City Council 11-5-24

[0:00:00] vote and we'll see when we'll figure out what it is we're going to do going forward but thank you for being here today and with that I am going to ask Art M mavo to come in and uh come up here and lead us in our uh prayers and pledges please stand let us pray father as we meet here today thank you for every seat that has been filled for each mind and heart that FS we have an idea we have a vision hints and daily however only you can see in Project every season missteps or and understanding forgive us for our pride The Pride that Puffs us up all those present as well as 2 we have two proclamations today and the

[0:02:20] first one will be American recycles day so Charlotte are you here by yourself or you got a troop of people with you well this will be enough you got you got people America recycles day a keep America beautiful National initiative is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States America recycles day educates and encourages individuals on how to be more mindful of what they consume where and how to properly recycle and to pledge to recycle more and recycle right in their everyday lives the day highlights the actions we can all take to collectively address the challenges facing our nation's recycling system many people are confused about what items can be recycled where they can be recycled and how this often leads to recyclable Bulls going in the trash or trash going in the recycling bin keep s Angelo beautiful urges citizens to reduce reuse repurpose and recycle properly in every aspect of their life recycle at home work school and on the go buy products made with recycled content educate and encourage friends family and neighbors to do the same and participate in the cleanup event recycling is important to ensure our planet remains healthy along with other benefits like reducing landfill waste conserving national resources such as oceans and Forest and lessening the burden of fossil fuels which can decrease Greenhouse GL gases by recycling our materials together we can create a healthier planet for our selves and future Generations therefore I

[0:04:24] Brenda Gunter mayor of the city s Angelo Texas on behalf of the city council do hereby Proclaim claimed November the 15th 2024 as America recycles day for you my dear thank you all and just real quick I want to show you a number one this is a number one how easy is that this is a number two look it's just a jug it's pretty much a little clean we've got aluminum can some green beans everybody should be eating green beans and last but not least a Coke please Reduce Reuse and recycle these are the items that go in your recycle bin together we can all make a difference in St Angelo I want to thank you mayor Gunter and city council for the support of our program of keep St Angelo beautiful our lovely girl scouts that are with us today and our board members and Miss Renee girls do y'all have anything to say tell us about what you've been doing okay a little shy there we know you've been working hard so that's good enough okay we're going to go over here we're going have picture I'm put this yes yes yes our next Proclamation is National adoption month and would would all of you come forward and help us celebrate

[0:06:28] this day good morning good morning all children deserve a safe home and a family to help them flourish and grow each year many Texas Children find a forever home thanks to adoptive families in Tom Green County there are still many children currently in foster care awaiting a forever family to bring them home during the month of November communities across the country come together to observe National adoption month to encourage and celebrate adoption this effort along with similar celebrations in all 50 states will offer children the chance to live with stable and loving families and encourage other dedicated individuals to make a powerful difference in the lives of children through adoption the city of St Angelo recognizes National adoption month in support of the adoptive families here in our own community and and encourages others to open their hearts and homes to children in need of forever families therefore I Brenda Gunter mayor of the city of St Angelo Texas on behalf of the city council do hereby Proclaim November 2024 as National adoption month and call on all citizens to remember the children and families who have joined their lives to the miracle of adoption open their hearts and Minds to the idea of opening their own homes to children in need and congratulate the new families to be formed during National adoption month might want to bring that down thank you all for this opportunity um to allow us just to share some light on National adoption month so this year we have a total of 10 families adopting 14 children and although that is something that is very exciting we do have to remember those that are still in

[0:08:30] care um currently right now we have around 400 children in our region that are still needing um that are in foster care and several of those that are still needing adoption homes and we would like to take take this opportunity to just remind yall of Our obligation as a community to step up for those children and if you are interested please find someone or reach out to um fostering Concho Valley kids on Facebook or in general just to find more information about what you can do as a community to help these children that are still in Care thank you we will now move into the public comment portion 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 Das Begin by stating their name an address or single member district number and limit their remarks to less than three minutes Heather do we have individuals here who would like to speak uh we have two first

[0:10:34] Renee Lacy good morning Council I'm Renee Lacy single member district 5 I'll be commenting on um a business that I just wanted to make um an introduction for you guys it's with Good Vibes LLC we are located at 3038 West borgard Avenue I am within a local Artisan Boutique and I specialize in multiple areas so I am um an entrepreneurial multiservice brand so come by check it out we're open Tuesday through Saturday from 12: till 6: thank you thank you and Aaron Venoy were you not getting enough attention with all of your items on the agenda you needed to come forward for public comment thank you mayor uh Aon Veno uh director of Planning Development Services uh also in SMD number three uh this morning it actually gives me great pleasure to introduce our new Planning and Development administrator uh Kim garmy she comes to us from operations she was our our City's former grant writer um she's we're very excited that she's with us um Kim come on up here um that position's been vacant for almost 18 months uh and to find somebody that's highly qualified and ready to help lead uh our department forward uh we're very excited that about that Kim's going to be uh presenting the two cases this morning so you'll get to have uh Kim instead of having to look at me mayor so uh very very good for that um but uh just want to say thank you Kim for coming on our team and we're very excited for Kim garmy to be with us today so thank you Kim Welcome to the planning department and we also want to thank you for the work you you have done

[0:12:36] on grant writing and we expect you to continue to look for opportunities in the grant world yes ma'am of course thank [Applause] you is that the end of okay we will then move into our consent agenda um today you will notice as we go through the consent agenda there's tremendous um projects that will help move our city forward uh to the tune of over $4 million included in this consent agenda program today so I asked that we all give great consideration to these purchases and make sure we understand fully what the purchases um are going to do for us and um make sure that we are supporting these requests I'm going to ask each council member to uh give me any item that they would like to have pulled and I'll start with Larry no ma'am Karen no ma'am Lucy item Q please q q item Q will be pulled Harry no ma'am Tom nothing to pull Tommy no ma'am with that may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move so move by Tom second second by Tommy public comment concerning the items on the consent agenda Jamal schert Jamal shumer single member district number three uh I also had a public comment but I guess it's skipped we'll get it next week right or two weeks from now right um on B we're purchasing land for the fire station for

[0:14:39] two almost three acres for $379,000 it's needed of course but in the Development Corporation you sold acres for 24,000 and got them appraise for about 49 there's there's a lot of difference in there um that is actually the difference we would have a surplus to be able to for this really afford this and when we have people back there well we can't afford Medicare on G the purchase of a skid steer I applaud you guys thank you we needed to clean up our storm water in all over town not just the McDonald's area because that's what you focus on and you and you're putting even more money towards that which I don't think we really need to do all and you're buying a wood chipper that's I appla you for that too because you're going to cut a lot of wood down you going to need to do something with the wood chip are we going to resell the wood chips or we going to use it in our garden or what and for M Southwest Boulevard improvements $400,000 for concrete rip wrap lines I mean wouldn't it just been good to have a natural look and the owner's allowance fund there's not any work hardly being done other than clearing debris for almost $600,000 that almost seems like a money grab and then the Dual CCN area um I've been paying attention quite closely to Fairview Road developments they are supposed to be half acres uh I mean a full acre rures and then you're going to change it to where they're going to be residential well not this one this one's going to be residential but fair viiew is supposed to be Acres when you add this water in these Services out there he's going to be back in Planning Commission to make it residential and put a lot more homes out there and when he does does that he's going to have to expand the road which you've already given variances on towards Fair viiew beyond that do we have enough water to support 55 arms in that

[0:16:42] area and affordable housing I think there there's a real problem y'all guys won't be able to tell if it's cdbg funding doing it or if it is actual coast of DC funds doing it because they're running dual programs I'm not even sure if that's effective at all and I guess that'd be it I'll hold my other comments thank you Jamal thank you for your comments and bringing issues to the front uh we have a lot of City staff here today anything that you would like to have a further conversation and clarification on please talk to our city staff they would be glad to get go into a lot more detail to help you better understand what we're doing the purchases why we're doing them they would be glad to U give you additional information mayor I understand the purchases uh the problem I have is with your how you budgeted and how how you choose what projects are more important than other projects you know again I'm going to ask that you speak with the staff in the back of the room and know that we respect your comments thank you thank you we will now take a vote on all of the items on the consent agenda with the exception of item Q all those in favor say I I motion passes 7 to zero we will move into item q and item Q is consider ratifying kosa DC board approval authorizing its board president to negotiate and execute a subrecipient agreement between Costa DC and G CDC to operate and manage the affordable housing assistance program Robert you're on yes did you have a question uh yes B I just wanted you to explain this to me for uh as it's um written I didn't quite get it I wasn't able to pull it up so can you please

[0:18:44] just tell me what it's about in a nutshell this action uh transfers the cumbersome legal process of recapturing affordable housing funds in cases of foreclosures or sale of properties um under this agreement uh Galilee would be responsible for all real estate documents um for the program leaving the city's uh legal department and the board Coes DC board out of the process that's all this does it's basically um almost a contract process to get them to handle the legal documents and the real the real estate documents uh to through the pro through the whole process that's what this is okay you were talking about foreclosure um do we have a lot of those no we don't the Foreclosure we've only had two since 2008 uh one time we actually recaptured the house uh and it took a lot of work on our legal Department's Pro side and my time and the board's time to go through that and recapture that house um uh the other foreclosure we had we never got notified so we had no idea it was happening until after the fact uh so it's since 2008 we had to so it's a pretty good uh pretty good percentage there okay thank you sure other questions from Council Larry so what you're saying is they're in a a much better position to work this more effectively and less expensive absolutely yes sir absolutely any other comments from or questions from Council seeing none I will ask for a motion to approve item Q lar would you like to make that Lucy yes ma'am I move to approve his present may I have a second second a second by Larry public comment concerning this item see none is there public comment on this item Jamal put that he had public comment for item q but he he already touched on it a little bit okay all right with that we will move on

[0:20:50] and take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes 70 that completes the consent agenda and we will now move into our regular agenda we're going to change up the regular agenda in terms of um what comes first because there's so many people here today who um are with us so what we're going to do is move um item F which is consideration and action related to benefit for post 65 retiree Medicare Advantage um and Bri up as a number one item and then we will go back to the regular agenda in terms of the items as they are listed so I'm going to give the floor to you Brian you are on all righty good morning mayor council Brian Kendrick Director of Human Resources um so we have uh a followup from the item we had a couple of uh meetings ago um before that meeting I in our discussions with consultant Holmes Murphy I had asked if there was a possibility of an alternate bid um that we could get and uh we did receive one it was after the last meeting um and um it accounts for very minimal uh plan design changes uh we received it at 306 that day so unfortunately we just didn't make it under the deadline for for getting into that meeting but uh the changes to changes to this uh alternate bid are minimal um the plan would still represent a better overall benefit than the rest of the retirees under 65 and the current city employees receive um it adds a $500 deductible you'll see on your screen there for health uh and it adds a $250 charge for outpatient surgeries um the the other thing to keep in mind is even though this bid is is

[0:22:52] lower than the original bid um because there are certain uh time frames that we have to give for for any kind of changes related to this um we cannot start the alternate bid until March 1st so we would have to go with the original bid for the first two months and then we could switch to the alternate bid um but it does save uh a a significant uh uh amount $178,000 of of difference in the bids um so I wanted to give y'all some options the options I gave yall last time uh verbal were uh with the original bid you could fund the way I saw it you could fund it fully uh leave the premium at 2044 you could fund it partially through in 50% here moving the premiums to 8082 or you could fund none of it which would move the premiums to 14519 uh with the alternate bit I wanted to give you again the same sort of options if we fund and I'm sorry let me go back to that previous slide uh again the cost for that option one is 434,000 there um so if we look at this one uh again it would wouldn't start until March 1st so the savings is pro-rated um but if we go with option one you'd fund the full marginal increase retain the 2044 premium for retirees as is uh and that would be a cost of 285,000 to the city or 2 285 505 option two uh 50% you can see that it that course cuts it uh cuts it by 50% to 142 uh fund none of it it would raise their premiums to 10248 I have met U with as many retirees as wanted to meet with me I've reached out to some uh in in addition to that uh because I wanted to make sure that I was hearing everything um everything that they had to say and and I wanted to make sure I could be there to answer

[0:24:55] questions um I let them know that my recommendation to you folks would be uh option one to leave the premium at 2044 um of the alternate bid again that would start on March 1st we'd have the original bid for the first two months you Brian I think one of the biggest issues that came up from many of the emails that I received and I'm sure other City Council Members received as well was fear that we were dropping the health insurance for retirees and that was never ever a consideration no the shock value to council which was the Friday before the meeting right and that Tuesday was the first day of the budget session so we were unaware of this aggressive new um premium increase until that Friday afternoon but there was never ever consideration of dropping the health insurance no that's it was really a challenge of trying to figure out and deal with that increase that's right that's right and then you have found a way to go back and get alternative bits which makes the program a much different program than what was originally presented to us but we respect all of the service and all the time and effort that all of our retirees have put into being police officers and and part of our fire department you are part of what makes the city equality of Life City and we greatly appreciate all the work the effort that you have put into the city of St Angelo and so today we're seeing a much different program than what was originally presented to us and um I would um say that I'm thrilled that we have something different to look at today and a much different uh program so thank you for the work and effort you

[0:26:59] didn't let it drop you continued to work hard on it and you did it because you care about what our retirees have done for us as a city and I know you spent a lot of hours and lost a lot of gray hair working on this program for us as I know many people in the audience also lost some hair and got a few more gray hairs worrying about what was going to go on with this program so thank you for everyone for being here today thank you Brian for working hard on this and we will um if I could just mention one more thing that um I was able to communicate it with a few uh but I just wanted to make sure because there was some question about uh the time frame when we got the bid and you know that never looks good for the bid to come in that late and those kind of things um I we went back and looked to 2015 we have we have not seen an increase over 2.3% since 2015 so there was no reason to think that they were going to come in at 60 uh% so um that that was that was part of the shock to all of our systems but we will uh on our part we will do better to uh make sure we get that bid earlier if if this is a possibility U make sure that we get that bid earlier so that we can present that earlier to everybody both the retirees and city council we not only getting the bids earlier but I think we must make sure there's a place card in our budget sessions that allows for those increases es in case they do happen so that we don't pass a budget and then have to relook at the numbers ma' three days later the very first day of the new budget session so we need to be proactive and making sure we protect what future increases could could be but thank you for the work and thank you for all the emails and phone calls that many of you made to me as well as to other city council members here today um thank you and thank you for your service all right with that um do I have questions from Council yes ma'am okay

[0:29:03] Larry uh my question is for future years is this sustainable and this might be a question Mrs DKI could answer better than you can can we afford this in years going forward um the the uh if you Google um my my job and my my desire is to always make this sustainable is to keep this benefit um with that being said it doesn't take much of a Google search to find out the things that are happening with Medicare Advantage plans um and the market is just very volatile right now I think um my my gut tells me that this this percentage is probably a little bit of an overreaction to to the changes that are going to happen and so hopefully we'll see and again this is I can only speak speak in these terms because I I don't control that market or or you know insurance companies are saying that they have a tough time making a profit in this I know we've had um some major insurance companies pull out of this game entirely Blue Cross Blue Shield like I said you know they refus to even bid us they are rethinking their their approach to it um so uh I I believe u Blue Cross Blue Shield even in the ones that they did bid they I think I heard that they removed um MD Anderson from the from the uh Network which you know that's again the the Market's volatile I think it's an overreaction I hope it's a kneejerk reaction to these things and I hope we'll see those percentages kind of steady out over time um but you know I wish I had a crystal ball I I I wish I could answer that better well I think we know the insurance industry overall this is Med medical but the same thing's happening to house property uh cars Etc so the insurance industry is in a roller coaster right now it is it is you you can see that even in your car insurance

[0:31:06] and I think everybody's seen that over the last couple of years yeah Tina did you want to help address I was just going to address Larry's question a little bit further um if you're asking if we can afford it today any increases today would uh have to be coming from a one-time funding source such as fund balance and then going into next fiscal year we would include it in our original budget um and that would just use excess um marginal revenue at that point and would be built into the budget next year if there's excess marginal revenue yes if and a little more into that vein um as far as you know obviously we just started the fiscal year um so uh I would anticipate that I will probably come back to you in April and see where this fund is and then you know H have have then already done some work with Tina and her staff um to try to locate where we where we might prop this up for you know the rest of the year if we need to I just hope that what we do is relook at everything in April because I don't want the group of people here today to go through the panic and the fear that just happened and no this won't change yeah what whatever decided will be decided for 2025 so so we need to be very proactive we need to make sure that any um clues that are given to us about what might happen or communicated and that we work through those so we don't we don't go through this again it's readed it was very emotional and and we get it yep absolutely it's one of the most important things that we all deal with if not the most but stay healthy everyone take care of yourself that's the other part of it stay healthy right all of us up here stay healthy right so with that other questions or comments from Council I just like lar uh Lucy yes I just wanted everyone to know that the emails that I received from you I read them I understand completely I know that

[0:33:08] sometimes in this lifetime I know that we all go through things either we know someone or it happens to us these situations arise so I know that it's very panicky it's anxious you get to where you're thinking oh no what are we going to do so I hope that what we decide today will help you and put you ities and like the mayor said stay healthy enjoy your life thank you yes uh Tommy I just wanted to Echo a couple of things Brian said this is the world I've lived in my entire career I've been in in in the insurance world and Brian is correct the Medicare Advantage world is is changing under our feet literally as we speak Mutual Omaha has been a large provider of over 65 medical insurance for many many years they have made the decision to withdraw from the marketplace entirely their Medicare Advantage portfolio so we don't know what that leaves leaves for us in the landscape but it it is changing um and some of this is is mandated at the federal level and the insurance companies have no uh control over this whatsoever so uh um we're just going to have to go with the flow I would Echo what the mayor said we just need to be proactive and stay stay on top of it that's my pledge to you guys you know mayor yes sir I I would um Echo what what you said what uh Lucy said what others probably have have have thought you know that we do appreciate these people um and and the service that they have given to the city um it is what has made this a a really great place to live mayor if you're ready for a motion I I would I am I would Brian if you could put that back on the screen sorry I moved it right before you got there I would I would make a motion that we

[0:35:11] accept option one and fully fund um that 285,000 leaving their uh all the retirees premium at $20.44 a month I would like to second that there's a second on that is there public comment today um do we have public comment Russell Smith you know where the podium is yes ma'am you know where the microphone is thank y'all for having one that bends down I'm Russell Smith U I'm in single me member district 6 mayor city council and staff first time I stood before the city council was in August of 1982 some of the firemen and policemen were there in that room and they're here today standard times editorial that afternoon said the S Angelo police ass Association after sitting down for discussions with City management For the First Time agreed to pay a to a pay increase for firefighters and policemen later it said such Harmony is a welcome development and could signify a new era in City Affairs and such was the way I tried to be the whole time I was with the police department um and it was probably because of the way I was brought up and the way I believe that someone's word or promise you know to the microphone would that make it better because it seems to okay I'm sorry do I lose that 30 seconds okay of

[0:37:15] course we've had a few hiccups since I retired with the latest I want to read an email that I received I just H have such a heavy heart for those people who have such a small retirement income and are not able to pay for this insurance payment along with medicine electricity food and basic necessities I know that the ones that will suffer the most are those with the least education and those that did the manual labor of course they are talking about the 62 retirees we learned about in the last hicup who only received $500 or less in a tmrs benefit are the 117 that receive between 500 And1 and $1,000 but today I must commend HR Director Brian Kendrick the staff and you the city council for providing the Medicare supplement that you have in the past and the one we have now I ask that you keep the original one I have to do that because of the the people from the water department Sewer Department the big thing is they can't afford a monthly payment they don't have it and these are the people that are in those early those low payment it's it's not necessarily us but it's the fire I mean the fire and the police we'd rather have the money for us but if I understand that right is that no payment it would keep the payment as is okay yeah well anyway thank you very much if it goes that way and you know what that means I think it means I'm over thank you it does and thank you so much further public

[0:39:23] comment Robert Henderson morning good morning mayor councel everybody uh I'm not going to repeat everything Russell said but uh I went to work for the city in 1960 and then I retired in 1990 30 years service with the fire department I worked under three city managers four fire fire chiefs and a lot of councilmen uh the uh problem I have is I'm 85 years old and I won't be able to get insurance if something happens to my retirement Insurance um back in 1960 we were promised the uh options of U vacation um sick leave holidays and then our then our uh Insurance paid for so other than that uh it it it be pretty hard my I brought I brought my two deposits Social Security and my fire department uh if anybody's interested in but uh for every dollar that's taken out of my check I can't replace it I can't work anymore and so just only reason I come up is for support for the other guys and then to tell you my history and I appreciate y'all thank

[0:41:27] you for coming forward thank you ma'am Randy kig good morning I'm Randy kenig I live at 6454 Lincoln Park Road West single Miss men member district one we as a group just recited our allegiance to America in the state of Texas I believe this was an oath a commitment our word our allegiance to honor our country we as employees of the city of s Angelo also gave our word to serve the city of s Angelo this problem we face I believe is just the tip of the iceberg our word is our bond if our word means nothing then our bond means nothing these retired employees before you today spent 20 30 or maybe even 40 years serving the city the benefit promised us is a bond Made To Us by the city to take it away will probably put many retirees below the poverty level this is not what the city commitment promised us there is right and there is wrong this is more about integrity honesty doing what you say and saying what you do I pray you will choose right over wrong thank you thank you very much next Carla

[0:43:41] Steppy hello mayor council my name is Carla Steppy I live in meren Texas I am a retiree of the city of St Angelo I worked proudly for 28 years almost 28 years in the police and the fire departments and during those years we believed and relied upon the city to honor their promise and commitment for us working our 20 plus years when we were hired before January 1st of 2000 and I'm sure everyone here in the room will say the same thing and throughout the years there were multiple pce studies done by the city of comparable cities and in all the pce studies it showed that s Angelo was the lowest ranking and they told us that we would have our insurance that would be our benefit that was part of our package the health insurance is not a gift it is part of our compensation and it was earned by years of hard work and loyalty we upheld our end of the bargain and we're asking this city to do the same we're not asking for anything more than what we were promised is the right choice always easy no it's not is the right choice the least expensive choice no it's not but it's the right thing to do Rising inflation cost are a fact of life paying for the salaries and benefits of the retirees and the current employees is a cost of doing business would all the city retirees and employees in the audience please stand up and remain standing for a moment thank you I'm asking the mayor and city council members to please look at these fine men and women these are the people that have dedicated their lives to the betterment of the city St Angelo this is the face of the city take care of these people who took care of the city for so many years this is the city that you have inherited all of these people still have value please do not leave them with the impression that all of their hard work

[0:45:44] and commitment was wasted and not appreciated please make the hard choice and take care of those who came and paved the way before you honor the promises of those that came before you when you were gone from the the council what will you be remembered for thank you for your time Ricky Long Ricky Long 609 East 19 Street St Angelo Texas I was very very pleased to hear what I've heard this morning when I was here previously I tried to remind you that we had helped prepay for this by making wage concessions in the past and that I wanted you to hear the sincerity from the people that had spoken I believe this room speaks to that sincerity their commitment thank you for yours with that you know at 2:00 in the morning when it's 20° outside and there's an emergency whether you're in a police car a fire truck an amb or working the board over at the water department trying to keep the water flowing so the potties will flush it's hard to get an at boy I think that what the city had done for us in our retire insurance was an that boy and thank you for considering that there are many people in this room and the retirees who have done a ton of research these last few weeks for them I thank you I went to City Hall two weeks ago and asked the ladies upstairs about the insurance we have and where it was headed they were very forthcoming and very informative they know their stuff thank them Brian thank you for all the hard work and studying this stuff and coming up with it last but not least thank you city council I cannot imagine the thankless job you have had nor the hours you spent trying to get around the

[0:47:46] problems of no money tax revenue loss and all the new federal regulations you face lastly I'd like to thank the citizens of s Angelo for what they gave me for my 40 Years of service and what this morning I've heard you say you're going to continue John Sparks good morning my name is John spark single member district one uh retired from the police department 2003 went to work in 1974 a little over 50 years ago uh the reason we're all here is because we were we were told we would have our insurance paid for when we retired and uh we're that's no longer the case we're paying $20 I know that's not much of anything but that wasn't what we were promised uh I do appreciate Tommy's motion and thank you I would have preferred the other plan where we don't pay a deductible uh but uh this is a very important issue I think you can just see by the attendants here today how how we feel about that uh I would ask you to look at all these people and I appreciate the mayor's acknowledgement earlier that uh how important the city employees are and the retirees I mean if you look out here and I don't know the number of retired city employees but I heard 250 over 65 that's over 6,000 years of service to the city of St Angelo and that's a long time uh and I would ask you to look at them today uh we're not just a bunch of old people we're still a part of this community we live here shop here worship here pay taxes own homes uh we vote uh you know we uh we're we're still here and uh St Angelo does have a lot of great things we have coliseums we have the river we have downtown we have parks and uh the mayor said this morning

[0:49:51] that uh one another resource we have are city employees president and past and and uh while you may be proud of the parks and I am too I'm really proud of these people in this room I mean they're they're great people I know a lot of them I've worked with them uh and I appreciate what you've done again and like I say uh when we went to work every day we didn't compromise on our work we didn't there's been some talk of you know a lesser plan less insurance more money for us uh that's some compromise and certainly that's better than no insurance but when we went to work every day we didn't compromise on our work if we were scheduled for 8 hours or we were called out we stayed and we worked the whole time we did what we were we were asked to do and what we agreed to do and uh we didn't compromise and and I would urge you today not to compromise and to do the right thing thank you thank you as they say it takes the village and it takes a tremendous amount of people's work and effort to make this city the the great City that it is so again I thank you to each of you here today and thank you for spending the time communicating to us thank you go ahead carolan cabalero [Music] problem I'm short thank you very much for hearing us my name is Carol an cavalero Brown I'm your first Hispanic your first female police officer that retired from the city of St Angelo as a police officer from start to finish I was your first crime scene detective female I was your first female to be invited to the FBI Academy in quanico with that said I work many years

[0:51:58] and retired with the city of St Angelo being loaned out by many counties from PD our PD with that said we worked as one of the lowest police departments in the state of Texas when I was hired in 1985 July the 1st I was told straight out that St Angelo police department and the fire department was one of the lowest paid for our population in the state of Texas but if we stayed until we retired then our city of St Angelo would pay our life our health insurance not our families just ours until we passed if we retired with the city we were told that from the very start I was told that when I put my application in and because of that I have asked Kelly Duncan our HR person back then who has a photographic memory to come and speak as well and she will tell you what was told to her to tell us from back then our city promised us to pay our health insurance until we passed we have we were told over 200 city employees that are in retirement that were retired that our city is supposed to pay for unfortunately or fortunate Ely we look back on this city council you have approved 1 point

[0:54:05] to a million $211,000 to on in September to upgrade the stage our stage is more valuable than our retirees really really thank you for your comments more Travis Griffith a good I was always in the back Travis Griffith single District Six CL good to see thank you Council appreciate this man um it's kind of cool that on election day that we have so many people petitioning their elected officials so I think that's kind of cool to see we it's not lost on me for that it's also not lost on me the fact that we have um trying times just as a city we're looking at can we afford this so are they right we're all looking at what can we afford with inflation and the the federal government has saddled us with nearly impossible challenges so as we work through that I hope election day works out well but we'll see um it's not it's not a a this is what we're seeing as West Texas values at play right now right we're seeing West Texas values at play where they're the trust but verify they believe that y'all guys are doing the right thing I believe you're going to try to do the right thing and everything that you have with your abilities I think the main thing is that we want people to that you can look them in the eyes and say we looked at every option we had and we can't afford it and what we can afford is this option which is on on on the proposal right now what I would ask that because this is not just the firing the police when I started in working for cities in in 2000 I made $119,000 now imagine if I was 55 years old and at the end of my my my time and I was retiring made

[0:56:08] $119,000 I wouldn't be able to afford $500 to have my surgery done right so what I would suggest is something that we we look at is some sort of a scholarship like program where we can fund those that are the least of us right the word talks about taking care of the least of us right so find a way that we can those people that are retired uh can that they're out of the water department out of the parks department that we can fund those those that that can't fund that $500 that $200 uh I know that's a difficult challenge to do for staff but I think it's something we should consider if you can't afford ultimately just sticking to what you said what what was said uh would do uh I think is important but if we can't because just like I can't afford many things um because of inflation then uh I I think some people will get that and I think what we're hearing is people that are excited to see that the elect officials are stepping up and doing what they can so it's not just the police not just the fire it's those people that started at the lowest of levels and I I I'm I want to say thank you to each and every one of these people here they laid the foundational work for us to be here today uh without them the city would not be what it is and and I'm just so impressed number one uh that that we have the quality of people that were here and we're going to continue to try to keep that same quality because I I don't receive this benefit only 20 my employees that I have currently will receive this benefit we're here to stand up for those that came before us so thank you very much and I appreciate you'all guys and and I'll be praying thanks Kelly Garrett good morning I'm Kelly Duncan Garrett and as Caroline said in the early and mid 1980s I worked in the Personnel Department I do have a pretty good memory but what I specifically remember are the things that I said to all of the staff that came on board at

[0:58:13] that time not just the police and fire department and I did handle the police and fire department hiring process and good to see y'all because some of these people in this room I did their paperwork for them but not just do I recall very vividly what I told These Fine people in this room not just police and fire department the street and Bridge workers the clerks the accounting clerks the wick clerks every city employee that came on during my time in the personnel office under Alex Toria and under John rich Richardson I can recall what the criteria was and what they were promised beyond that I can tell you in 1966 when my father was hired by the city of St Angelo what he was promised he served 27 years at the airport luckily for him he had a career prior to serving Mattis field and bringing it into a modern airport that it is today I grew up in a house at the airport that was the former base hospital so I can tell you I know where the bones are buried out there my mother went to work in the for the city in 1978 she was hired leaving her uh AFF flent career as a CPA she was hired as a bookkeeper in the Nutrition department because she was ready to wind down her career she retired in 1995 my father retired in 1993 after serving 27 years I saw with both of them this dilemma come up again about oh they're no longer going to pay my insurance we're going to have to come up with a way to pay it well I know what

[1:00:18] I told people in the 8 83 84 85 I know what I told people which is what the city instructed me to tell the people that were serving and that was that one of their benefits because our wages were so low was that you would have your insurance provided as Carol said not your spouse but yours that was one of your benefits and even though I did not retire from the city I would thank thank you thank you for your service Frank Brown Frank Brown uh single member district 5 good morning um I'm not a retiree I'm just a citizen of San Angelo but uh I am a retired from the District Attorney's office I spent eight years from 19 1989 through 1996 as an assist district attorney here in St Angelo and I spent most of that time working with detectives and all the detectives in this room at some point in time I worked with and so I'm acutely aware of the stress that they endured the job they did their professionalism their dedication as uh major spark said they were committed 100% they never compromised and I saw that firsthand um I saw the Miss anniversaries I saw the miss birthdays um I can remember times when these guys would would leave on Friday and they wouldn't be back till Monday because something was going on and they had to go to the valley or chase a load or get some money coming back the other way um and it's the reason that the life expectancy of a police officer is 66 for the rest of us it's 78 in the in the scheme of municipal

[1:02:21] government the most important thing is public Public Safety you can have the best parks you can have the best streets you can have the best water in but if you don't have Public Safety you don't have anything these guys protected us and took care of us and it's now time for us to take care of them and I would ask you to continue their benefit thank you Jamal schert okay move on to the next one Alan Gilbert thank you mayor councilman my name is Alan Gilbert single member district one is that right Tommy okay I never can remember that I want to thank y'all Tommy thank you for your motion I want to thank all of you because I know you've uh been talked to a lot and you've considered this and you've taken it to heart I want to thank all these people behind me because they're all here today the people of City Hall Brian and the other people that worked on this you you've heard about the commitments I'm not going to talk about that anymore because what we expect today is what we know that you will do in the best interest of the city and that can be different to different people what we do know is that the commitment that these people made will be honored by you and the time that they spent for you for the citizens of St Angelo and all the things that they've done in order to achieve the point of retiring so I just want to thank you I don't want to belittle the fact because

[1:04:24] you know how important it is it's much more important than I or anyone else can put words to to each of these individuals that need this in order for them and their families to survive thank the city employees that have worked on this and we thank you for honoring the people that have helped you to build this great city thank you that's all that concludes the public comment section um pertaining to uh Tommy's motion there's been a motion there's been a second and there's been public comments so we will take a vote at this point in time I will ask each council member um to validate their vote starting with Tommy I I I Larry I I I Brenda Gunter I motion passes 70 and thank you all for being here today and thank you for your service I think what we will do is we're going to take a 10minute break just so those individuals that are packing their bags right now and leaving this room we have time yeah [Music] door and we are going to have Lauren Garduno come forward and Lauren while we're waiting for Tommy Hebert to come back up to the Diaz perhaps you just want to give us some of your background sure what you've been doing for the past 30 years and why you're here today okay yeah sure you kind of talk slow waiting for Tommy to come yeah you know that's

[1:06:26] hard for me to do may talk slow but so thank you mayor and council members for having me today give you an update on the i27 in the PCH Plains Corridor I'm a little disappointed because when I walked in today I was had a standing room line only to get in here I said man everybody wants to come listen to i27 and the S onlyy cor yeah what happened you know what with that oh yeah yeah and I saw that I was first on the agenda so goodness gracious look at there but U so yeah I know but reality kicks in but we are we're very uh very I'm very honored to be able to speak in front of you today I I am my name is Lauren Garduno I'm I'm been two years now with the port Plains Alliance prior to that 35 years with the Texas Department of Transportation so I know I don't look that old so uh just you know what is key to that Lauren is that you know all of the ins and outs about Tex dot all of the secrets all of the things that are never said out loud and you know about them all so all the closets all the hidden closets and all that stuff you got it yeah there you go hugely important yeah so I that has been to our advantage you know it's the uh you know we know where we need to go when it comes time to look for funding and we know where we need to go when it comes time to motivate certain people to uh to uh you know kind of get this thing this program you know jump start a little bit I'd like to start this presentation by giving you a little bit of history on Interstate because that's really ultimately when this presentation ends today that's kind of what we want to kind of focus on is this interstate 27 but in 1956 uh President Eisenhower signed an Highway interstate highway act that started kind of the boom of Interstate Highway building across the United States 41,000 miles was uh the target they said that we can get this built in about 15 years and it would cost about $25 billion that's your whole Interstate System across the United States of America uh but what happened was that it cost about $113 billion and it took about 36 years years for this system to be completed across the Great United

[1:08:29] States of America the uh in Texas what happened was is when they had you know identified their Interstate their future Interstate System they took a look look at their existing highway system that they had across the state of Texas and uh a lot of those highways were East and West highways uh they were going you know traveling East and West you know kind of follow the railroad system also but we had us 90 down south that became uh Interstate 10 uh we had us 80 up north that became Interstate 20 and they built that Interstate System Of course across Texas and that's what our interstate system came today you're going to see a map here in a minute that shows the interstate system and of course obviously what you're going to see on that map was the uh the fact that San Angelo uh was right in the middle of us80 and the middle of us990 and so therefore there was no interstate system that came through San Angelo Texas during all that construction in the end though they did identify i27 from LEC to Emeral and they started building on that I can remember growing up in the panhandle of Texas having to drive to Leck to go to school and I I drove that Highway as it was being constructed and 1992 uh they completed that highway system uh in in uh in Texas uh in 1992 that segment goes into lck actually was the last segment of interstate built is built under the Dwight Eisenhower act now since then of course they uh you know have been working on i6 9 in East Texas they little part of i14 popped up uh and then and then of course here recently we've got some exciting news about i27 again but what Texas did after 1992 and they completed their part of the interstate system they started looking at the next generation of highways that we want to look at improving and they came up with this thing called the Texas uh trunk system 30 some uh it was about 12,000 Lane M miles of Highway across Texas this are going to connect these cities with four lane divided High highways and that was going to be the evolution of our our next uh you know our next highway system in Texas that's a map in front of you

[1:10:33] that shows the highway system as it was when it was completed including that segment of 27 that went from emo to LC but Texas this was their their trunk system 98 1998 uh and then they started building on that and they identified it some what they call some priority corridors on that Corridor system phase one they called them phase one trunk system corridors those are some things that are highlighted in red there fortunately for St Angelo in the St Angelo area you did have a phase one trunk system Corridor that was part of the existing 27 that went through the Panhandle picked up 87 coming south of there down through uh Big Spring Sterling City and St Angelo but that from there it goes on that trunk system went on down over to Eden on 87 and then came on South down into Junction and that is the way that that that system was picked up at the time so Texas was building on that if you recall uh Walter McCulla the former District engineer in in the stt Angelo District uh his staff they worked on building four-lane divided from Eden South for example uh down to Junction and got a part of that built at the time uh with some of the funding that they had available to build with it but that was it what happened though was in u the latter part of 2010 the the corridor money dried up we stopped building on these corridors we stopped building on trunk system corridors because the money just went away and they had to make decisions at the state level if we're going to maintain our roads we're going to try to improve reduce some congestion or are we going to build corridors well corridors lost out uh including the ports of planes including this system that goes through here however that changed in 2016 as you all know as I presented to you before earlier uh you as the voters vot voted prop one prop seven oil and gas Severance sales tax on you know certain vehicle expenses and all of a sudden the the highway program overnight overnight that was in 2015 2016 it doubled uh over we were we were spending about 3.5 billion a year in construction and it went to 7 billion a year in

[1:12:37] construction uh and then since 2016 2017 every year because of oil and gas everence and some of those other things that fund has continued to grow and just this last August the highway commission voted a 10-year program that was a little over $104 billion which means they are spending on an average about 10 A5 billion a year in Highway construction across the state of Texas why is that good for us it's good for us because for the porch Plains Corridor and the i27 and all that uh about 20 billion of that is in corridors so two billion a year they're looking at putting on corridors granted we've got to compete with all the other corridors for that funding but that's two billion a year on corridors that we do not have prior to 2015 so you know people are saying well you know that's why we're building again that's why you there's construction again that's why you're seeing all this work being done again in 2018 the highway commission went back and looked at their phase one trunk system and they identified that four key connectivity corridors on that trunk system those red lines that I showed on that earlier map that were just not quite finished you know they had stopped that work because they ran out of money and so they went back and the commission said let's go ahead and see what it would take to finish some of this lwh hanging fruit on that trunk system program uh you know to build out one of those segments they picked up of course was the Eden to Junction connection so they did go ahead go back and fund four-lane divided to finish the four-lane divided from Eden to Junction and that Highway construction is going to be going on and is going on as we speak but what was good news for us and the POR of plains Corridor was is that added an additional segment in 2023 so those four red lines that you see on that map were those four trunk system Corridor programs that they were wanting to complete and complete out for us most of our existing pors to plan north of uh Interstate 10 uh goes is really for us it's San Angelo North uh we have a little bit of segment over there north of Dumis or to the west of Dumis over by heartley that wasn't four lane divided uh but the most of that red that you see oh we have a little segment

[1:14:39] of that just outside of Big Spring South of Big Spring on 87 that's not four-lane divided and so those two projects have now been picked up and the and the highway commission is funding to build those to four-lane divided but what was nice for us was they also went down and they picked up that macallen to Laro segment which was an existing trunk system project but they added for us the ports to planes portion from Laredo to I 10 at Sonora and added that as a key Corridor and what that means is is that we can pretty well feel pretty confident that they will be investing out of that UTP that that $104 billion doll 10year program funding to actually build that golden segment I call it down there to four lane at least a four lane divided standard now what we're having to do as an alliance as a as as an advocacy group as we are continuing to go fight and work and look at getting more funding to not only get it to forlane divided but also to take a look at our Laredo to Sonora to a future Interstate standard and the department has committed to doing their RightWay purchases doing their schematic doing their environmental doing their footprint for a RightWay future interstate and and then they're going to at least be funding four-lane divided and then we just go try to find them some more money to uh go ahead and build it to Interstate standard so that's good news for us as a as a as an all as an alliance on the ports of plains because we can see that that activity is going to happen and I'll talk about that in a minute this is that UTP I was telling you about 104 billion they voted on in August and you can see in category four there they've got 11 billion in rural connectivity and they got about 8.7 billion in uh Urban connectivity where that Urban connectivity money is spent would be like for example inside the San Angelo metropolitan area uh your your no boundary uh your district will have some money C four Urban money to work on these corridors inside your no boundary area we've got like five or six of these noos on our on our system that includes amarello loic U St Angelo Midland Odessa uh Laredo and now recently they've added Eagle passes and no uh program so you

[1:16:44] know that that that funding and for you will be going after trying to make sure we're putting it where we on our Corridor to build future Interstate but that uh 11.3 billion of course is there that we continue to ask for uh to uh to upgrade our Corridor and then on top of that I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the highway the commission actually has at their disposal category 12 funding there which is about $14 billion that they spend at their discretion and as a community and as an organization we can advocate for the commission to spend their 12 Bill their 14 billion on our on our Corridor if we can get it you know we have to just try to get it out of them so we'll just continue you know to pursue that effort every time so let me give you up to date on some things that are going on with the i27 on the POR Plains Corridor we were we were successful with Congressman Jackson's office to secure some federal dollars to do some planning study on the interstate feasibility upgrade from amorello to Dumis and that funding came at the federal level and we fed it to Tex do and said okay here go to work uh start start your study so they are kicking off that study uh they have a consultant secured already and they are kicking off that study and they're going to evaluate of course the uh Interstate feasibility upgrade from south of amarello all the way to North of Dumis why this is important for us is because we today our Uh current alignment goes right through downtown amarello and it truncates right there and terminates right there at I40 so you know realistically we think that the future interstate is going to go around the west side of amarello on Loop 335 but that has not been designated yet that has not been determined yet it can't be determined until we get through the study that shows this is the referred alignment that we're going to take the future Interstate around the city of amarelo and go north also we need to solve what it's going to look like at kumis because for there our quarter splits and we have a quarter that goes over to Breton and you know through New Mexico and our other quarter goes north up through statford and terminates up at the Oklahoma border uh the P Plains portion goes on to Colorado the interstate portion stops at the the

[1:18:46] Texas border and so we just uh we we we by getting this study completed then we are in a position then to now go back to both state and federal levels to ask for construction dollars to try to build you know this interstate system out uh accordingly another important thing that's going to happen uh is in the September Highway commission meeting the highway commission approved a Federal Highway approved uh designation of our Interstate uh system so in 1992 when Texas uh closed the chapter on i27 and interstates under under the Eisen hire act that chapter was reopened uh in September with the approval of a 4.2 mile extension of i27 South alic that has been brought up to Interstate standards so Lord willing some point we can get everybody all the stars aligned right we will invite you all to come and join us maybe possibly early January for a a ground a sign unveiling because we are now actually in the process of chipping away at actually putting these moving this interstate South out of LC and and continuing on from there what's for what also is fortunate for us too and we're going to see we've already have some federal dollars that we were able to procure and secure to study uh for the LC District to study that alignment from from to from LEC to Tahoka and all the way down Lisa we have some money already put in place for that it's just a matter of getting the district to start going after a consultant kind of like what they did in amarello to actually start the the valuation of the interstate corridor from leic all the way to Lisa because if you look at that and drive it today you're going to see you have a four-lane divided highway with some Frontage Road and some places we don't think it's going to cost us a lot of money to actually get that to an interstate standard because of the existing condition that it's already in today so those are some you know those are some projects that we have that are working on let me get closer to Stan Angelo for for your benefit so right now you know the the district has completed a a grade separation project to Garden City out in Glascock County Beyond Garden City that was a Safety project uh because of the

[1:20:49] atg grade intersection and the wrecks that were occurring you in the oil field industry and that was a much needed project so that you know that is a you say well Lauren that's not an interstate no it's not an interstate but every Improvement that we can do on this Corridor to get it closer to that Interstate standard uh the better off we'll be uh and we'll continue to be be better off that way and so that construction is going on there uh in in Glascock County and then down in Edwards County south of Sonora uh there's actually some work there to improve right now that's like super two passing lanes and it's some added you know payment width for that that was that was basically kind of that's kind of like an interim that's an interim um application of improving capacity on a corridor until we can get to four lane divided until we can get to Interstate but really what's important for us to understand is um uh the U the planning dollars that we're we we're going to put into play here around the St Angelo area and and what we want to do this coming next next coming legislative session so now currently in this District we have um a study consultant is on board and they are going to fixing to kick off the alignment study south of Stan Angelo on 277 and 87 coming into town why that is important is is you have the convergence of two future interstates i14 and i27 so that uh that study is in the procurement phase right now the the Tex do is procuring the consultant and they are going to come on board hopefully for me can't get here soon enough uh and we are going to start looking at evaluating that alignment coming into town on the south side of 277 and 87 coming into South San Angelo so there's going to be a lot of public involvement on that um looking at the potential alignment because we want to bring that study in to what does a future Interstate standard look like for example uh and and there's going to be an opportunity for even you all to get engaged you know with your public on that that study as it kicks off this this coming spring and then in Sonora they had finished uh a

[1:22:52] safety uh relief route study they completed in 2020 uh nothing has been done really since then I'm in the process of going going down there and visiting with them as we speak to uh because one of our objectives is the um we want to we want to pursue an engineering study to go ahead and re-evaluate that existing relief route that they all agreed upon in Sonora and bring it up to Interstate standard what would it take to get to Interstate standard uh we need that study to be completed because uh we are looking for future um you know we're going to go look for future funding at that location uh this next legislative session in Texas they're estimating that we're going to have about a $30 billion Surplus on our budget just give you perspective New Mexico's Surplus is about five billion this next legislative session predom oil and gas Colorado's budget is about a $700 million deficit so so I'm not really up in Colorado talking to those about highways because they don't have the money to talk to me about highways but we are talking to Texas and New Mexico about highways on our Corridor because of those excess budgets that they have in play one of the things that we're going to go after unless we're told otherwise one of the things we're going to go after is some fund funding to actually do the i27 upgrade at Sonora and also to look at the feasibility of an interstate upgrade from Sonora to San Angelo we're going to go after funding to do that so and the reason why that's important is is back to my earlier slide about amarello and what they're doing on their study from Amel to Dumis you can get the planning done you can get the Environmental completed you can get the rideway identified you can get the schematic built it's a whole lot easier for us than to go after both Federal and State dollars to build this Corridor out because we have shovel ready type projects that are ready for that and that's the way we're approaching this uh you know we're approaching this effort in that way for you guys in Stan Angelo you have an approved relief uh route this this is what your relief route you know that you that has been on your study uh today our alignment uh our future Interstate alignment does not take that route today

[1:24:56] you know you because the way the we congressionally designated our alignment we just took the follow the corridor by by highway so you know so this study that's going to take place on the south side of Stan Angelo not only do you solve the i 27 and i14 connection but at some point we're going to need to take a look at that whole alignment that you see in green there to bring it up to Interstate standard so that we can then actually go after some funding for uh future Interstate money on that on that alignment and then of course I showed you the Sonora I told you about the Sonora that was the recommended alternative in Sonora and we will now pursue trying to get it reviewed up to Interstate standards so that we can go after some funding to build that just a note uh back to my earlier talk about that South segment from Sonora down to Laredo because it is a key strategic Corridor the highway department is now putting uh they're going to go after a rather large G uh gec contract consultant to to study to to manage the Consultants all the way from the rad all the way up to Sonora and they're going to include Sonora in their uh you know in their explain why that is because today the focus is getting product out of Loro going north and avoiding the congestion on I35 so that becomes a key priority for this route yeah that's right mayor and one of the motivators for the commission is going to be you know they have this the Texas Clear Lanes program and chairman bug will talk about the clear Lanes initiative we're trying to get congestion out of San Antonio trying to get congestion out of Dallas Fort Worth we're trying to get gestion out of Houston trying to get congestion out of Austin 35 really it's the 35 Corridor that goes through San Antonio and Austin all the way up through Dallas Fort Worth well there is a lot well two things are happening that is one thing we want to get that congestion out of San Antonio second thing is is the port of Loro today is the world is the nation's largest port let that sink in for a minute the port of Loro today is the nation's largest port dollar and volume that's that's your East Coast ports that's your Long Beach California that's

[1:26:58] your West Coast ports the rad is it and it's an amazing thing to see when you look at the amount of volume of of of Commerce and commodities and stuff they're trying to move into Texas uh you know through that Port so for us our Corridor is front and center for them because we now can build an interstate 27 Alero goes up to Eagle Pass where we have another new Crossings being built there all the way up to Del Rio where we have another new crossing that's being built there a second one there we got those three major uh ports for us on our Interstate 27 Corridor and then from Del Rio North on 277 it comes right up into I 10 at I 10 we can make a decision of whether we're going to go to California with this stuff or we're going to continue on up north through St Angelo on the way to Denver with this stuff the traffic right now indicates the majority of the traffic is going to go north on 277 not the other way correct and Sonora has paid for those studies to determine the flow of traffic and it's all up 277 North to St Angelo yeah that is correct one of the one of the biggest commodities for example mayor is uh the um and and I have Joe Kylie my VP of Ops has actually ma this is the cattle the impact of the cattle industry from Colorado all the way down through Texas and it'll it'll kind of blow your mind when you start seeing all the dots of all the major feed lots and all the cattle production and all that that goes all the way down and that stuff continues on down south all the way into Mexico where the state of chihua AA and and the state of uh the state of K Kila are both major Partners in terms of the cattle the cattle industry so it's a it's a pretty fascinating phenomenon that's happening uh and then on top of that uh we would be remiss if we didn't say that near Shoring in Mexico is going to change the game also stuff's not going to go to China anymore because China's coming to Mexico and that's just that's just part of it you know we got to figure out how to get that stuff out of Mexico and with that I I I close with this statement because this this is an important slide for us to understand we're going to build an interstate folks

[1:29:00] and it's not going to be your Mom and Pop's Interstate it's not going to be like the one that you know that we grew up as kids you know I grew up going to visit my grandparents on Route 66 turned into I40 right and I and I drove and that's what I grew up on you know driving that and and some in some of the small communities say well you're going to bypass our town our Town's going to die you know mayor and I were having a conversation just before that said you know you know as a as a small community you have a voice voice on what that you know what that looks like today and not only that but there is going to be technology in this Corridor that's actually going to drive future industry there are going to be businesses that are going to come to San Angelo Texas or maybe even to Sonora Texas or maybe even to christoble Texas and says you know what we want to set up uh something here in this wide open space because it's going to support the uh the electric the electric grid or the electric vehicle space or all the new technology that's going to have to go into this Corridor to kind of light it up and what I mean by by light it up is is autonomous vehicles you know or interactive Vehicles you know U the future of relief routes also in signing I was on a study because I'm so old with text I I can go back to a study that I participated in on you know relief routes and those impacts on small communities what do you do and one of the biggest recommendations on those relief route study was is we got to figure out a way to sign it better you got to figure out a way to provide better signage it was basically the beginning of your tourist destination sign program the blue signs and that was kind of the one of the out outcomes of some of those studies was as we'll involve some of these you know these Todd signs for for uh you know for McDonald's and everybody to put their you know to put their advertisement on well that's CH that's going to be that's not going to be that you're going to be driving in your car you're going to be driving your vehicle and you're going to drive through uh you know cristoval Texas and uh and there's going to be an interactive uh you know Siri's going to talk to you and she's going to tell you about the things that's going to be in Cristobal Texas for you you need to stop and see or places you need to stop and eat you're going to drive into San Angelo and it's going to be the same conversation your car is going to you can have a conversation in your car about uh you know things that your local

[1:31:03] city is going to pay to have their advertisement put into you know put into that system and that's going to be part of our sign program you know and we just got to make sure we build our access off the interstate in a way that accommodates that traveler to go into there and experience that City you might also want to talk about truck parking because that's a key component because with the new laws federal laws about eight hour you got to park the truck after eight hours well when you go from coming into Laredo and coming north your eight hours kind of ends right here in St Angelo Texas and so what's going to happen is we've got this study will also um dictate truck parking areas that today are inadequate for the new federal regulations in terms of hours on the road and so again St Angelo will be a key City for that a hour stop definitely and uh and what's nice about that too is is that that truck parking situation is being recognized at the federal level also so there's a lot of federal dollars that are actually targeted towards solving this this issue and so you know we just need to be in position to take advantage of that you know when it comes time and I think and I think we will be in a position to do that so ladies and gentlemen that's my presentation I close with this uh things are still happening in Mexico the port of mlon is they're adding a additional capacity to the port of mlon and they are actually we actually have ports to Plaines efforts right now in Mexico where we're working with Business Leaders to try to improve that Corridor that you see in red right there uh coming up 30 up to 57 and even up 29 over to Del Rio so uh there's some exciting things going on even in Mexico even under the new leadership of their new president so we are are going to take advantage of the time we're going to take advantage of the opportunity toh try to promote this Corridor not only in Texas and and Mexico but going north of here because we've got a lot of things going on that I didn't even talk about that's happening on the Northern segment of our Corridor in North Dakota South Dakota you know and with the theore Roosevelt and with the Heartland Expressway well you might mention

[1:33:05] because in North Dakota most people don't realize North Dakota has number one and number two largest um uh fossil fuels it's not Midland Odessa is hugely important but North Dakota outshines Midland Odessa they're player they're definitely a player in that Market mhm and then the other issue is is everyone always says yeah but in my lifetime I'll never see and we need to describe the process we don't go from two lane to Interstate we go from two-lane to two-lane divided two lane divided to four lane divided four-lane divided to Interstate it is a process but along that way all of those improvements add to the safety of this Corridor and so you want to talk about yeah that issue yeah so the you know the timing the timing of this the uh and and and and the mayor mentioned the progression you know and especially from a safety perspective you know you want to get off a two-lane highway to forlane forlane divided to uh you know to Interstate controlled access Interstate the the the key the key to making this thing happen sooner than later because you know she opened that comment up with about you know In Our Lifetime when this is going to happen the um the key to this is going to be is is and it's been our strategy is to secure the planning dollars to get the planning work done to get the rideway and the environmental and the schematic laid out on this Corridor because then all of a sudden you are able to compete for uh dollars when they become available and and in different different programs case in point um I was the district engineer in the abling district at the time 2009 2010 I went over to Big Spring and I started working with my said let's start figuring out what this Big Spring reliever route needs to look like we started the planning effort 2009 2010 started talking to the land owners started working that working that and in 2012 all of a sudden proposition 12 popped up at the state level and every

[1:35:07] District received some funding allocated to them out of that prop toil Bond program and they signed each one of the five district Engineers on this Corridor up here we all got some funding but what I received you know I it was going to cost me 55 million on the southern part of that loop I wish we cost that much today but uh and it cost it was going to cost like 60 or 70 million on the northern part of that Loop north of Interstate 20 and uh and so I was get my allocation as a district engineer was you know about 12 to 15 million and I wasn't going to get it built but at the time LC didn't have a project ready ellaa didn't have a project ready and um you know St Angelo didn't have a project ready at the time and so visiting with Drew Darby we worked it and I got four other District Engineers to give me their allocation and I cobbled up about 50 something million dollars worth of those allocations and we started building the Big Spring reliever route now granted those other districts got their money back when the when when their time came but we were able to take that money because we were project was shovel ready and we were able to get that thing off the ground and that's the strategy that's going to get this thing built sooner than later for us as a as a corridor I do firmly believe because the commission has identified the southern segment from Sonora to Ledo that I I believe that we can get it built within the next 10-year window I believe that uh north of there we're going to have to get real creative uh and and for example my creativity is like in I call I call the Sonora to St Angelo I call that the Gap because it's not on any key strategic Corridor as far as the Highway's concerned that's because the political reasons just make sure you say that because there was concern that there was someone representing this part of Texas that didn't want to look like it was a conflict of interest and that is the only reason yes yeah and so it didn't get you know it it didn't get picked up but we got other ways of filling the Gap that you know that's the point is is we got other ways to fill in the Gap and we will figure out ways to fill the Gap and uh and we'll go from there so um and then like I said north of there there's a lot of low hanging fruits on the existing 27 system today and on existing

[1:37:09] 87 today it's just that we just have to get the study started so we can get them to upgrade Interstate St standard so we can go with the construction money to build it so yes and I like to do it in my lifetime too mayor thank you very much do um council members would any of you like to ask questions or or make any comments Lauren thank you very much for being here today it's great yeah thank you mayor thank you was the update we needed thank you all right you bet we will now move into I know Jeremy is ready to go patiently waiting for us to get there so we're going to have a report for the destination marketing organization by Jeremy Barts patiently waiting absolutely patiently waiting well thank you all very much mayor gunar uh city manager values Council staff thank you all for having us here this morning um as you can well let's see Brian do we have yeah we're good no we're not yes we are as you can see on the presentation on the on the board uh we are discover s Angelo now I know that over the time I'm Jeremy bartson the vice president for Destination marketing with s Angelo Chamber of Commerce and I know that over time there's been some discussion about s Angelo discover St Angelo why do we have discover St Angelo well this year in January just so that everyone's aware we put together a strategic marketing plan workshop and many of you were in in attendance with that uh during that time the goal was pardon me I'll pull that up the goal was to identify what s Angelo really is give it that identity that we were after well after 4 and 1 half hours the idea of where Cowboys and creatives converge came together we all know that we're the visual arts capital of Texas we all know that we have just recently been awarded as the arts and culture destination of Texas for 2024 those were things that we knew we had but we also

[1:39:12] wanted to tie in the historical piece of why s Angelo is here well the way to do that was to talk about the cowboy aspect how did we get here well we obviously had Fort Concho but how did the city start that was the the Crux of the whole deal so when you see at the bottom of this page where Cowboys and creatives converge the idea was to say let's pull all that together let's use that creativity that we currently have in droves everywhere you go art and uncommon places the par Park Gallery the museums the uh even the splash pads today everything that we have is creative in its own way but we wanted to tie in the Cowboy theme to it because that fit with what our City stands out for so let me give you a little daty analytics just really quickly I'll start with that in 2023 we had a little over 3.1 million trips to the city of St Angelo in 2024 year to date we've had 1.9 million trips to the city of St Angelo not quite as many as what we saw in 2023 but I think we're also looking at a disposable income issue and we've talked about that and heard from other people about inflation and various things of that nature but what I I will tell you is this when you look at the total number of of days that they've stayed we're starting to see that that's normalizing it's starting to come back around the summer months were a little tough I'll be honest with you it was not exactly what we had anticipated I think our weather was obviously it was very hot it's very dry but we have the only source of water out in West Texas that people can take advantage of with the constant level nasworthy and various other things so it gave them a way to get here but at the end of the day uh the summer travel was tough it just didn't materialize as much as we would have liked but we can see here that on our our days that they have come to the city of s Angel we're starting to see that Thursday Friday and through the weekends have been really really good what we're struggling with and I think that we have in the past is that Monday through Wednesday time frame that's always been an issue for us I look back all the way to 2019 and that was a

[1:41:14] struggle was that Monday through Wednesday time frame so what we're doing is we're trying to engage with groups that we can get here for that Monday through Wednesday to stay in our hotels and do their you know be here for that time frame the Thursday through the Sunday time frame is great for us weekends are great we've got a lot of great things happening downtown all of you I think subscribe to the Asher Rogers report uh on a weekly basis and we get an idea of what he's doing just in in concert with what we're doing to let people know what's going on in the city of St Angelo when you look at our demographics this is one that I really wanted to excuse me point out to you our 45 to 64 age range has historic Al been our number one travel and tourist group it's always been there what I'm seeing though is that the 25 to 44 age group is starting to gain on that that's all of us up here right that 25 to 44 I think that fit wait no I don't even fit in that never mind uh so but that that age group is beginning to gain a little bit of momentum in in traveling to San Angelo and I think that one of the reasons why we're seeing that is the the vast array of things that we have to do here and they can get out of the larger cities and they can come out here and find the Solace and Solitude that they're looking for we have all the same uh various attractions that you'll get in an Austin but here you can come enjoy and what we heard from all of the folks this morning we have a greater level of Public Safety in this city than in other places I can watch people out of my window on a daily basis who are walking their families down the river and you couldn't do that other places without worry of you know do I need to put a leash on my child so that somebody can't take that child here in town we have that ability and that is one of the things that is a big selling point for us so let me roll forward here sales bookings year-to date through 2024 we have 127 total sales in the PIP that have run through January through October uh we have 10 in the pipeline currently some of those are large groups some of

[1:43:16] those are small groups some of them are repeat some of them are new and so that is one thing that we focus our efforts on daily is selling the city of of St Angelo to get people to come to our city stay in our hotels eat in our local local restaurants shop in our local stores then go back and tell their buddies and come do it again that's what we're after but with these groups with these sales we're looking for that that sweet spot large group right we've we've talked about that before that we can book into the convention center or that we can book into other events centers here in town case in point back in April we had the American Society for civil engineers group come in to ASU in partnership with ASU when that when that group of students came in there were 600 students plus 150 sponsors that came in with them and when I say sponsors really just chaperon but that 750 people stayed for four nights in our hotels all across the city of St Angelo and they made a huge impact on the numbers in April so when we look at that analytics when we look at that daty analytics software that's what we're looking for for is to understand what that impact is how that group affects us now could we put 600 people in the convention center for 4 days yes we could I I don't doubt that we could do that those breakout sessions are a little harder as we've talked about but at the end of the day that gives us the opportunity to open up this venue for a group like that at any given time throughout the year and we're grateful for that so that's the the key the key focus of our sales is to try to draw those groups that have that association with the city or that have that association with someone else within the city to get them here so those bookings are are where we are currently as you can see in 20123 we had 200 total sales um this year's been a little tougher I will tell you we've also invested into a software that allows us to reach out to those Meeting Planners it allows us to set that sweet spot of what we can accommodate here in the city of St Angelo and start pulling

[1:45:18] some of those conventions and and and Regional meetings into the city because all dmos across the city or across the state cbbs and dmos are putting that data into that system and it's essentially a sharing system now that doesn't mean that lck doesn't want them okay but at the end of the day if they're looking for a way to go someplace they've not been before we want to be first on their list so we're going to utilize that every way we can when we talk about reach and we talk about some of the ads that we'll we'll we'll show here in just a moment you can see on this slide and I won't take a lot of time to walk through it but these are the Publications that we utilize on a on a monthly and and some cases it's a a quarterly type uh publication but you can see the Reach This is the number of people we're reaching out to but we're also in competition with just about everybody else on the face of the planet to try to get people to our destination so the ones that we've been most uh impressed with so far in terms of putting our QR codes on are Texas monthly Texas Texas highways true West magazine and a couple of others the one that we did not expect was AAA Explorer this was one that we entered into this year just to kind of get an idea of whether or not it was worth putting the money into we ended up with 35 touches to our website straight out of AAA Explorer and that only started in September oh sorry what I was saying was that's because Heritage tourism is Angelo house yes ma'am is a 65 and older and the Heritage tourism per person will spend more dollars per person than any other age category absolutely and we're glad to have them and that's the reason we went into that so thank you Harry oh wait she why was Tom pointing at you that wasn't very nice so I want to give you an example of some of the ads that we've placed this year and I won't take too much of your time again to walk through each one of these excuse me but you can see that the Cowboys and creatives theme and the idea

[1:47:22] of bringing Angelo back to its true identity we had seen in the years past we had seen kayakers in the river which is not a bad look right I mean we've got the water we've got the kayakers and that's all great but what if we went into what we really have here in the city of St Angelo so our goal was to turn Jasmine loose a little bit let her go out and do these ads using her creativity because it is a different creativity than mine mine looks for things like you'd see in true West magazine where you'd see uh I think this was no that the the bearb or the sadle Bron Rider right in the middle of the Arena I'm looking at that at or I'm looking at Ty Harris down in our roping Arena I'm looking at those things but she's using the murals in ways that we never could have possibly done before so when you see these ads you'll also notice that there is an individual c QR code down at the bottom of every single one of them Those ads are unique to each publication so every time someone scans it with their with their phone it pops up and lets us know that they're on our website and that's how we can track the usage of those of of those QR codes we can't guarantee that those people are coming and staying in hotel rooms but we can cor corroborate that data with daty and try to determine where our reach is with each one of these ads and get an idea of how many people came to town we have some Christmas targeted ads which I'm sure Mr fluger in the back of the room and many of you will also be appreciative of when we look at this this was an idea for us to say we need to get this annual tradition that is the cono Christmas celebration in Old for koncho out into the public many people don't know about it we wanted to be sure that we gave it its due and that we got people here to experience it the one thing you'll look at on this one particular ad is where we talk about unwrapping the magic or you talk about where the cowboy Spirit meets creative holiday cheer last night true West magazine actually took just the raw unedited photo no no text around it they put it on their Facebook site and you can see it clearly that where the plan now is right about there there is a child standing there with his

[1:49:24] mouth wide open looking up at the snow coming out of the back end of that old Central Firehouse fire engine a memory was made for that young man at that very moment and it was captured in a photo now you can't see it in the ad but you can come here and experience it for yourself so that was our goal there was to make sure that we put a sense of Pride or a sense of I need to get there a sense of urgency to get there come find out what this is all about and then the last thing I wanted to leave you with is this in years past we have focused our efforts primarily on print media which I think still works works great there's not been any major changes there a lot of people are starting to interact with that with those QR codes as we have seen but in this year we found out that we've got three local St Angelo Texas Cowboys out running the life every single day running up and down the road from City to City to city as I was sitting at home during the summer watching the cowboy Channel and watching the rodeo run which is 100 days and 100 or 100 rodeos and 100 days every time you looked up you'd see Ty Harris backing into the box Dylan Hancock backing into the box Joel Braden Harris backing into the box and at the bottom of their name on every single one of them it would say Hometown St Angelo Texas and so the more I kept seeing this I thought there are more people watching this than I am just sitting at home watching this because it's a th000 degrees outside and I want to sit in the cool I know there are more people seeing this I know there are more people interacting with this how do we capitalize on this so I reached out to these three gentlemen back in August and in that conversation they are the ambassadors that we didn't know we needed for the Cowboys side of the Cowboys and creatives I had no idea what we would end up doing with this these three gentlemen have all qualified to be at the NFR in Vegas we have 20% of the calf Ropers that will be represented in Las Vegas in December from the city of Stan Angelo and all three of them will be wearing the pack match that you see right here now it's a little bit

[1:51:26] different than our standard logo but we are using a Cowboys and creatives logo for everything revolving where's the Red Dot on that Texas map that shows s Angel that's all I want to know where's the Red Dot yeah because I see a blue state of Texas but I don't see a red dot that shows where s Angelo is on that good point I'll make sure we add that to itk you thank you good idea do you want a wayfinder in there instead of a red dot just a Red Dot red dotal work okay but I don't know if you can see it or not but when we had them here for rope and Fiesta we had Tai with that logo already on his chest it's a little hard to see and if I start circling it we take things out Dylan had not had enough time to get it embroidered on his shirt but Joel Braden also did as well I attended a a congratulatory party for Joel Braden on Saturday night just to say this is his first NFR qual qualification uh he was so appreciative of just everyone in the room and that's why I say that this was the the match that we didn't know we needed these are very humble young men they are very uh appreciative of what we do but at the same time they are willing to do anything that we need so let me give you one last little thing here Ty Harris the day that we agreed on this and we had the sign the the the signed document with Tai that Friday he was on his way to Pendleton Oregon on Saturday afternoon he won Pendleton Oregon okay on Monday morning he published it on Instagram and in that one post on Instagram there were 120,000 views in one day Dylan Harris the following week week went to Mandan North Dakota did the exact same thing posted it on Instagram 25,000 views in one day Joel Braden goes and wins a circuit finals around of the circuit finals tags Us in at 22,000 views folks that's 170,000 views roughly 180,000 views in 3 weeks we don't have that through any other media and these folks are willing to be our ambassadors and be

[1:53:29] that person out in the across the United States and around the world to be our ambassadors and be our influencers so that was the reason behind that and when I left that tagline at the bottom where Cowboys and creatives converge these are the three Cowboys that are going to help us do that where what I like you to do next is where are the three artists I can do that that we can do the same thing I can certainly do that and continue with that story yes ma'am you've done a great job on this story it the message is loud and clear and if we just keep that going and continue to highlight the talent that exists in this city yes ma'am and that's my plan thank you thank you any other questions thank you thank you we all like a patch all like aat got stickers as well all right we are now at item C consider a resolution designating the number of votes to be cast for each nominee for the board of directors of the Tom Green County appraisal district and Heather you are on okay um as y'all remember at the last meeting we did nominations to the appraisal district board um the uh appraisal district has um gathered all of those nominations from all of the taxing entities and have put together an official ballot um for you to cast your votes today um just a refresher that two positions um are appointed to one-year terms and three positions are appointed to threeyear terms okay um the city of St Angelo has um oh here it is a total of 1, 1529 votes notes that you can split up um as you wish between each position um it's a little convoluted I

[1:55:32] did a little bit of math for you these are the two ways um that Council in the past has uh split their votes um between um board members of course this year is a little bit different because its positions as opposed to board members um but more or less the same um the top one of course would be to evenly distribute um your F uh votes among the five board members 305 per position and then four remaining votes that you would distribute um just by consensus um the second one does get a little crazy if you um divide your votes where each council member um has their own amount of votes to put towards um but those are like I said the two ways that Council has uh split votes in the past okay so it's simplest the simplest is definitely the top yes let's do the top let's okay could I have do I need a motion for that no so council is recommending that those votes by the five board positions okay and then the four remaining votes distributed by consensus which means um well and so the next p part here is um voting on which board member you want for each seat I put this in here um because Council asked for this um at the last uh board member I have put the nominees in order of most time that they have already spent on the appraisal board um with Lewis and Bob serving um a little over 10 years and then candy I believe she's about eight years and then Scott and Eric just a little over um almost two years okay this is what the ballot look like that Tyler sent over um and then I did just break it down a little bit more for you to look at and then we can just quickly go through you can let me know who you want to vote for for each position and we'll be done so position one you can vote for Lewis Gomez or Bob Reeves

[1:57:38] you'll see the aster by Lewis Gomez that's just to let you know that he was also nominated for a three-year term on um one of the other positions of three uh three four or five and then position two Bob Reeves or Eric Wilson and both of these positions will be for that oneyear term so I can tell you this much this is confusing to me I I understand give us better Direction because this is go ahead Tom may you everybody here is going to get elected if you look at them everybody's going to get elected yes all right so it doesn't matter how it falls correct so we just pick one and then start knocking his name off the five correct so if you look at it that way the only thing you really need to decide is if you are you going to um vote for Lewis Gomez to serve a one-year term or a three-year term and are you going to vote for Eric Wilson to serve a one-year term or a three-year term as they are also on Nom they were also nominated for positions that are for the three-year terms what did we nominate him for you nominated um I'm going the wrong way oh okay uh you excuse me you nominated uh Lewis and Bob for one-ear terms and Candy Scott and Eric for the three-year terms keep it that way absolutely we all go with the way you nominated exactly nominated it and the four extra votes give to the newest board members the newest board member Eric the newest board member Eric okay we'll get that recorded thank you can I get a motion so move second public comment none we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes we will I'll move to item D consider consider approving the purchase of 68 and 72 East Avenue D from City cabinet shop purchase price and closing

[1:59:42] cost not to exceed $195,000 sort from general fund balance and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents you're not not Carl white but you're going to speak anyway well Carl and I are here together oh it says sorry yeah it's real estate manager Sarah Torres and Carl white so sorry I'm going to give a little bit of background on the property and Carl's here to answer any questions maybe regarding the use of the property and the future of it um this is the old city Cabinet Shop uh total acres is about4 it is owned ml light manufacturing it is in Harry's district and is part of the fort Concho neighborhood here's just a map of the area and here's just shown another shot um of the property outlined in red and like the caption said um it was appraised at 193 and um we don't foresee the closing cost to exceed about 2,000 total for our portion and then we do recommend approval of buying this property you had any questions for Carl regarding the use come come on up Carl so any ideas about what you'd like to use this property for well I think it's key first is just to get control of it to make it part of the the overall poo property but we could hold on to it we could um we could use it for storage just short term uh we could also convert it to an event space we could do whatever you want with it whatever Council directs us to do I love the idea of an event space because it has that outdoor area and uh we have the Buffalo Soldier wonderful Buffalo Soldier exhibition and

[2:01:45] so it allows for events to be done there just needs some remodeling and some bathrooms and there you go but that's not what we're deciding today what we're deciding today is to purchase this property so with that do I have a motion Harry so move I think this is opportunity for us to keep that whole area uh backed into uh where citizens and visitors can come and enjoy the it's been something I've been trying to do for eight years so I move to approve second second by Luc take it for public comment seeing none we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes 70 we'll move to item me consider approving the purchase of 605 R Contra drive from White Dove Capital LLC for the purchase price and closing cost not to exceed $70,000 Source from general fund balance and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents and once again Sarah and Carl are on yes um this is 605 Rio cono West really close to the convention center almost two acres it is zoned rm1 it's in Harry's district and part of the fort koncho neighborhood just like the last property um here's another shot of the location and the purchase price is 67 ,000 and we don't foresee the closing cost to exceed $2 to $3,000 on this one questions for Sarah or questions for Carl may I have a motion move to approve is presented may I have a second second a second by Tom any public comment seeing none we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I motion

[2:03:50] passes 7 zero SAR we already did item F so now we'll move into item G considered an appeal of the decision of the Planning Commission for partial denial of a variance request on the paving width adjacent to Lewis o Woodward subdivision the variance requested was Zero additional Paving for a 17t wide County Road named Irving Del Road in the ex the ejt under agreement with the county to impose City subdivision roles rules this gets very complicated very complicated and um so please go into great depth in terms of explaining what this is and then options okay so we have City Limits and then we have the etj and in between the city limits and the etj we have an agreement with the county that says that those properties follow our our platting um so that's how we got here um the road let me see so when it came to Planning Commission the road currently is 17 feet um that does not meet our Land Development and subdivision ordinance which says that roads need to be 26 F feet um however you see the 20 feet in here because the international fire code has changed recently and they recommend 20 ft um for or a minimum roadway to be able to allow two emergency vehicles going each way or to allow one to stop and do what they need to do with another one coming by Imagine like a fir truck stops to put out a fire and then an ambulance comes by so that is the partial variance that the Planning Commission decided to grant they didn't go with the full 26 um they went with the 20 which means that um the property owner would be required

[2:05:54] to pave an extra three feet um for 450 ft along the side how do you do that first time using this little thing they're going to have their driveway over here on Irvingdale um so that 3 ft would be all along their property this so this this is what you're seeing um this is three lots right now and the owners are replatting it to be two which is also speak it to the microphone please thank you this is three lots right now and they're replatting it to two which is why this was triggered this is what it currently looks like um the staff did recommend and the Planning Commission did vote 5 to approve Pro the partial variance of 20 ft of road as opposed to the 26 are there any questions so if it's been approved by the Planning Commission all it likes is being approved by the city council no ma'am so explain that thank you um appreciate your your guidance um so the Planning Commission decided and there is a way for people to appeal the decision of the the Planning Commission and that is before you they wanted 26 feet oh no they didn't yeah y'all wanted 26 feet no it's not joking too either no they would like to keep the 17 fet they would like to keep it as is and are there rules or regulations or a decision today that could um be voted on for the 17 would that would then kick in to expand it to 20 ft if something else happened sure yes thank you that is a

[2:07:58] good option there could be a deferral placed on the property uh where if any other tracks of land along Irvingdale are developed that it would trigger doing the whole Road um because as you can see there there is a little bit of the road on Irvingdale that their property doesn't cover and then a bit on the other side of it so if they do the work now it will what's a bit Define a bit o I don't know how long that is this is the part I'm looking at right here so this part is how how big is their part their part is 425 ft 425 so if you divide that in half you know that gives you an idea of what that is above it that little bitty piece up there and the below is smaller than that so just in reference thank you appreciate that okay so what you're saying is that the owner of this property would like it to stay at 17 feet which we could live with if we decided that if it was developed the other two lots plats were developed then it would automatically be required to expand it to the 20 ft that is that correct yes ma'am that is one option um and the other option is to deny the 7 ft and expect that it be improved to 20 ft on the entire length of that Irving Dell property yes ma'am as the Planning Commission decided and the main reason I've heard it say many times before and the main reason is for health and safety uh we want of if anything happens out there for these folks you want to be able to get emergency vehicles in there to address those things quick question imp possibly for legal what is our ability to have the applicant do that after the fact what how do we get that what do we say and what do we

[2:10:01] approve if we say uh it's approved for 17 ft today but development will force that 17 ft to go to 20 fet automatically right so there is a process for a deferral agreement in the code and it would either need to be for a term of years or a certain event that triggers that um I know we have done it based on future development where it triggers like a CO or building permits um so we could have that as a trigger in the deferral agreement and then the other part of this is whether uh they would have to provide a financial guarantee so uh the options are like a letter of credit from a bank a bond um and that guarantee could also be deferred so they don't necessarily have to put that up if you decide that um but it is one way to ensure that the in a future date that the improvements would get constructed one way or another show me where the uh City Limits is on this map you know I'm not sure that I have a map that shows the city limits mayor it's it's it's I looked I looked on our development it's not far far now I know that's not a distance but it's it's not far is defined as yeah I knew you were going to do that to me less than a mile L not very far from Far yeah sorry that I don't have that map available okay so yes please answer your question um colly Road and um a couple other here are just south um by probably less than a half a mile I would say it's probably closer to a quarter mile that those roads were the city limit this is kind of an odd piece of property as it sits in an outline

[2:12:04] spot you actually wonder how this fell outside but still etj but there's a whole row of houses Pacific Atlantic Street and then they come up to collie Lane and we hit in there so you're well under half a mile probably you're closer to a quarter mile from the city limits and where lays in the etj and there's a historic problem with how narrow some of those streets are um I have one on there that's on Pacific and once people Park on it you can't get one vehicle by yeah thank you so much for that additional information um questions comments from Council comment yes Tommy I'm not in favor of 17 I'm even not in favor of 20 my preference is 26 simply because of the safety aspect um to to me that's that shortsighted on our part again my opinion it's shortsighted on my part not to go for 26 I know the proponent does not want that I realize that but I think we need to look at the public safety aspect I could probably go with the 20 but my preference is 26 but the Federal regulations have reduced it from 26 to 20 is that what you said that is correct yes ma'am so federally it says 20 is fine you don't need 26 so with that said the 26 is outside well Fally designated just to clarify our ordinance still says 26 and the international fire code says the 20 but I mean we're permitted to uh revise those regulations and so yes and we could change the ordinance as well we could yes I think we're looking there is that option okay so uh with the federal guideline of 20 not 26 our ordinance no longer follows Federal recommendations

[2:14:07] correct 26 currently yeah okay to keep in mind as you look at referrals of those type of things we don't issue cosos in the etj so that's not a option for you to hold over someone's head okay but we could force the issue of expanding it to 20 if in fact any other development happens so it's not a CO but it is a part of the motion that could be made that says any additional uh work would require that kicking in yes ma'am if it's something that triggers a plat or something like that it has to trigger something that we have authority over so Co no replatting again yes um but you know they'd have to trigger something that we could deny if they didn't follow what you designated okay Harry I'd rather keep it at the 20 feet and do it right now and I know that's an expense to the to the individuals out there but if we kick this can down the road some of the council's going to have to have to make that decision uh I'd rather I'd rather keep it the 20 and reject this this appeal we've got a lot of opinion where's the motion I'll make a motion to deny the appeal and leave it as is with a 20 foot um stipulation public comment uh Juan Santiago good morning good morning my name is Juan I reside at 1610 Wilson Street at the moment um we bought this property in November of last year and it's just been a headache trying to get everything approved through the city through the city council everything um we bought it's a little under four acres that

[2:16:11] we've been saving up for a long time to to it's it's been a dream for us you know we already have a house out there um but without a without an approval we can't we can't get our septic tank we can't get water we can't get electricity out there and um I mean they're asking us to pay 30 I mean they gave us a quote of $330,000 to get that three extra feet redone on the on the street and that's that's a lot of money for us I mean uh we spoke to uh Rick bacon which is the um County Commissioner and I'm guessing somebody had already mentioned it to him about going wider with the road and he to what he told me yesterday on the phone he said that he was in denial of going wider with the road that he wanted to keep it at the 17 just because it's more work on on um on on the maintenance of the road um and then he he said that he wasn't he wasn't willing to maintain that that um 20 um that they were they were trying to go with you have to expand it from 20 from 17 17 to 20 yes sir I mean yes ma'am um like I said I mean we're not planning on on dividing the property we're keeping it at one single property for my family for my kids for I mean it's we needed a bigger house we needed I mean we wanted to stay a little bit outside of town and still be within the city limits you know or not the city limits but closer to the city um and it's it's just been a dream for us that to get this done um and like I said so you're saying that if in fact we pass that you have to expand it to 20 feet in order for you to get sewer system septic system because they won't do it otherwise they without the replay they won't give us a 911 address so we can't get water electricity or sewer not none of the uh none of our services will

[2:18:13] be approved and then if if we if they give us or they make us pay the for the road to get wider that's $30,000 that we got to come up with and then an extra I mean we're going to have to start saving again just to get our our services uh connected so you can't live there yeah we can't live there questions for H I just had a question how long have you had this land we bought the property in November of last year um we ran into some missions with the people that did our contract um somehow they lost our paperwork so we had to start over when we did the the um uh survey we requested for the place to get re uh replanted but it somehow U something happened with this this was with mqi whenever we started the survey we we're not using uh welder engineering and they're the ones that been helping us a lot um like I said I mean it's it's been a whole year that we've been trying to uh move out there our house is already there um but we can't we can't do nothing without a 911 address and like I said if we were to pay $330,000 now we would have to come up with $8,000 to $10,000 for sewer and then whatever the city is going to charge us to get the water out there and then electricity also thank you for your comments yes go ahead Tom one one stay up here a minute um the purpose of what we're doing today is over the next 30 50 70 years okay um we were visiting with Aaron Venoy and planning yesterday and talked about this specifically all right there are some alternatives to payment there's some chip seal and some things that can be done because we're concerned about the cost that you have to bear I have another friend that has property in great Creek that's going through the same problems you are all right and the the cost of getting these things the

[2:20:15] cost of the build is you know that yall yall assume that all the way through but all Alternatives and after talking with Aaron yesterday a smaller chip seal some things but this whole thing boils down to safety about being able to get vehicles to and from all right this this is we're just calling balls and Strikes here yes sir and that's what it is and after this it's it's not in the city limits but we all understand and maybe as somebody else with property north and south of you have to going to go by these same rules sooner or later maybe there's a way you can campaign something with them but but at this reason just for safety is the reason we've upheld what the people at planning who are you know they they do what they do and we point them there because that's what they understand they they're planning experts and that's why we're going with the 20 I'm going to stick with my motion but I need you to understand why it's just a safety issue you've there's people up here that would love to see that all the way up to 26 yes we we realize that's probably not feasible for the strip of land but from somebody that's experienced these small roads less than a half a mile away you can't get through there once somebody's parked on the side yes and uh one thing that uh Mr bacon Rick bacon the the county commissioner mentioned he said that the reason why he denied it was because there's only two houses out there right now and it's a no no traffic whatsoever I mean uh and it's older people that live there so he said they barely ever leave their house you know they mean you don't you won't see anybody going past 10 m hour through that road um and then our house will be the third one and it I don't know if you can see it on the map it takes most of that street so uh um we're like I said we're not planning on doing no subdivision no no other houses it's it's going to be just for my family just one house and that that would be it we get that we understand but I I just want you to understand why we're making that decision today yes

[2:22:17] sir thank you thank you Erica Wy so there's this question of safety talk louder sorry there's this question of safety July of this year our Planning Commission in our city staff approved a plat with 16t road so where is this rule coming from and why is it just now coming up I want I would like to delve more into that um um second of all nobody at the city has been able nor have we were able to figure out if this road was even dedicated as a road mqi did their research and said it's an easement it's not a road not a dedicated Road my next point is since Rick bacon the commissioner has already said they don't want it widened and they won't maintain it who's going to maintain their $ 30,000 plus dollars of investment and that is Chip seal by the way so who's going to who's going to maintain that you want us to build this road they want them to build this road for safety issues nobody's going to maintain it's not going to be safe all I have to say thank [Music] you all right we will take a vote Jamal Scher sorry Jamal shumer single member district 3 um for once um me and Tom probably on the same side I I I really did you hear that Tom yeah I know I I really really hate hated for this guy but this is what happens with deregulation Texas itself has a problem with it uh all your guys should be up there just wondering like how could this happen well the people who sold them the

[2:24:21] land did not know this and they should be knowing this because they're in real estate and we're a heavy real estate town and she wants to know why this is happening now and why they approved it in July is because I said something about it I didn't I saw all these things happening that would make safety I mean almost impossible for future boards is time in them stated uh 26 ft is great but 20 foot would be nice I would see if you guys could look into maybe money in the operations and maybe send a loan where you you can make interest off of this situation and they can all get it built uh I would try to work out some some type of way to get it built for them because this it's not their F regular citizens don't know Texas administrative code they're not sitting there reading thousands of pages of code on every single thing even the thing you walk on and speak in Tech has code for it uh regular citizens don't do it so that that's is not their fault which is is is it's really hard decision which is why I'm glad I'm not one of you guys today uh thank you we finished with public comments so we'll take a vote all those in favor of denying the appeal um to um keep it at 70 foot wide say I Tom those in to keep it at 20 20 foot is that what deny the appeal which would keep it at the 20 foot wide not the 17 foot as is right so I'm going to go one by one Tommy I Tom I Harry I gun mayor Gunter no no Lucy no Karen I Larry

[2:26:27] no so motion passes unfortunately four to three item H consider resolution approving a request for a variance to allow the sell of alcoholic beverages beer and wine at the following locations 1,800 1900 and 2,000 block of nicob Baka Road being an approximate 10.01 04 acre property in the J mcne survey number 17625 abstract number 1641 a property within 300 ft of a public school and we have it's me no Aaron vet here today so you are on yes ma'am Kim planning and development services um I do want to draw attention in the resolution um Aaron forgot to put 21 00 in there to specifically call that out so if the resolution passes before it is signed 2100 will be put in there also as it's in all of the slides but just not in the the resolution um so the property that we're talking about um is Stadium Lanes and the strip behind that or adjacent to that um the owner has an opportunity to split Stadium Lanes into two Suites and have another business come in um and they would like to sell alcohol um there are already other businesses in the strip mall that are restaurant based um businesses that do have alcohol sales um and it is right across the street from the fields it's less than 300 ft away from the Central baseball fields it's 104 ft um the staff is Rec recommending that we that we Grant this uh variance on TBC regulations um because enforcing it is not in the best

[2:28:33] interest of the public um this is a very um popular spot for folks to go um and we feel like with this exception that the the amount of business would likely increase um we also believe that it constitutes waste or inefficient use of land or other resources um again um making this more of an an entertainment Hub um and for any other reason after consideration of the health welfare public best interest of the community I think and one other let's see uh and um San Angelo ISD does not um approve of this variance so the adjacent other businesses that sell wine or beer or alcohol are they're all owned by one owner so yes the locations or the businesses it's actually the property owner owns the entire complex and then there's individual businesses within each that have uh sell beer and wine so those are at restaurants or the wine store those kind of things but the shopping center as a whole is owned by one individual one family appreciate you would you care for the owner to come up to answer any questions or can I answer any questions for you right now would you like to come forward I think it's still morning good morning good morning Mary Jane's edman with Alexander construction company I'm in single member district 5 I believe and with businesses in single member district one and maybe a couple others um I am the managing partner in general counsel for Alexander construction company which is the land owner for the

[2:30:36] area known commonly as Stadium Park um I take issue with being called a strip mall but I get it it's a business Mall um um so this Stadium Lanes 2105 nicera Road along with enino veritos along with Naes already have variances that have been granted for at the time was I believe a 200 foot at that time I think that the state law has changed to be a 300 foot but these are variances that have already been granted I believe on a technicality what is happening is Stadium Lanes that particular bu business is giving up a little bit of their space which is coming back to the landlord to develop and do something different and has an opportunity to carve out another suite for another business which would then looks I mean it's still in the development stages and they are looking to have a liquor license so we're planning ahead in having level two meetings with the city it was brought up that we probably needed to consider going for a variance for this additional Suite just to make sure when these um businesses file with TABC they have to have specific addresses so what was or is 21005 right now will become 2105 and 21105 Suite B so since it's going to have different addresses with TABC it will technically need variances for this rule with the 300 ft just to clarify on the map and drawings um the 100t distance between the property lines is what the state law is what looking at but it's actually not in reference to the fields or the um Stadium it's with respect to Glenn Middle School which is a much further distance but the law does not look at the distance from door to property line it's property line to property line correct um but has not been an issue for 20 30 years with Stadium Lanes that

[2:32:40] already has this variant and a liquor license in place for a school that's much further away than just this technical property line just to clarify the way way it was presented um so I think there already exists variances they've been granted multiple times Cork and pig is another one that was just next door or two two units down so to speak not owned by us but it also had a variance and an existing liquor license in place when it was two doors down so what we're doing here is needing to just come back and sort of clarify what's already been granted so we have that for the ones that already exist but it makes it a little easier going forward if these already have been granted if we can just Encompass this block of properties that are all the same distance across the street connected to each other with variances that have already been granted we just like to move forward do it one time and it's done thank you thank you Mary Jane just comment mayor to remind the council we approved uh a very similar thing on Johnson Street at the corner of University in Johnson for a a restaurant U that wanted to have alcohol sales there that is even closer property line to property line than this one is so there there's a press PR I don't think citizens walk it out oh I'm one foot closer oh no I'm two feet closer I'm oh wait a minute tbac says no let's be realistic here um there's plenty of businesses in that area that already sell liquor wine and beer um we need to clean this up um and and be consistent in and how we approach it and mayor I think your justification in the past was it's the property line not the school the school is way farther than that so that was your justification in the past this one just happens to be unique because they own a big parcel of land yes a big entertainment Hub not a strip

[2:34:43] mall it's a business complex thank you so with that is there a motion moved second there is a motion by Larry as second by Tommy public comment say no public comment we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes seven zero we are now moving to item I first reading and public hearing of an ordinance amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 2024 and ending September 30th 2025 for 2024 Street bond issue s AIS SD school resource officer program conso Christmas celebration and street sweeper purchase so this is a broad sweep of a lot of issues in other words yes and most of these projects are familiar with so I'll go through them pretty quickly but of course you know that we just approved the bond issue for $20 million for Street reconstruction and Improvement so we're just budgeting for that Bond revenue and the correlated expense the S Angelo ISD school resource officer program is new um the school district had reached out to the city and wanted to handle the way that they reimburse or pay for the officer's time and so uh the police chief um had worked with them and come up with this opportunity to fund that program um it's accounting for school resource officers within the schools and also those that are there for extracurricular activities um I did ask the Chiefs to be here if you have any questions about that program and how it works well basically they're going to repay the police for this work that is being done so you get compensated if I'm I understand this for the work and the officers you provide for the sa safety of the students in the school district right so this will run through the city's payroll um process and then the school district will reimburse us for

[2:36:45] those hours that are worked um I will point out that we ALS they also did to fund uh the SRO Sergeant position which was already included in the original budget Poncho Christmas celebration of course you're aware that we are going to fund $200,000 Upfront for that program this year um out of Hotel occupancy tax funds um and then any um monies that are raised that should be reimbursed to the city will reduce that amount um in future years and there's expected to have Revenue to reduce that amount yes ma'am yes ma'am there will be okay and then the street sweeper um is coming to you because it's going uh requesting to use fund balance out of the storm water fund um and that's it that's questions for Tina a motion then please Mo we approve second a motion by Tommy a second by Tom any public comment concerning any of these items seeing none we will take a vote all those in favor say I I there are none opposed so that motion passes seven zero that completes our regular agenda for the day we will now move into our closed session the executive session under the provision of government code Title 5 open government ethics subtitle a open government chapter 551 open meetings sub chapter D exceptions to requirement that meetings be open under the following sections a section 551 072 deliberations about real property regarding 805 West Avenue N and Item B section 551.071 consultation with attorney regarding possible action authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute lease amendments with the city of s Angelo at Skyline Aviation allowing encumbrance of skylines lease hold estate interest in the lease of city of parent City Airport property commonly known as 85 34 Hangar Road St Angelo

[2:38:51] Texas we are um now moving into the Clos SE section of the agenda and this is at 11:21 a.m. we shall return when we have completed the business we are um back from Clos session it is 12:13 um pm. and we are going to make an announcement in regards to the close set and I believe Tommy you're on for this please yes ma'am uh I would make a motion that we authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute lease amendments with the city of St Angelo in Skyline Aviation allowing encumbrance of skylines leasehold estate interest in the lease of City Airport properly property commonly known as 8534 Hangar Road St Angelo Texas and that is our announcement we don't need to take any action we we do so we and there's a second on that any public comment seeing no one in the audience we we will take a vote all those in favor say I motion passes 70 we will now go into Item B and it is consider approving various board nominations airport Advisory Board Bruce Partin smd1 to a third term term Patrick Newton smd2 and Larry Martin smd6 to a first term all ending October 2026 the design and historic review commission Stacy alins smd3 to second term ending September 2026 public art commission Gail steelwell the mayor to an unexpired term ending April 2025 tax increment reinvestment Zone board Ryan Ryan nulan mayor to a second term ending July 2026 may I have a motion for approval of the various board nominations as just read me Lucy has

[2:40:56] made that motion may I have a second and a second by Larry all those in favor of oh public comment please silent audience so we'll take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes 70 are there any announcements and consideration of future agenda items now Tom I think you said you're not going to be here for the next meeting will not be your y or on your own okay with that we are asking for a motion for adjournment so move so move a motion in a second a vote all in favor say I I we are officially ending this meeting at 12:15 p.m. good

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