San Angelo City Council 8-16-22

[0:00:00] a.m on the 16th of august we will be calling this meeting to order and as usual we will start with the chaplain prayer and pledges and we have gary and marcela jenkins here to lead us in both good morning mayor and members of the council will you please join with us in a word of prayer father in heaven in the name of jesus we bow before you to say thank you for another day that you have made lord we praise you and we seek your face and your counsel for wisdom and for knowledge and revelation for understanding and the ability to take on the business of the city in a way that will glorify you father we also place a petition before you asking you for rain for west texas and that the crops and the farmers and everyone will be able to be able to thrive as the new school year is about to begin we pray father for the safety of all of the children that will be attending not only here in san angelo but throughout the state of texas and the nation we pray father that you guide us and be with us in jesus name of the amen states of america and to the republic for which it stands honor the texas flag i pledge allegiance to the texas one state we will now go into the public comment section of the agenda issues or concerns not on the regular agenda may be raised by the public at

[0:02:02] this time citizens should speak from the podium address all comments to the dias begin by stating their name and address or single member district and limit their remarks to less than three minutes council has no obligation to respond to comments or questions from the public any response from a member of the city council to non-agenda comments is limited to a statement of specific factual information recitation of existing policy and directing staff to place a subject on a future agenda do we have anyone in the audience today who would like to come forward on public comment seeing none we will now move into the consent agenda i will start with larry is there an item you'd like to pull from the consent agenda no ma'am no ma'am aaron lucy if we'll pull item f i'm going to pull item b and c harry no ma'am tom no ma'am tommy all right may i have a motion for approval of the consent agenda with the exception of items b c and f so i moved some move by karen second of by harry on any public comment scene none we will take a vote all in favor of approving the consent agenda with the exception of b c and f please say aye with none opposed consent agenda is approved we'll start with item b consider approving the purchase of 39 mobile data terminals from rugged notebooks that always says something rugged notebooks rugged notebooks yeah that's it for 157 783.50 to dir tso4075 and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents chief brodie iran good morning council mayor uh patrick brody fire chief what questions did you have for me for that well describe what 39 mobile data terminals are and no problems what the

[0:04:05] product is and why we need it each one of our fire apparatus and our ambulances they carry a computer on board and what that does is it gives us dispatch information in the field and then also after we complete the transport we can complete our required documentation and our run report in the field we get back to the station and we can upload it to the computer into the cloud for processing for billing on the fire truck side it provides location uh address location fire hydrant location while we're responding to a incident it'll also give any type of hazardous note-taking from the dispatcher if we need to information sent to our units in the field so y number y39 each unit will have one mdt mobile data terminal in each fire truck and then also the ambulance has two units one unit is the mobile data terminal and the other unit is basically a tablet tablet to do the paperwork on we actually looked at eliminating one of those units to reduce the cost on it and working with a rugged notebook and working with our i.t department there's an issue when you take that unit out of the ambulance and go into the hospital to do your paperwork you actually drop your wi-fi connection and there's a three three to five minute time period and ruben can probably speak on this better than i can but it drops our connection and then it takes three to five minutes to reestablish that connection log back into the system so for the price point we went ahead and went ahead and did two units on each ambulance okay why do that's the reason why we need them that's the reason why the um the number and rugged they had to be ruggedized because they're out in the field dropped banged up wet environments cold environments so that's budgeted yes ma'am we we've been working on reuben and i've been working on this project for almost a year now we have the funds available this project

[0:06:07] started off at around four hundred and thirty thousand dollars and i wasn't going to accept that working with the vendor different vendors trying to get the price down working with our exact accounts that we needed and because it wasn't just the tablets that we needed we needed the installation the hardware for them to attach in our units so working through this diligent process for over a year we got the price down to 157 000 and we have that amount of money in our budget to cover it without requesting additional general funds thank you chief freddie does anyone else have a question that they would like to ask chief go ahead larry these are obviously a replacement for a previous unit could you tell me how much where how much how old the current ones are yes our current units they're over 10 years old and when you're talking technology that is a long life and we've been pleased with our old units they've lasted a good while we're having a hard time finding replacement equipment because they do break our last unit that broke the screen cracked on it and we weren't able to replace the screen we were looking at replacing the whole unit and we had a few spares we don't have any more spares they're getting more and more difficult to find replacement parts for not to mention the battery life is almost done on them thank you yes sir thank you any other questions for chief brody all right lucy has made a motion to approve me a second by tommy any public comment on these rugged it is a tongue twister i agree notebooks right a public comment seeing none then we'll take a vote all in favor say aye all right with uh none opposing the motion passes seven zero item c consider awarding task order number seven under id iq contract es0619 engineering services to kimley horn associates incorporated an amount of 254 thousand dollars for traffic signal design plans for six intersections and authorizing the city

[0:08:10] manager to negotiate and execute all related documents patrick huron good morning mayor council patrick director of operations this item is in conjunction with a highway safety improvement grant or hsip grant that we were awarded through txdot for the improvement of the safety components of six intersections throughout town one of those intersections is a city-owned intersection the other five are textile on text dot right away so but the city is responsible for those upgrades what this grant will do is this is the design function of that after we get the design we'll be going out for the construction bid on the construction of those intersections improving them updating them the hsip is specifically designed to improve the safety value of those and those intersections are ranked based on the number of vehicular and pedestrian accidents at the particular intersections so this will be a big improvement as well as updating intersections that are well exceeding their their useful life right now can you tell us those six intersections please yes ma'am so the first one that is the city-owned intersection is at sunset and southwest it's going to be in conjunction with our sunset drive improvement project that the city is going to be designing here shortly the next one is going to be sherwood way and arden road then fm 388 and chadburn us-87 or bryant 29th bryant knickerbocker and bryant and 19th street just as a side note bryan and avenue l and avenue are being done through a separate grant project through txdot so several of those intersections along bryant will be will be improved at this time i think with the addition of that new mcdonald's um there's certainly we need to look at right the traffic the additional traffic that's going to exist and how we manage that up and down bryant boulevard yes ma'am any other questions for patrick with none

[0:10:13] we can either prove it now or wait till we get to item f and do it together all right i have approval okay go ahead tommy second lucy's a second any public comment seeing none then we'll take a vote all in favor of approving item c say i motion passes six seven zero we won't thank you patrick we'll move on to item f consider approving an agreement with hud in the amount of 186 630 to fund a rapid re-housing for the homeless program and authorizing city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents bob good morning you have a question yes bob can you explain to us the rapid rehousing yes this uh this grant we got about three years ago this is our third actually is our third iteration uh it's a grant to help individuals who are homeless uh get uh permanent housing relatively quickly we say i i that's why we have the term rapid rehousing but it has a component of case management so we provide case management we provide permanent housing and we have a component called coordinated entry where our partners can log in and people homeless individuals can actually go to a one node and get into the system this way we share the information and we can better provide services to our homeless community uh as of last year how many people did you help in this program would you say um well we're limited of course with funding and all that but uh 75 000 of that goes to case management so we're actually paying the public housing authority to execute that program as of um last year i believe it was 25 individuals were navigated through uh through two public permanent housing now these individuals were not chronic homeless they were mostly situational homeless families with kids that

[0:12:14] quite lost their job or whatever and they're they're relatively easy to deal with the chronic homeless was a little bit more difficult we had one individual that we try to get through but it was uh it turned out to be pretty difficult to get them through the system so we're trying though so like whenever you provide the the permanent housing how does that work it's basically the same as any other section 8 voucher program it just basically takes the the person gets them into the system quickly versus the year-long waiting period it takes for for anyone to get on the public housing authority waiting list and that's how that's how we get it to that's what we call it rapid and quick it's gets them up to the top of the list gets them into housing somewhere an apartment somewhere in the uh in the city there's no specific area you request you know there are help wanted signs everywhere so the question mark is how do you work with them to get them back out in an employed position that's part of the case management process individual the case manager will walk them through uh from start to finish we get them in a lot of times we find that they don't have identification so we get them identification uh a lot of time they need training we'll give them some training we work with the um the the folks the uh join the blank here the workforce solutions uh to get to get the job opportunities and that kind of thing so that's that's how it works it's our partners is there a time limit that there are yes two years you have two years to basically get on your own and hopefully what happens is once you get somebody in into the system and then they're successful um they they mature out and they think they could potentially stay on the section 8 program and have long-term support from public housing authority one more question this 15 930 dollars that you use for city administration what is that exactly

[0:14:17] that's to help pay for some of the staff city staff that helps manage that mostly me and one of my staff members actually manages the contract it helps it just helps us overall we don't want to we certainly don't want to work we want to eliminate the use of general funds as much as we can this is an opportunity to use other funds to help pay for our admin costs okay i need to approve it are there any other questions or comments larry based on the narrow focus of a particular group it would seem as though your success rate on these people should be pretty high do you have anything you'd like to say concerning how many of them essentially have thrived and how many i don't have the number off the top of my head but i can get that for you i can put up i'm sorry i don't the public housing authority kind of manages that program for us but i can reach out to them and and get that information for the last three years um so again the success is usually for those who are situationally homeless um unfortunately the the chronic home is a little bit different different problem we're not talking chronic here we're not talking although we have we have we have helped in the past but there's a little bit harder to work with thank you sir any other questions for bob all right lucy then moved to approve may i have a second second a second by karen any public comment scene none will take a vote all those in favor of approving item f say i with none opposed f is approved seven to zero that completes the consent agenda today we will now move into the regular agenda comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above applicants proponents and appellants are

[0:16:19] exempt from the time limit above and instead must limit their remarks to less than five minutes the first one is presentation of downtown san angelo's inc bi-annual report in dale velasquez and monica ramos is here today to present morning council we're going to change things up a little bit uh i've asked monica to give the presentation and i'll just have some closing comments monica ramos assistant director of downtown san angelo downtown has maintained 14 years of main street accreditation this is quite an accomplishment for us because what this means is that each year we submit accreditation standards that must meet a specific set of criteria and these are rigorous standards that we go through in order to receive accreditation communities should show efforts of meaningful and sustainable revitalization programs and include standards such as fostering strong public-private partnerships supporting small businesses and actively preserving historic places cultures and cultural assets this designation signifies a strong commitment to preservation-based economic development and community revitalization through the main street approach i recently attended a main street retreat and i was able to meet with other main street cities and i can say that san angelo is at the top of the list here we're doing really great folks and the main street approach goes off of four points which is design organization promotion and economic vitality and i'll touch on a few of those points throughout the presentation excuse me this is my first time using this electronic device and it's not rugged it's just a brand name or was it just a

[0:18:23] rugged laptop or is it the brand name all right so our mixed beverage and sales report here is showing the calendar year went back from 2020 to 2021 and the first and second quarter of 2022 so that we can kind of see the changes here as you can see 2021 and 2022 reflect positive increases so we've really come up from the downfall of 2020 but we're showing a steady recovery our numbers are starting to show positively and i did take a look back to prior years and really looking at 2022 and where we project to be we're about average if not might be a little bit higher in our numbers here and it does show our percentages for san angelo as a whole our central business district and our main street area so you can kind of see how each of those are reflected through each quarter our reinvestment report over the years we have collected almost 300 million in reinvestment dollars this is really great because what three investment numbers are is data that's collected based off of rehabilitations or renovations in downtown and these annual reinvestment figures include private public private and public rehabilitation projects our chadburn street streetscape we are already seeing a great impact of foot traffic and this is due to our chadburn streetscape redesign we have our new street lights new landscaping the benches have been installed the next phase of the project will be art installation but i can really attest to seeing a difference in foot traffic more people are walking skateboarding taking time to come to downtown and have

[0:20:27] this activity going on this is the hub of our city so this is the place for people to come and we do want to enhance it as best that we can and this streetscape really does make a difference as you know that's how it impacts cities through pedestrian traffic increased quality of life bringing communities together and that's exactly what this has done and will continue to do for our future not only is it attraction for downtown and for visitors but also for new businesses so this here is a complete going on with this slide and the next slide complete new businesses in downtown this is actually from 2020 to 2022. in 2020 we had 11 new businesses open their doors 2021 was seven and up to this date we've had eight new businesses and we are expecting five more by the end of the year what i really love about our downtown is that we have a variety of businesses when i went to the main street retreat we did take walking tours and there were some beautiful downtowns however they were you for this program victoria texas goliad and cuero and so i will reference victoria it was a beautiful downtown they had a really nice streetscape however they were lacking entertainment and activity they maybe had one restaurant two boutiques everything was filled with offices and law firms which is great however our downtown creates a sense of community it's a place where anyone of all ages can come to go shopping enjoy and have their leisure activity and as you see through the list of businesses here we have a wide variety of we have a boba tea shop we have our shopping we have insurance places restaurants we have a big variety of businesses that again are for everyone to enjoy our southern tiers projects uh totaled

[0:22:30] 221 722 dollars i'm just for the southern area i'll kind of go through each project here and kind of talk about what these um funds are going towards here 641 and 643 south chadburn and 61 north chadburn are for renovations on these properties suddenly got started on it i noticed that yesterday they've just take they're working on them now oh yeah yes these are all in progress so these are progress photos and the three that i just mentioned yes they're undergoing renovations which is really great because again if we have some nice looking properties in downtown that's going to bring in new investments as well six excuse me 416 south oaks will become office spaces 109 south chadburn is going to be a really interesting spot for downtown it will become a circuit breaker arcade so family friendly place to go and enjoy arcade games 17 west beauregard you have an approximate opening date on 109 south chadburn unfortunately i do not i believe there were a few setbacks but hopefully soon i believe they're pretty close to being complete they already had the arcade game set up they have a bar area so um getting close to their final steps on opening i have a question daniel are we talking are we talking donkey kong and and pac-man or whatever they're from yes yes yes vintage and present-day video games and arcade games um so it's a it'll be a fun place to go 17 west beauregard really looking forward to that this is um going to be the fourth place on beauregard that is a new business it would be froyo suites and treats downtown so it'll be a sister business to urban salt public hype and west texas boba tea house so a great addition to beauregard avenue and then 13 east 2 week is currently undergoing facade

[0:24:34] improvement it is proposed to be a restaurant and bar um right now the facade isn't being worked on but the interior is under construction sharply music building correct yes yes that's right our marketing and promotions for downtown i just wanted to touch on what we do to bring visitors to downtown and to visit our businesses of course the sheep spectacular continues to flourish and thrive not only is this a fundraiser for our organization we get to answer why all the sheep and we get to say well you know we have the miss wool pageant there's a lot of history tied to the sheep and they're placed all over san angelo so it's not just for downtown this is something for our entire city and even the surrounding area anyone can come and talk to us about sponsoring a sheep they promote economic development we have our sheep unveilings that have been a really good way to shed light on our sponsors and bring people to the businesses they're great for photos how many sheep have you now placed great question great question so we have 119 total completed sheep and there are eight that are pending final artworks that's a total of 127 that have been sponsored that is a huge number and every week we have a new phone call or an email asking about the sheep so there's going to be even a whole handful more that are up and coming and again it's not imagine what the city would look like today if we took all those sheep away oh i know and there's such a great attraction we have visitors from goodfellow air force base that bring in their family and friends new students from angelo state university this is all new to them so they love it and even for our local people it's always exciting to see the new you and the artwork just keeps

[0:26:36] getting better and better each sheep has their own personality and their unique names and so it's really fun also just for everyone to come out and and try to seek each sheep which gets me into our sheep scavenger hunt last fall i started a scavenger hunt specifically for downtown and there were clues that had historic information about each location of the sheep so it served as an educational tool but also gave um the people that were seeking the sheep an opportunity to get a free t-shirt free sheep happens t-shirt unfortunately we did discontinue the sheep scavenger hunt but we do still have our t-shirts for sale for ten dollars you can contact us to get one we are working on a sheep map we've had many requests to create a visual of where you can find all the sheep and we have alexis goodwin who is a past intern of ours from angelo state university we should have a publication in print and online completed by the end of november so we're really looking forward to sharing that with everyone our downtown strong stroll it normally took place every third thursday of the month this year we switched gears and centered it around holidays and only had it six months out of the year but we also included a stroll tour guide the concho valley transit district recorded numbers of ridership for us and we've had an average of 60 riders on the trolley so people are coming to downtown they're interested in the activities that are taking place and mind you these dates are on a thursday so it's not a busy friday or saturday for these folks that are open past hours for the stroll um so this says a lot to bring people to downtown and i've ridden on the trolley and i've been this tour stroll tour guide myself and there are even some individuals who get on the trolley just to ride and hear what i have to say and what i'm talking about are event updates along the route i'll give historical information about properties

[0:28:39] in downtown and then also of course talk about the participating locations our historic downtown magazine is a bi-annual publication this one that's shown here is uh with the center story about the san angelo sanborn maps the sanborn fire insurance maps from the 19th century this is a really interesting article because it depicts san angelo's geography as it was back then and so it's really neat to look at the photos and then also read the article but i'll let you guys do that you can pick up a copy at our office at downtown san angelo you can look online downtown san angelo.com any of the businesses in downtown or the surrounding area have copies as well our brews used in barbecue which is not listed on here i wanted to mention that because that is a huge fundraiser for us but big as far as community engagement we have cook teams that travel in from across texas and even from mexico that participate in this barbecue cook-off to compete for best lamb brisket beans chicken we have local craft vendors local live music we even bring in our local breweries to participate and it's free entry to the community so anyone and everyone is welcome to attend it's fun for all ages and it really is a great opportunity for our downtown to have some extra activity going on and so our next date will be march 3rd and 4th of 2023 and we're really looking forward to it you know the last couple of years downtown san angelo has picked up the slack on a few projects that were impacted because of covet the july 3rd concert being the one that's probably sticks out the most and then the christmas lights parade one christmas we we picked up the slack because they had canceled and we just we monica came up with a great idea that

[0:30:43] she learned through the main street program and that was a reverse christmas parade so people could stand and watch the parade go by instead of uh they they drove by and the people were the parade participants were standing by on the side of the road so anyway it was uh we've done that but i wanted to just spend a little bit of time talking about the fact that our organization was founded in 2005 and it was a joint effort through the organization and the city of san angelo and we've been staffed by two people the whole time we've never had more than two employees and uh and i think that's a testament to the fact that we work very highly efficiently and get a lot of things done and i wish all of y'all could visit our office someday or spend a few times a few day a few hours with us to see the incredible amount of uh traffic that we get via the telephone and people just dropping in on uh off the street so it's it's impressive in that fact that we've been able to accomplish as much as we have as far as just having two staffers the other element that we do and i'm very excited about and glad that we have angelo state university they provide us interns so it's not quite two so but those interns come in just about every semester and we've also had interns excuse me students from lakeview high school come in and intern with us through the workforce program so we've get we get a lot of community uh activity excuse me support and i also wanted to mention to you that the majority of our membership and our we're based uh our our funding is primarily based through membership and our membership is far outweighed by people that don't have property or businesses in downtown they understand the importance of the development of downtown san angelo and so they are very supportive of that and and the great the the sheep spectacular

[0:32:47] project has been over the top in relationship to bringing the community into our corner to support what we're working towards and developing and i'm so so proud of monica and what she's accomplished in the three years that she's been there she's received accolades through the 20 under 40 program she's part of the concho cadre she's part of the railway museum she's also on the hispanic heritage board museum executive committee and she's just a bombshell going around helping us develop and outreach uh our initiatives and goals for downtown san angelo so thank all of y'all for your help and city staff especially guys we work with all with y'all on a constant basis and and it's always fun and challenging thank you thank you dude are there any questions for dell and monica oh harry no questions i want to just say thanks what you two do is amazing what you've done with the downtown area continues to really bring the forefront to the citizens and the visitors that we've had so i appreciate all you do i know you still struggle with that property on the southeast corner of chedburn and concho though if there's if there was any way that we could get that taken care of i think we would we would have a lot of success thank you it's all the personal private rights but uh yeah we we work on that uh all the time harry but um and you know and and thank you for the compliment but also i want to make sure that we have a real great support system there's a lot of organizations that step up to the plate to help us accomplish what we're doing and obviously the city of san angelo is the biggest one and so just uh know that we're part of the of the equation and and

[0:34:51] we're lucky that we get to be the lead group as far as downtown development is concerned so thank you all for all your support and i just want to say of course downtown is the hardest heart and soul of any city and i just want to thank you guys because our downtown is an excellent hands and by the way monica great presentation appreciate you guys you're welcome very much i would like to at some point during the budgeting time period reevaluate the money we give to downtown the hot tax money they get 25 000 a year and it's been that amount for many years it's uh i believe 2012 this is the last time we got a raise and we're at the bottom of the trough folks so i'd like to put that out there for consideration and um thank you very much tina coming up marisol city contributes 75 000 a year to downtown san angelo 37.5 comes from hot and the other 37.5 comes from the general fund but we will bring that back for consideration thank you item b is consider awarding ce-01-22 boiler replacement to advanced service group in the amount of 253 500 for the purchase of a shared boiler system for the foster communications coliseum in spur arena and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents morning mayor city council good morning daniel i'm here to discuss our like we said our boiler units um the coliseum spur arena we do share two boiler units since 1999. one of the boiler units actually went down in february due to water in the tubes and we cannot operate both of both the coliseum and the spur arena without having the boiler units operable so we did actually have a walk-through

[0:36:59] at the coliseum for anyone for bids on july 13th the bids did close on july 21st and we did receive two proposals one of the proposals was from advanced service group and the other one was west texas chill specialists we did select advanced service group for the boilers uh the two boiler units would be a cost of 250 253 500 if council does decide to approve this we will start in august with approval in november the product would arrive and we're hoping to complete the installation by january our funding sources in hot right now currently as of june 30th is a million point six in our civic events fund balance is a million and restricted for facility use fees we do have 353 thousand dollars now with the fund uh with the funds of course like we spoke about in budget we're planning to do uh magnes convention center improvements with the civic events fund balance and the facility use fee um that total actually is around approximately eight hundred thousand dollars um and then for the uh coliseum for the boiler units we're asking to use the fund of the hot fund for 253 500 uh 500 sasra did say that they would reimburse us half of the total cost so that would come down to 175 thousand dollars being used so i'm looking for you all's recommendation of approving the rfb for advanced service group in the amount of 253 500 and that would be reduced in half once when do we receive payment from the san angelo stock shown rodeo is it after completion how does

[0:39:02] that work i'm sure it would be after the completion is done and then we would build them thomas you probably above all of us there's two parts to that two parts of that that go forward and see we understand rock and r plays a chiller and a cooler and a boiler and all those pieces and parts we have to be prepared and go the biggest problem i want to say is can we get a hold of these people when it's a critical time i know i i see the funding here you've got to have it to go forward i know that is i see sassers obligated to do their half according to the contract you've written so i get that can we get a hold of these people and is it in their service contract to be there when we need them so you know talking rodeo and all these things are they local vendor are they not yes advanced service group is a local vendor um and i believe that that was one of the main things that we wanted to make sure is that they would be able to assist us whenever we do need um assistance with our boiler units if they were to go down does it tie in i know the past couple years we've used a system that's almost electronic can't hold them we can make those adjustments will this help make the coliseum easier to manage as far as the climate inside i'm going ahead and refer that to ron lewis the facility maintenance manager all right mayor council daniel yes they're a local group and we've worked with them before we have them the contract right now we have two vendors and about to have three with duncan from the county's agreement and they are local and they know how to work with chillers and boilers that's the reason they're the best choice on this and as far as the control system that's still through our intertel system which is the same system that controls the air conditioning here that's a good thing or bad i want to say you tell me if you're hot or cold but we uh yeah it doesn't change the way it controls and there's some limitations on that big

[0:41:04] space you know of how you push the air around but if you've got the hot water or the cold water you're going to get it closer than you are if you just open the doors up does it integrate with the system we have yes okay all you're doing is all we're doing now is replacing the chil the boilers to be able to heat the water the controls for how much water comes out how frequently the temperature you control that same as you did before with the system some of it's on the unit and some of it's on the controls let me throw one out there kind of gorilla in the room here so will it be adaptable for anything that may happen to the coliseum if it were to happen over the next four or five six years yes because the piping is in the building and it and it goes to the spur and it goes to the calcium so you're going to have to add additional piping to get additional air units if you're going to put like private spaces and so the capacity for the boilers is plenty now if if we're in the northeast and we have sub-zero probably not but we have all you do is you add them in the boiler if you need to and chillers we have three chillers and that's redundant and that's helpful because we do have hot temperatures you know lately so yes that's always adaptable that's not a big deal thank you any other questions from council um tommy has moved for approvals my second by karen i see her head shaking and any public comment seeing none will um take a vote all in favor say aye aye motion passes seven zero item c consider a resolution calling a special election for november 8 2022 authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute an election contract with tom greene county and providing for the holding of an election to be administered by the tom greene county election office julia euron yes ma'am thank you and as you'll remember back in november of 2021 we had an initiating committee that came forward and requested the petition

[0:43:07] paperwork obtained all of their signatures to put something on the ballot and and to have counsel here the proposed ordinance at that time the city council did not approve the ordinance as written and that initiating committee had the option to put the ordinance on the ballot as they presented it and they exercised their right to do that and so now it's the city's turn to call the election and this would be for the making san angelo a sanctuary city for the unborn so calling this election is just the next step we are required to do it by charter and i did want to point out a couple of things um early voting will take place october 24th through november 4th and and because of a change to the state legislator and we are required now to have some alternative polling places so for the first time ever you won't just be early voting at the keys building and there will will be other um branches which are going to be the concho valley transit district bus depot westlake hardware riverside golf course and then mhmr and so that'll be the first time in my history in san angelo that we've been able to early vote at multiple locations and then election day will be actually november the 8th which is a tuesday and there'll be um other branch locations one thing that is important for the public to know on election day you cannot vote at the keys building i sit there and watch folks come in and out and insist that they want to vote there on that day ed b key's building is only available for early voting so i just want to get that out to the public are there questions from council on on this item all right so um having no questions or comments may i have a motion for this item for approval i guess that's what you need right a motion for approval harry made a motion is there a second second by tom any public comment seeing none we'll take a vote all in

[0:45:12] favor of approving item c say i that motion passes 7-0 item d is considered approving amendments to the tax increment reinvestment zone incentives policy and john james you're on thank you john james director planning and development services this is the item that you saw last meeting and just brought back those changes that you recommended and then a couple of other notes um so these are the changes that uh actually so first i wanted to go into mayor you asked a question last time if if we had covered all of the substantive changes and so i went back through and read through it one more time and there were a couple of what i would call substantive changes that i didn't mention specifically one of those was that the board had a discussion about tax abatements and there was a discussion about removing the possibility of tax abatements for a property with an incentive project they ultimately decided to keep those in but basically to to say that those weren't a preferred mechanism but those would only be used for large big projects where it made sense there's a tracking issue with tax abatements as well as not knowing how much it is so it's hard to budget because tax abatements are you know you're you're abating the taxes over usually a 10-year period and so you don't know what those taxes are going to be because it varies with the property value and so that makes it more difficult to track over time and so again they discussed just eliminating that but they decided they wanted to have that opportunity for large projects like a recent one we did with the huddle house and kent quick up on bryant on the north side they got a tax abatement but for most of the smaller projects that we look at they their preference would be not to give those tax abatements does that make sense to approve it for the north versus

[0:47:14] the south and do it because in the south with limited funds you could eat up a lot of money really quick it could the board didn't actually discuss that i think their idea was it would each be considered on a case-by-case basis so i would be surprised if they would recommend funding a project in the south with the tax abatement again partly because we have so little money in the south committing to something over 10 years where you don't know how much that's going to be each year would be potentially problematic the second item is there was a discussion at the tiers board about signage and there was a concern with somebody coming in for you know walgreens wanting a new sign a pole sign and the board's feeling was that wasn't something that was you know if it's part of a remodeling part of a new business yeah that's fine for a sign but just putting in a new sign or just redoing a sign by itself they didn't want to fund although they did have some discussion about historic signage and so they they left or they included this provision that revitalization of historic signage in the downtown would be an eligible expense still as a separate project there was always the question mark if i mean there was some very adamant individuals on the tears board who basically said if someone can't afford their own sign for their own business that there shouldn't be funds asked for if you can't fund your own sign that's right and just a note related to that is as you know with south projects we get more requests than we have funding available and i know there have been a couple of projects at least over the last couple of years where the board had to make some tough decisions on what to fund and what not to fund and one of the things they did was to fund a particular project maybe for the facade improvements but not fund the signs and so both you know the board as well as you all as you're looking at projects

[0:49:17] you always have the ability to fund a portion of a project but not the whole request and that's something that the board has recommended in the past is is funding a certain piece but not the signage for that very reason so just head karen thank you just to clarify um the wording of the very s the the second bullet at the end so that signage allowance can they can fund repair and revitalization if it's a historic sign or a sign that's part of a historic building that's correct so now i'll go on to these are the policy changes that you all recommended last time so i just briefly want to go through and let me ask you a question that brings up so because the other part of it is is as we went through some of these additional things which is you're going to go through is the the issue of job creation and that's going to be part of this right that's right yeah actually that that first bullet is there was a change in one of the criteria that you all recommended where it said there was a preference for something that increased the tax base and so your recommendation was to change that to tax base or employment so even if even if it's not potentially elevating the property value of a building if it's creating employment that would be a consideration as well we clarified that the parking improvements must be associated with the business or use rather than just an undeveloped or vacant added property requirement that a property can't be sold for two years after receiving funding and also must remain taxable if it's a taxable property for at least five years after completion of the project and then the last one here i at least i think it's the last one um changed the expiration date i had mentioned you had asked last time i said i wasn't sure what the expiration time currently is and i said i thought it was three years it's actually two

[0:51:19] years currently you all recommended changing that to 18 months i just want to point out we have had i think three requests for extensions even from the two-year period we've got a new one that we received actually just yesterday that the board will be considering at their next meeting so i think staff would recommend probably sticking with that two years rather than decreasing it more to 18 months i think that would increase the likelihood of projects that aren't able to complete within that time frame and we would get more requests for extension i think the big issue with that has been that we haven't stayed on top of it so projects that have been funded and have not been completed in way beyond two years and then that money is tied up so there are obviously circumstances particularly over the past couple years with labor finding labor or perhaps product to complete it but what we have to do is make sure we're on top of it so that we don't keep that money tied up if the project's not going to happen and so that it puts money back in the bank for somebody else certainly i think we have to have some flexibility in terms of the expiration but at least it brings it up for conversation and i think that's the important part whether it's two years or 18 months i'm not going to get hung up on that as long as we stay on top of it and have a conversation so everybody knows what the time frame is for completion and that there's a defined expiration attached to it yeah and that is the case currently where the agreements that the property owner signs explicitly lists the expiration date and in fact we our staff in economic development does stay on top of those agreements and if the two years expires and they haven't requested an extension we will take back to the board and item to revoke that funding and then it does go back in so it it currently it would not exceed two years

[0:53:22] or two years in a few months as long as it takes to get that revocation through the board i think we're an unusual time so the supply chains and slash labor have complicated that but i just want to make sure we understand the process and and what's happening yes go ahead tom just to follow what the mayor is saying so we're talking about actually when we see expiration completion of what is funded in the tears grant not the completion of the entire project correct that's correct so but it i'm with the mayor i say keep it at at least the two years to revisit it because some of this stuff they can drag on for a while but we want to make sure that they complete the project that we gave the funds for right all right it's not the entire so if they had an expansion or extension they're good with that that can be two three four years sure this part is two exactly okay referring to a second go ahead larry referring to the second bullet uh can parking improvements be the sole or majority project under the tears grant well not in the south and that was one of the revisions that the board that we presented at the last meeting in the north the policy was changed where parking improvements could be the sole project but in the south it would remain as has to be part of a larger project thank you any further questions or comments for john okay continue i think that was it the rest of these are just um a restatement if there were questions about what had been presented last time but these are the changes that uh we heard from you all last time that we've made in the revised draft that's before you um let me just we'll open up for public comment but because dell is here and there's south tears money that they oversee a lot of so we'll open for public comment in a minute if i can have a motion for approval

[0:55:28] no no i mean just to clarify do you want that to be with the funds expiring at two years or move that to 18 months i would say two years and then but it's two years okay and you're okay with that second lucy yes okay all right it's open for public comment dale you want to come forward and talk about it i'm going to refer back to the two-year 18-month thing i'm very cognizant of the fact that there are major issues with supply and labor and people are having projects delayed and it's not because they don't want to have to incur that penalty to them because obviously they're not able to move forward with the project so i think two years is is an appropriate time frame um one of the things that um i was it's not on here and i want i thought that we were going to discuss there was a proposal for funding that would be from the tiers for uh additional support for the city and it was about 53 000 is that off the table or is that what it is is it was presented at budget meeting last week for it to become a part of a general fund expense and we said we're sending it back to the tears board for consideration and then we'll move from from that forward depending on what happens right we've put it back in the tiers board for discussion right you know one of the comments that was made during the two years discussion was maybe the south needs to look at different ways to increase their revenue um the the uh i i liken it to me being tied up with my hand behind my back and my my leg tight behind my back and me going up against the dallas cowboys i don't think i would do very well uh they might need that anything might uh the point the point being is that and

[0:57:31] i wanted to stress this we are at 42.5 non-taxable income properties within the central business district and that's no fault of anybody that's that is this reality it's the reality of what a downtown faces in every metropolitan area or every city because that's where the city found was founded and all the churches and all the federal and state and county and local governments are located and they don't pay taxes and and then we went through an ex a period of time where property became so inexpensive that a lot of the non-profits were were ended up buying the the property and that that even grew the the problem even and further so in relationship to working towards and and trust me it is top of mind and when i'm working with a potential business or a property owner to develop their uh their properties it is top of mind that we try to uh influence the decisions that those people are making to make sure that it is taxable and that sales tax revenue and property sells property taxes are being accumulated and as you heard in our presentation we're nearing 300 million in in in investment reinvestment in downtown and that's taken from 2007 to current um and you know i and i when martin gave that number i forgot we didn't include the streetscape private project which was about what 8 million and roughly so you can increase it by that but um you know the problem is many of those dollars are non-profit dollars is that correct right correct lots of non-profit um unfortunately but so that is a big challenge for us and i know the whole discussion took place about you know

[0:59:34] supporting funds from the north to the south and um and so we are you know cur encouraging council to take a relook at that if you can or not and and look at how possibly we could uh extend you know the funding source for downtown because that's where the funding is needed the most i i promise you you know that i i look at the north and uh the north tiers and i see you know lots of opportunities but no one's stepping up to the plate unfortunately well they are it just hasn't come to the cheers board yet okay um the other part of this is that um we the tiers board in 2000 i believe it was in 2008 or nine took a very hard initiative or took a a proactive initiative to court the north to create more opportunities for support uh funding there one of the things that i was where i was going at one of our town hall meetings i mentioned to the the folks there that downtown san angelo didn't exist because it came to existence because property owners and business owners decided it was they needed to do something to help revitalize downtown san angelo and if you look back to 19 well actually you could start as early as 1972 all the way up until about 2008 there was there was only three businesses that were open after five o'clock in downtown san angelo um and now we've got well over 22 businesses that are operating and doing extremely good in terms of you know what they bring to the table to help us so uh the development and development is slow and all of y'all know that it's it's an ongoing process and i think the

[1:01:38] more influx we have as far as revenue to from the tiers side i think it will encourage and continue and when downtown san angelo proposed creating the tears zone back in 2006 i believe the whole initiative was to get property owners to clean up their facades that was the number one goal of downtown san angelo at the time that we proposed the tears fund be set up and and it works and it does work and it continues to work i i personally believe that the number one accolade that downtown san angelo can can take credit for is the establishment of the tears fund um and getting that going uh and so just wanted to share those thoughts with you for for future consideration and if you have any questions i'd be more than happy to answer thank you any further public comment zane white district six lee fluger's downtown hotel cactus rooftop sign has been an inexcusable state of repair since 2005 and the city of san angelo municipal government has refused to appropriately regulate the signs condition since then since january of this year i've insisted that the city legally enforce the city of san angelo code of ordinances regarding the blatant sign code violations at the cactus hotel john james director of the city planning and development services department is ultimately responsible for sign code enforcement at the cactus hotel since at least january john james has desperately attempted to fast-track lee fluger's entire tiers grant funding process by

[1:03:42] ignoring manipulating and or entirely rewriting dhrc and tears policies and procedures for citizens who aren't aware john james is the husband of san angelo city attorney teresa james months ago i forced john and teresa james to finally admit in writing that the rooftop sign was legally in violation of city sign code regulations since at least february john and teresa james have continued to commit numerous unethical and or illegal actions as it relates to this matter i've been informed repeatedly by both john and teresa james that regardless of city cut sign code ordinances the initiation of code enforcement actions in san angelo is entirely discretionary and that the city has absolutely no obligation to legally enforce code regulations in the manner prescribed within the code of ordinances my efforts to force force the city to act legally has not been well accepted by the city of san angelo municipal government yesterday while quietly waiting to speak with city attorney theresa james at her city hall office i was abruptly confronted by four san angelo police officers one of which demanded i immediately leave the public premises when i asked the officer what reason they had to demand that i immediately leave city hall i was told they want you out of here i immediately requested a police supervisor with which to discuss the matter and i was immediately arrested regarding tiers policy changes there must be a punitive method by which to absolutely guarantee that tears projects are completed by the designated any related deadline extensions absolutely must be specified in advance interior policy process or else the process is worthless tears applicants who are in violation of city code should either be immediately denied or agree to a lien or other enormous penalties if the project is not completed in time i along with thousands of other west texans demand the end of

[1:05:46] this corrupt scam regarding the city illegally ignoring and rewriting policies and refusing to issue legally mandated code violations to leave pflueger for almost 20 years thank you know one of the things i think we as a as a city council could do to help uh relieve some of the needs for money in the southern tiers is there's lots of confusion about the north versus the south and the border so even though we cannot change the big picture of the tears area what we could do is to bring down the northern tiers border down to beaugard which is where north chadburn starts so that would open up some additional monies for the south and help give some of those folks on the north chaburu but are in the south chadburn tears zone so we could potentially look at that as some relief and some additional funds that could come through so i'm not sure what process we need to go through to do that someone could help me with that request i've heard that from you from a couple other people i think strongly encourage that it's a very recognizable landmark line that we have in san angelo and i think that would help but i'd like to say i think from this side of the bench you get nothing but 100 of port support to move that down there so when can we add that to this policy change at this point i'm not sure when we i'm just introducing it so i'm not sure what we have to do as i believe we'd have to check that i believe that's that would also include a change to the ordinance um i believe

[1:07:49] that would also take a recommendation by the board so i think what we can do is take it to the board for their recommendation then that would come that recommendation would come back to you i would recommend not i i'd like to ask because we've got some this has some changes that impacts the next funding cycle so i'd like to if you are okay with that go ahead and adopt these changes then we can bring that additional change for future discussion with the board and you all okay so with that do i have uh any further public comment and if not then what we would want is a motion to approve these changes as presented today but change the expiration uh to keep the expiration to two years instead of the 18 months and with that is there a motion for that some move by larry mayer we already have a motion on the table sorry um oh yeah the motion by councilmember thompson with a second from councilmember gonzalez thank you all right so we'll take a vote all in favor of of this uh policy change for tears um say aye aye with none opposed motion passes seven zero and then if you can work on the other conversation and then you might look at that for a january 1 effective date because it's you can't get it done for the next funding cycle i don't think john by the time you get it to the tears board and then back to city council so you might time what time line wise look at that as a 2023 start date first funding cycle we'll have to look at that i mean the funding cycle opens i think october through december but the actual funding wouldn't come until after the first of the year so we we could possibly make it effective even with that next cycle but we'll have to look at that so if you'll just follow up on that

[1:09:50] maybe if i may request yes please i just want to make a comment about my staff when it comes to john and teresa they're two individuals that have uh think they have such high character and integrity and when people come up here and make accusations it just doesn't sit well for me we know that on our end we have to follow policy and procedures the ordinance is the city and i can assure you that we have been doing that these two individuals have been doing that as well i just want to make sure that i made that very clear especially for the viewers that are watching on tv at this point so again i just want to make that point all right thank you and so i think we're ready for the next item and i think you're on for that too john so item e is first reading a public hearing of an ordinance for z22-14 to rezone properties from the general commercial heavy commercial to the low-rise multi-family residential zoning district being .36 acres located at 213 and 223 west avenue l and 1610 south chadburn street thank you and you may notice that this acreage number is different we originally brought a larger rezoning uh and through the process that was that was narrowed down uh the original application was for just one piece of this as staff looked at that and i'll explain more in a minute we thought that whole half block there made more sense to rezone but there was some opposition to that from some of those property owners so what you see before you today is just what was asked for by the applicant you can see this is an area there on avenue l it's commercial across the street the long-range plan for this area though is neighborhood and most of the properties are currently homes however you can see it is zoned the cgch currently which allows general commercial and heavy commercial and so with the request on this end of the property to go to multi-family residential we thought it kind of made sense to look

[1:11:52] at changing the whole area now part of that we had recommended not going to multi-family but to go to general commercial instead of the general commercial heavy commercial we're a little hesitant always putting homes and apartments right next to something that could be heavy commercial we did send out our notices received zero in support to an opposition i should say that we received more in opposition but those were to changing those properties once we removed those properties the opposition was reduced to two and even even those we left on because they weren't specific on why they were opposed although we suspect that perhaps at least one of them was also only opposed because of that change over there as i mentioned this is designated neighborhood in the future land use plan so that does support this rezoning to multi-family and this proposal is for multi-family again it's a small property so we're not talking a huge apartment complex but something like a three or four unit duplex triplex kind of a development staff does recommend approval of this rezoning as did the planning commission unanimously again the planning commission's recommendation was to reduce it to the original request because there was some opposition from the commission on expanding it uh further so with that i'd be happy to answer any questions are there questions for john on this item all right seeing none then may i have a motion for approval thank you a second second by karen any public comment on this item scene none will take a vote all in favor say aye with none opposed motion passes seven zero our last item on the regular agenda is first reading a public hearing of an ordinance for z22-16 to rezone properties from the ranch in the state to the single-family residential and neighborhood commercial zoning districts being

[1:13:55] 31.17 acres located northwest of arden road and fm 2288 thank you so this is fm 2288 and arden road this was an area that was annexed two or three years ago that development didn't really move forward and so now new owners are looking at development it came in annexed as ranch in a state but now they're looking at you know regular single-family home development and so that's the reason for the request to rs1 and the plans this area is shown for commercial and so this little strip right at the front uh would go to that commercial designation that's not in harry thomas's district is it 2288 is not in his district so let's go back and make sure larry gets credit for credit due on this piece of property he was protesting over there he can have the phone call and so as i mentioned this uh this is the long-range plan for the area so commercial up on fm 2288 with neighborhood behind it and so i think the longer term plans are for commercial at the front that's why there's this small strip there that would be going to neighborhood commercial zoning with the remainder being rs1 you may recall you'll be seeing a case here in maybe a month they have asked to annex an additional small piece of that you'll be seeing you accepted the petition for that a meeting or two ago and then the annexation of that and the rezoning of that to rs1 you'll be seeing at a future meeting as well we did send out the notices again this is all basically one property owner and so we did receive two in support none in opposition larry any questions or comments karen got a note uh it wasn't directed at me but it it showed some concern over

[1:15:59] a potential loop road to the west of that area which would be cutting across a number of ranches i'd like to know more about this yeah the long-range plan you can see the layout here they'll be developing back in the back but they will be building a road from fm 2288 to get back to this property our long-range plans have another either collector or modern arterial street that would come from arden up through this way and so this would ultimately connect that way so those are the major collector roads for that area i don't know i haven't seen that so i don't know if that's what it's about but that would be my guess is that it it's this north south collector road just to the west that perhaps is what the concern is but that has been on our long-range plans to ensure that connectivity as this whole area develops well along you know i think that the issue would be we know or you know i'm not sure most of us know what the long range plan is and so when you talk about it i'm sure most property owners at this point might not be aware of what the long range plan is well and i should also add that that if the concern is large ranch properties and they don't want to be broken up those roads would never be built until those properties come in to develop we typically don't go out and as a city and build streets it's the developers as they develop those properties so as an example here um this piece that i mentioned i believe it's the piece here that they're annexing that includes that collector street and so they'll be building actually just this piece of it but that road would not be extended into this area or this area until those property owners decide to develop those properties so it would only in other words it would only be breaking up a ranch when that ranch owner decides to sell for development but not before

[1:18:02] correct thank you karen i'm sure they'll appreciate that that information this is a particularly diligent property owner and they located a map in the city database that shows where that that roadway might go i think they might be interested in knowing should that happen as described in the map that's posted on the city website how many existing property owners would be affected that might be useful information i have the map and can send it to you well and you can see here on this map we do have those those blue lines are those collector streets and it does not appear that that those would cross i mean sometimes you might have a situation where there are homes built up against that already and so that future road would at some point have to maybe split between two homes from this area it doesn't look like that's the case the other thing about our future transportation plan like this those are conceptual lines so for example if this developer comes in and it makes sense to shift that road over 20 feet or 50 feet that's not a hard line yeah that's all consistent with our plans and so in a case where it does show you know sometimes those roads show going through somebody's house well typically we wouldn't do that you know it would it would shift over to go between houses but these are these maps are done at a very conceptual level basically to ensure that as growth happens we do have those interconnected streets that each individual subdivision isn't a pod into itself because that creates future congestion and traffic problems if you don't have that road interconnectivity i think we're just trying to address their curiosity it does appear as a bold red dashed line and it looks like a loop kind of a loop i have a lot of other projects to do first i'll be happy to get with you and that'd be great provide them more information all right with that may i have a motion

[1:20:05] for approval approve some move by tommy seconded by karen and larry it's a dual second yes meaning second two yeah public comment scene none we'll take a vote all in favor say aye aye with none opposed motion passes 7-0 we will now move into close session executive session under the provision of government code title v 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 lots 7 8 9 and 10 block 18 in the san angelo edition and b section 551.071 consultation with attorney regarding proposed agreement with all tax irrigation and supply llc for park amenities we will be adjourned at 9 51 a.m 39 a.m on august the 16th and this meeting is called back in order in the closed session there are no announcements to be made following that executive session so we will move on to announcements and consideration of future agenda items if there are any scene none i'll ask for a motion for a dismissal adjournment so move by tommy seconded by lucy any public comment seeing none we'll take a vote all in favor of adjourning say aye meeting is adjourned at 10 40 a.m on august the 16th

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=hDpAEgNTS2M