uh that would increase our seats once they put the grandstand seats in they came to us and said they can go up now we can have a club level seating that would be a cheaper seat where people are mainly gathered and they can watch the rodeo because up so high first of all you can't have grand sand seats but you could have a club level seating and that would be a cheaper uh seat that people can go to that they can Network people from all over we're finding out more and more that people love to come businesses love to come and they're networking out there and there's also many other businesses that can that have grown because of the Stock Show and Rodeo and being out there so we want people to come out so the club level seating can be there there's also room for sky boxes I know there's been some debate on having sweets or stuff like that but I want to tell you that the governor came to our rodeo a few years ago his team would not even let him stay to watch our rodeo because it wasn't safe we don't have any place to put a dignitary or people that come to visit our rodeo that would be safe if we ever

[0:18:35] have that again he was able to go in and talk and he had to immediately get out and he had to go out he was one of the few days of the year that it was raining he had to sit out in his car we put a little tent out there so his car and when he got out wouldn't get wet but then we had to get him in he got in real quick and came back out so I'm hoping that with the sky boxes with the club level seating and with over 8,000 seats grandstand seats that would be available for the public that would double our capacity of over 10,000 uh capacity of seats that can be in the Coliseum we have talked about um this the Coliseum renovation be a shovel ready project for you uh sasur will execute a chapter 38 agreement with Tina uh she will talk about that in a minute one thing that we are saying to you that right now we have a 20-year lease that we do with all of the bill buildings the spur and all of the rest of the buildings out there except the Coliseum and we maintain them we run them for the city of St Angelo I will tell you that the rodeo is the only thing that really makes a profit out there the stock show that's going on right now that all of the hotel rooms have been sold out you have not been able to get a hotel room the stock show doesn't really have a major profit but it is those volunteers are out there doing that because we know that it impacts the city of St Angelo and if any of you tried to get a hotel in the last couple of days we just started Friday one of the reasons why some of us are late and being tired today is because we've been out there for 3 days straight basically and we'll continue for two more weeks um we have this we have a agreement with you that we maintain all of those buildings out there we're willing to do that with the city with the Coliseum if y'all are wanting us to do that we will maintain it we will run it we will have events come to this town and every single ticketed event we talked about of doing a city facility use fee that would go to kosa so $2 and I know before when that was happening many years ago there was

[0:20:38] always a fight on well this was a comp ticket on other venues other events this was a comp ticket or this was a sponsor ticket and this was a ticket that was actually paid for and everybody was trying to give you the $2 for only the tickets that were paid for but I will say that any ticket if it's a sponsor ticket a comp ticket or a paid ticket would be $2 sear charge that would go to the city of St Angelo so if we just had right now we had 14 uh performances that'd be 70,000 seats that were sold out that'd be $140,000 we feel like we will immediately go to at least a 70% being very conservative of a 70% sellout with this renovation that would increase uh you I think right now I was told that there was a net and that's on the slide of $62,000 as what the Coliseum Nets toosa at this moment after you pay your labor and all of your expenses I think we will go to 250 plus pretty easy the first year once it's done for the city of San Angelo we will work hard on bringing other events to this town not just the rodeo there's many events that can are possibly can come to San Angelo and with a venue of this size there's no doubt that it would be more attractive for people to move in if you compare the the facility right now to what it would be in the future right now we can sell less than 5,000 seats because we put a big production stage out there on making part of our rodeo good uh one of the best we have a major production that goes on and we put those over some seats and take a lot of seating that cannot be used at the moment of the rodeo just to and have our rodeo at the level that it is there's 12 to 16 handicap seats that is one thing that is heartbreaking every single year that we get calls that people cannot come to the rodeo that are handicapped they don't even have there's not even an area for a companion to sit well that would change to 56 handicapped seats

[0:22:42] with 60 accompanying seats that can be with them 21 Laboratories if you don't know what that is those are sinks I didn't know what it was 21 Laboratories right now are in the Coliseum it would move to 254 uh there are five urals and four troughs the troughs have been kind of a a talking point amongst every man that's ever been to the Coliseum uh for years and I think those four troughs can possibly be auctioned off once this thing is uh uh is approved um water closets those are toilets right now we have 43 and if you've ever seen the lines during the rodeo of the lady's restroom uh that wraps around and and continues to to go every year that would change uh to 247 that's a major increase in the restroom um for the restrooms uh 92 showers that was put on there if this ever is used as a uh emergency shelter the the restrooms that are underneath the bleachers right now uh were were not going to be used uh for more restrooms and those could be turned into showers if that is Ever Needed that's at this moment for this expansion that wouldn't be done unless it's needed it' be an extra cost to it but it is capable of doing that that Coliseum is capable of doing that so I've talked about what the the produ you know projection of the money could be to kosa but I just want to show you what we could look at what the Coliseum could look at you know we could look like we had uh you know looked at $ 250 million $300 million facilities um that have been going up all over the country one thing that I will tell you is our neighbors that are 90 mies down the road have increased uh have put 250 to 300 million dollars in their Fairgrounds and they want what we have they want what San Angelo has can they ever have that even if the naming rights

[0:24:45] were sold to them to take our Stock Show and Rodeo I don't think so because this town and the volunteers that we have are so educated in how to run a rodeo and how to run a stock show I don't think anybody in the country can never have what we have but everybody is fighting to have it they copy what we do in every single Rodeo they're improving their facilities and if we don't do something soon we're going to start going backwards instead of forward and that is something that the stock sh Rodeo does never want to do but we if we start stepping back we're going to have to start looking at a lot of other options on what to do this is what the the Coliseum can look like and of the 250 million 300 million doll facilities that we have looked at I feel like this renovation can make this look the same way for $ 41 million and we will have 10,000 seats and that's what is needed to keep moving forward for the for the rodeo you can see on the North and the South View we will have three different levels there will be elevators major elevators that can take people up to these levels to get to their seats the east and west view of what it can look like the sight views of looking down I wanted to show you this would be um from a west side and this is the the club level and Skybox level seating you can see that you cannot see the entire part obviously that's not as as good as a having a grandstand seat but when you put video boards in the front just like any other major venue you got video boards in the center a cluster a four all the way around that's what mainly what you will be seeing from the club levels so we will tell you that we will Market this entire project we're not asking for you to pay put one nickel in it we're going to we would Market it uh we will do everything from in May I mean for April and uh March and April that we can do to get this out to the citizens to

[0:26:48] educate them on what we do out there and what we plan on continuing to do and to work for the city of Stan Angelo and I ask for your vote today and I ask for the citizens we'll ask for them to trust us like they did before 25 years ago and putting money into these uh facilities and that we will keep the economic impact running and we hopefully continue to grow the rodeo thank you very good presentation very informative and I think you delved into a lot of issues that are important for the public to know and understand and as you go out and Market this make sure you cover those very same things because you hit on a lot of key points and I think um your points are very well taken thank you very much good job how long would this take well we've looked at the first time when we we you knew when we moved the rodeo to April because of covid we didn't want to have to uh social distance we knew that wouldn't be possible with the few seats we have and there fights that would who gets a seat and who doesn't and you helped me get 100% when we moved to April and we know that we cannot have not have a rodeo So the plan is to do everything from the outside first and keep the inside don't break a wall don't go in do everything from the outside right after a rodeo for one year and then have the rodeo and then the next right at once that Rodeo is over with break the walls and do everything in the inside and have it ready for the next Rodeo so two years so it would if passed it would start in 2026 it's up to you uh you know when we I mean if it came in May and it was approved I don't know how fast that happens you know if we need to take bids or what we need to do you know how long it takes but yes if that's the case that's what we would do we would love to start right after election obviously well I will say that um a big no to another city yes 90 miles away having an opportunity to take what you've built

[0:28:52] and the economic impact of of the rodeo stock show to Ang well my job is to try to protect this Rodeo that's why we're here good point um council do you have questions at this point for Justin or comments that you'd like to make Karen I also appreciated your presentation it was really quite wonderful I loved the level of detail and the Imaging that helps us visualize what the future will look like and you're right uh we love the road and we want good things for the future my concern is the timing because of the big bond that uh Dr Moran was mentioning to us this morning about saisd that's a hard thing for the citizens and so I am willing to let this go to the voters to decide but it's a lot to ask all in the same election and I know that if they decline this then you have to wait several years do you not was that 3 years that you have to wait until you that's what that that's what I've been told again so I'll be watching with great curiosity I think that that we've all known for a long time that the saisd bond was imminent they haven't passed a bond in I think about 15 years so I'm just a little nervous about your timing I understand thank you I think Tina will talk but I think I'm not for certain she can say it but uh average household would be a little over $4 that it would cost per month uh to have this done so she can correct me if I'm wrong $4 all right yes sir Larry Dr Moran let us know that2 so you tacking on another $4 doll on that and I understand um you know I I just feel like we want our our voters to put

[0:30:55] it in their hands what they want to do that's this was the very last option that we would want to do uh we never wanted a voter to have to pay for this but unfortunately I think we're running out of time on getting the the Coliseum renovated enough to meet the demand you know one of the important things that we must always emphasize is that yes it might cost you $4 do but what does the city gain from that because the two things that we have to have happen in this city is growth in sales tax dollars and growth in property tax dollars if you do nothing you get nothing you have to invest back into your community you must inv invest back into your facilities in order to get money brought into this city Diane Bay told us at one point this is several years ago that 51% of the sales tax dollars come from people outside of this city in the city that means sales tax dollars which we have about 25 million only 49% of that number comes from citizens who live within the city and they're surrounding I'm not sure how many miles outside the city so it says to us if we don't do something to improve facilities and focus on something that has been putting St Angelo on the map for a long time we will start to lose you can only not invest for a certain amount of time before you start to get a negative return and so for $4 a month what you're saying is for $4 a month the economic impact you want to repeat that number well two years ago it was $78 million it's only going to continue to grow if we grow up I don't have a projection of what that would be obviously but I know that you know we're going to increase uh we're going to have 40,000 more seats that are going to be sold 40,000 more seats of people that

[0:32:57] can come from from out of town or our own patrons to produce more economic impact for the city I think the fact that we're talking about a $2 facility fee is key here because if we can do a $2 facility fee and the city can bring more money in then the city wins on this too so 40 million 41 million for $4 a month more economic impact a bigger Rodeo more people more dollars is important yes Tommy I was just gonna say i' I'd like to hear from Tina Justin thank you I too appreciate what you said she got the numbers i' got some questions yes Tom Justin I think there's some key things here that are in the elements of the presentation that the association does and and I have institutional knowledge working working with y'all for 10 years um taking this position in in 17 to be on Council a lot of the goal of that was just for this one decision today um but if this goes over 41 million the projected 41 million how does the stock show handle that stock show will handle the overage any overage yall take that how many this I'm I'm I'm excited about the sky boxes and the Suites can you expand upon what they can be used for and how many there are well we're looking at 50 on the sky boxes um they can be used for many things meeting rooms uh there's also going to be over 20,000 square foot uh on the East and the west side that can be used for meeting rooms um that we can have an expandable wall that uh can convert down to just a few intimate meetings or have a big large group in them but you know they can be used for multiple things where you know that's one thing that

[0:34:58] there at the Stock Show and Rodeo that we have we turned a you know a barn into a wedding venue we' every month and stuff like that we will be Innovative as much as possible and meet needs of other events that want to come to town uh and we do we share with you guys you guys uh share our stuff and we share yalls back and forth now but as other uh demands come and what they are what they want to get met we have a lot of other rooms that are out there as well so that can be used with this for other events my final question use a lot of people don't understand what the foundation does so there's a lot of talk about Youth and I I think if you would give them one minute of a little bit about the direction of the foundation that good question I should have brought that up earlier but um you know our our motto is preserving Western Heritage and educating youth and we're nonprofit 501c3 uh everyone knows that at the end of the year any leftover monies move over to our foundation and it grows for educating use for giving scholarships uh when I first started there was one scholarship given of $4,000 and we had over 200 applicants and now we're giving 20 to 30 scholarships of $8,000 to $16,000 at the moment so we re our foundation has grown with our monies we have a a whole separate uh Foundation committee that handles all of that but uh our scholarships have very have have matched a lot of the cities like I said before that are our competitors that have a million a million population plus so we're very proud of our scholarships you have to have exhibited a project or done or had an entry in our Stock Show and Rodeo to apply for this but they're all Texas youth we have over 240 counties uh that represent in the stock show uh from kids from all over the state of Texas cool thank you so um at one point and I'm not bringing I'm not suggesting

[0:37:00] we have hockey again but at one point okay we converted that floor to a hawk ice rink could one convert that floor to a basketball court or a volleyball court I think the Harlem Globe TRS played in there when I was real little I saw so that's very possible because I'm very focused on trying to do youth sports facilities for sure and if the Coliseum could also be converted into a facility that would help support the Youth Sports in this community I think it would be terrific ma'am Tina thanks I so excuse me this Bond referendum would be in the amount of 40 41.6 million and the projected tax rate impact to to the citizens would be um between 4.2 and four 4.7 cents depending on how long want to amortise the bonds um the difference in the the interest there though of course for that half cent is $10 million in interest cost over the life of the bonds our financial advisers are currently um projecting an interest rate of about 5.87 to 5.98% again depending on amortization um of course this Bond will be sold on a taxable basis because it will not be operated by the city at that point um and then as uh Karen mentioned earlier there would be a three-year moratorium on on any future debt issue for this particular venue this specific venue um and I have Rudy seora here from he's our bond counsel and he wanted to kind of give you some information on what we could do if we do call for an election on this project good morning M mayor Mr fenella members of the council my name is Rudy sagud I'm with McCall Parkers at Horton we have the privilege of being bond attorneys to the city of St Angelo I've had the privilege of working on Stan

[0:39:02] Angelo deals for about 13 years now um we do a lot of bond elections Statewide um we have gotten so busy with Bond elections we have hired first one full-time election lawyer now we have two full-time election lawyers who do nothing but Bond and special tax elections uh Miss Rose kiski um in our San Antonio office drafted the ordinance before you and she could not be here today because she's uh juggling like 60 Bond elections right now that are being called um but you know with Bond elections um they've become sort of a Battleground um Statewide in the legislature and there's a lot of um legislation that has come uh that is currently in effect and more that's coming uh and so one of the law that's been around that hasn't um hasn't gone to court a lot yet but it's become a big issue is the three moratorium on cosos so in 2013 the legislature said if you put anything on the ballot city or county and if it fails then you cannot issue certificates of obligation to fund anything that's like remotely similar to that project so we try to be somewhat specific in the B the bond election put the address of the Coliseum uh this basically we we're not talking about all city parks we're talking about the fairgrounds here um so that if it fails the goal is it's isolated just to the Coliseum and the fair grounds and doesn't wouldn't affect other um City improvements uh there was a bill that passed in both houses last session that would extend that to a 5-year moratorium and would apply it to seos and tax notes that bill passed but it was vetoed uh by Governor Abbott with 75 other bills uh there's another bill right now two bills actually that would uh kind of do the same thing and you know you you don't know what the likelihood of Passage is but it would extend it to a 5-year moratorium and it would say you cannot

[0:41:06] put it back on the if it fails not only can you not debt fund it by other means you also cannot go ask voters again for five years so that is another bill that's on the ballot and again we cannot speculate as to whether that's going to be successful or not or what it's going to morph into uh interestingly it doesn't cover tax notes which was kind of the sore subject there was the City of Amarillo issued authorized $260 million for Coos it was petitioned uh and the voters uh I guess shot it down and the city tried to issue a $260 million tax note and uh they were sued by citizens uh the Attorney General's office intervened and joined the citizens group to stop the city and ultimately the court of appeals killed that issue on other grounds so that's just that's kind of the environment we live um and so just again to make you all aware as we're going into what it means to put something on the ballot and what the potential consequences are um the other thing that takes effect as obviously yall as elected officials are aware of the prohibition on the use of public funds public funds for political advertising and obviously that that takes a certain shape when you're talking about candidate elections it looks very different when you're talking about measures like a bond and so as soon as this governing body votes to adopt this ordinance assuming it's adopted uh that that provision goes in effect and so no public funds can be utilized to advocate for or against the measure and advocacy obviously can be you know yeah go vote for it or there were there were statements made today that could be considered advocacy right like it's a good deal uh it's you know this is this is the way of the future this is um uh you know we need this those statements the ethics commission will call that advocacy statements like that could no longer be made on on city-owned property all right including

[0:43:09] the dis this um um this convention center uh nor could you nor could the city allow that kind of advertising to occur on any city-owned property that would include the fair grounds okay the City could not legally permit the Rodeo Association to promote the bond on any City owned property including the fairgrounds all right that is that's state law um so where could they it would have to be somewhere outside um outside of City own property right it could be at events you know it could be churches uh 4 club kaanis club Rotary Club uh other Civic groups that are holding meetings outside of um government-owned property so this applies not just to your bond it also applies to any statements about uh stt Angelo isd's bond election once they call it they haven't called it is what I heard and so that this prohibition it only takes effect once there's a measure and the measure happens when the vote is called uh to call the the election um you know the the other thing is like lately is pictures photographs they couldn't be authorized to use photo RS of the rodeo grounds to promote the bond if those photographs were taken from a place of privilege right where you could only access it by the fact that you're you know you're an authorized employee or representative of the city right and so you know you can take a you know a selfie of yourself outside of a courthouse you're running for judge and have the courthouse in the back if any citizen could do the same thing but there's been like three ethics Commission complaints where there's judges for re-election that take a selfie of thems at the bench in their robe and they're saying no you know the only you know that's not yeah the courtroom is open to the public but not everybody gets to sit up there in that robe with the gavel and take a picture

[0:45:12] um city of Dangerfield and lonar we had one mayor was running for reelection the other mayor was supporting him he said hey come over I want to tell people I'm supporting you and they came over they had a he went to the city council ch members unlocked the door and they snapped a picture he said I'm I'm supporting this guy for mayor uh and the this mayor was not up for re-election he was just supporting the neighboring Town's mayor well they filed an Ethics complaint against him uh and the ethics commission said yes you you violated the statute you used a photograph a depiction of city council he said but city council chambers is open to the public anybody can come in here he said what what time of day it was he said it was 4:00 and so uh how'd you get into council chambers so we had the janitor un locked the door well then who took the picture oh I made the janitor took the picture and so the ethics commission said even if even if we were to admit that uh that the council chambers was open to the public you had a special privilege to go in there during closed times and you use the city employee to take the picture and so you're using public funds for political advertising so that that goes to um you know City list serves email list serves email domain no City resources can be used to pro OTE go ahead sir now finish what you need and I've just got a follow-up question or if you're ready I'll goe so you're talking about public funds but if the Coliseum is leased to a nonprofit foundation for period of a month that kind of there there's not public funds there so would they be able to market the Bond as they have obligated themselves to because that doesn't involve public funds at all um but you're using uh City taxpayer owned property the Coliseum itself it's it would be on that property yes but it's not public funds um and so I think the ethics commission would consider that you know they take it's it's a very very easy line to cross again they've used you

[0:47:14] know mailboxes you know there was a Community College District you know the board president allowed the pack to store the yard signs in his office they said that was a violation um they've had they said lately the big thing is Facebook they've been people they have a you know the city or the school district official Facebook page and so the question to me was like well is that is that a public fund is the is a free Facebook page that was created by the pr person uh you know a city resource and the ethics commission has answered yes and so there's people somebody post something and you got board members or council members on there uh bickering about you know you should vote for this or you should vote against it and the ethics commission said that's a violation you were using a public resource uh to promote uh advocate for or against the measure and you violated the statute I think the most important thing to learn from this is they're going to need your phone number before you leave today to ask questions I will send a memo out uh to staff and what I'm I hear a lot of negatives but I think you know the the whole point of this is getting back to the opportunity to move forward with that you've put in what we would call headwinds that are just going to be particular elements they're going to have to work around as they mark at the property it's not an obstruction but it's an obstacle that they just need to be cognitive cognitive of as they move forward absolutely that's right cool and just trying to discharge my duty to yall uh as your attorney because um you know I've been in situations like this and then we call for the election and as soon as I walk out there's a camera here and the governing body you know president mayor is is uh shouting to vote for the election on live TV already started so uh I just wanted to throw that out there again just uh as your bond counsel and yes we're available to review any sort of my understanding is you're not going to be preparing your own literature or web page or or anything like that you're going to let the Rodeo Association do it but when a lot of our clients do and so we part of

[0:49:16] our job is to review all that and to make sure that you know none of it we think is going to um raise an Ethics complaint anyhow cool thank you my pleasure yes Larry you've given us a real good idea how we can all go to jail okay what what I really would like to know is the positive marketing things you can do for the bond so you can uh you can inform right so that's the thing so as the city you can inform people of what's being built so you can uh talk about the project you can show you know architectural renderings of what it's going to look like of what the improvements are going to look like you can show the cost you know you can talk about you know how many you know seatings there's going to be how much uh new uh water closets we're going to have and um and and give very objective facts all right so um you can talk about the capacity right now right now we're it's we're at a little less than 5,000 uh the projected new capacity would be about 8,000 right um 10 10,000 so my apologies so you cannot um and then you kind to stop there right uh then you talk about the tax rate impact to give balance where you're presenting positive information and negative um you know you can show pictures of the current uh facility you don't want to show like the one picture of the corner the troughs you could show the troughs that's what you could do the auction I've had like cities that want to do Bond elections for streets right and so they show like the worst potholes in town on like a brochure I'm like no that's that's now you're trying to persuade that's the problem because I can give you a bunch of facts that are totally you can verify them on Wikipedia uh but I can give you only the facts that are going to support a yes Vote or I can give you only the facts that they're going to support a no vote so that's uh what what you can't do is ask

[0:51:18] them to vote for or against you can ask yeah but you can ask them to go vote you can push out the vote tell them to go vote but you cannot try to persuade them right sell it well go ahead to Tom's Point mayor I think these these folks here in the audience either need to have their own Council that has a pipeline to Rudy or not or but and our City attorney Brandon needs to work closely with Rudy so that there is no line crossed um because I'm I can see lines that would easily be crossed totally unintentionally right by either party so Brandon you may need an assistant uh because this sounds like for the next 90 days it would be pretty busy uh your office and your folks these folks either with their own Council or working directly with you and Brandon as well so um I I would I would just encourage everybody don't cross any lines because it sounds like people don't have any hesitancy to file an Ethics complaint is what it would sound like yeah it's well it's it's very easy to do that's the problem you know right and then and you just file you're done it's very simple email you're done and then you have to answer for it right and it's usually I mean anybody it could be any City employee right that could be charged with it but it it never is it's always governing body members and the head uh officer city manager superintendent County judge um and the um you know governing body that if you authorized it right if if you know somebody had too many Mel aburas and you know they were announcing at the Coliseum and said hey it's early voting go vote for the bond and that was not authorized that would be on them right that would not be on

[0:53:20] yall the question problem yeah thank you no more M Okay so um any other questions or comments for anyone I's got some more yeah okay so this would involve what's called a chapter 380 agreement between the city and sastra which would allow sastra to operate and maintain the city Coliseum at that point um it requires a prop proposal that they provide some measurable Economic Development benefits to the city and also must include some clawback Provisions that penalize for non-performance or it could also be incentive that incentiv incentivize them to get to a certain uh timeline and then just some examples and Justin talked about a lot of these but some examples of performance measures that could be included in a 380 agreement um again needs to be clearly shown that this has some economic benefit to the city so um these are just some talking points we talked about the $2 ticket fee them taking over o andm um they've talked about another Capital Improvement project I think that their board discussed that might be also included in the agreement um job creation and retention could be another one or the number of attendees that come to each event would be another one so just some discussion items if y'all have any questions or want to talk through that any further we can but other than that that's all I have to present further questions or comments from Council now's your time um I'm curious how this affects Civic events so the Civic events um fund their expenditure budget at the end of last year was around $234,000 for the Coliseum so of course that would be a savings realized to the city um additionally Sid to just some very high level rough math on what it would cost to operate once this renovation had taken place and he estimated that to be around $800,000 so again a cost that we're not taking on because we won't be um doing the o and m at the Coliseum at that point further questions or comments yes Larry I'm still concerned

[0:55:25] about the elephant in the room the ISD bond and if we don't consider that uh I think we're Peril I truly believe that the citizens of s Angelo are smart enough to figure out the difference between voting for Education Improvement to education versus the Coliseum over here I don't think there's it's I don't think it's competition I don't believe the people who believe in education will say I'm going to vote for this but not for this in my mind they're two separate projects they both have value they impact this city in a major way in much different ways and in some actually the same scholarships so you C you can't put a big hard line between the two and say there isn't a little bit of overlap but I think the citizens no if we don't educate our kids and don't provide for our kids to get educated then we lose as a city but I also believe that our citizens are smart enough to understand quality of life this is an investment in quality of life for our citizens for people who live in the county who live in the city and without an investment in this facility and what it can can bring we are taking away quality of life and that's one of the key things that we sell in this city is quality of life this is a quality of life project quality of life is education secondly it just so happens that they're both going to be on the May 3rd ballot but I don't believe it's competition just don't believe it's competition in my opinion all right it's time to take vote mayor i' make a motion to approve Item B

[0:57:30] both number one and number two second um you want to take two separate votes one on the general and one on the bond please yes okay I move approval of item B1 second is there public did anyone sign up for public comment okay so we will take a vote on item B1 and remember this vote is a vote to allow the citizens of St Angelo to vote on elction general election to vote on whether they want we go ahead and repeat it uh so the general election is just um to elect a mayor single member district this is simply to reelect yes Larry Miller he's running or we haven't yeah and for the mayor so this this is simply a vote on uh the election so all those in favor say I I motion passes 70 now mayor I move we approve item B2 second and a second by Harry okay now I will say this that this vote is not your necessary vote of support for the bond it is to allow the citizens to vote whether they want or do not want the improvements to the Coliseum you might have a different opinion when you vote but today is simply a vote to allow the citizens their right to decide whether they want to increase their property tax dollars by $4 a month to improve the facility $4 a month at a value of $150,000 home so that will obviously raise it would increase if the value of the home just want to make sure that's clear okay there's a motion and a second is there public comment we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes 70 we will now move into item C first

[0:59:36] reading and public hearing of an ordinance amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 2024 and ending September 30th 2025 for health insurance claims and an IRS payment for Arbitrage ouch ouch yes ma'am okay so part of this Health Insurance Fund budget amendment you actually saw last year year but when we presented it we didn't feel like we were clear enough of where the funding sources were coming from so we're bringing it back um so this first one is um to use departmental vacancies savings and we're going to transfer that over to the Health Insurance Fund because it's struggling this year um and then the second part of it is a use of fund balance which was what we had brought last year but now that has fallen to fund balance since we didn't make the amendment or the transfer last year so that will um help to support this fund for this current year and for next year's budget we'll build in those increases to all the other funds coming in um when we adopt the original budget and of course this next one is for Arbitrage um the city was informed that we will have to make a $1.5 million payment to the IRS um that is related to the 2019 uh Hickory debt issue and with that we ended up earning more interest than we are allowed to for a tax exempt Bond and so the IRS basically wants their cut of it uh we earned $3.2 million uh today in that fund and we're being required to send about almost $1.6 million to the IRS so it's a good story because it means we had high interest yields and low interest rates but it still hurts and we keep what amount we will keep the remainder the 3.2 it's about 1.6 1.7 million in that fund yes all right questions for Tina on this item yes I'm just going to make a public comment if I may and I you sign up to do that I I can't allow you to break the rules here well I said I said this to Daniel Daniel

[1:01:40] and Tina yesterday I understand that we've got to send this money but I'm not I'm not really happy about it underdress oh like they care really you go nor churn on yeah go nor ch thank you Harry move we approve as presented a second please second a second by Karen public comment other than Harry's seeing none hearing none we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I there will be no closed session today on item eight followup and administrative issues consider approving various board nominations Development Corporation Matt Lewis smd2 to an unexpired term ending January 2 26 Planning Commission Linda Roberts Galindo smd5 to first term ending January 2027 tax increment reinvestment Zone Briana kilum kilum is that right smd1 to first term ending July 2026 Joseph Spano smd2 to first term ending July 2026 Trey Holmes smd3 is chairman of the board for a one-year term ending January 2026 I'm confused about Joseph Spanos moving out of of Tom Green County and living in another County and I understand our policy allows that which I think we need to re-review our policy it's it's both our policy and state statute allows that so could be a resident of the county or a resident of an adjoining directly adjoining count unbelievable only just for T's board that's right no it's crazy all right do huh I'm kind of liking yeah we wait you'll get a payback sooner or later all right with that may I have a motion for approval for these board nominations or second public comment all those in favor say I I

[1:03:44] motion passes 70 we uh may have a motion for motion we adjourn second any concern about a journey oh I was I was going to make an announcement I want to hear I just want to thank every one of y'all for my time at the city and I'll try not to get too emotional about it but I have loved and worked hard at this city for 16 years and I've had great support from Council and from City Management's office and and every department so I really appreciate it and it's provided an opportunity for me and my family to move on and uh but we'll miss this place you will cuz the humidity is bad down there and you will miss us there's a motion and a second I believe for an adjournment all in favor say I I we are officially adjourned at 9:38

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=Qv0rIMjsBng