San Angelo City Council April 16, 2013

[0:00:01] okay let me call the meeting to order and uh and ask that we begin in prayer this morning uh we're joined today by pastor stephen wilhoit and he's with the assembly of god word of life church and sir please lead us in prayer feet up by your heads in a word of prayer but we thank you for this day it's the day that you have made we rejoice we're glad in it but our hearts are heavy this morning as the news coming from boston and the senseless tragedy yesterday is beginning to unfold and has for several hours we pray for that city the people of that city those who have lost life we pray for their families who are grieving pray that you would comfort them as only you can we pray for those who are suffering traumatic injuries who are facing surgery and rehab and all those things that you'd be with them that you'd give the people all the people that city who are no doubt shaken you would give them your peace that surpasses understanding that they would find joy and strength in you where only that can come from and so we pray for that city today we pray for our city as well that you would guide this day the business at hand that all the things that are going to be brought up all the topics and issues to be discussed and weighed that this council would have your mind the mind of christ that they would do justly love mercy and walk humbly before you that they would have the best interest of the citizens of san angelo in their hearts as they weigh these topics at hand that you would have your way in this place today prepare these things in jesus name amen i'm joined today by brittany taylor she's a sixth grader at the texas leadership charter academy and she's going to help us with the i pledge pledges to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all

[0:02:08] honor the texas flag i pledge allegiance to the texas one state under god she loves the limelight do you see that she's like actually i'll tell you that it's always fun because you you know you're interacting with these young folks and and in her case she led both pledges so there's there's some some good trait going on there that's good stuff okay we have a proclamation this morning for the west texas genealogy appreciation day and i'm to be joined by susan ball good morning how are you okay you've got all the instructions you're ready to go let's read a proclamation whereas here brian whereas in an atmosphere of intense interest in american history and genealogy that preceded the bicentennial of the american revolution a group of like-minded genealogists gathered in june 1972 to form a genealogy society in san angelo and whereas the san angelo genealogical and historical society seeks to raise the standards of genealogical and historical research through educational programs and workshops publications of genealogical and historical data and preservation of records and whereas the san angelo genealogical and historical society has grown to over 100 180 members has published 40 volumes of a journal containing over 8 600 pages of articles contributed by over 250 people and has published 14 books on local records and whereas the san angelo genealogical and historical society has donated tens of thousands of dollars in materials to the genealogy library of the west texas collection and continues to assist

[0:04:10] concho valley genealogists and historians in discovering their past now therefore i alvin new mayor of the city of san angelo texas on behalf of the city council do hereby proclaim april the 26 2013 as west texas genealogy appreciation day thank you so very much i want to thank mayor avenue and the city council for this proclamation for honoring our society we're very proud of what we've accomplished and we're uh we're anxious to continue in helping people in the concho valley preserve concho valley history preserve san angelo history and preserve their own personal history thank you so very much this is public comment the council takes public comment on all items on the regular agenda public input on a regular agenda item will be taken at its appropriate discussion public input on an item not on the agenda or consent agenda may be identified and requested for consideration by the council at this time the council may request an item to be placed on a future agenda or for a consent agenda item to be moved to the regular agenda for public comment so let me start this one this morning the item number seven is uh related to a lease

[0:06:13] and i'd like to frankly i'd like to table it i don't even want to talk about it today because it's overrunning our headlights we've we've for two council meetings talked about the fact that we have a housing group that would do some work and then they would get with us and then we would decide what we're gonna do on rvs and rv parks and those kinds of things and this this particular lease is related to a a possible future rv park so it seems like to me that talking about the lease is overrunning the headlights of the work being done so may i make a motion tablet so okay so we have a motion and a second to table this and we'll get to it when it's a more appropriate time to be talking about it and ask staff not to execute and wait until we can kind of see where we're headed okay and mayor let me just say that i would have been asking the same thing on your headlights comment why it's on consent it's beyond me you know we we haven't even gone there yet okay as far as the ordinance goes so i'm totally with you on that okay let me let me uh let's see i think i've got a motion in a second let me take a vote on item seven and tabling it to to be brought back when it's more appropriate and there's more guidelines okay so call for that vote all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay item number seven is off the agenda and we'll we'll reconsider at a future time and get it into the discussion area all right is there any other items that you'd like to move uh from consent to connect make sure that we're clear that that item won't be brought back until corresponding item to the related property will come back correct that's what i'm hoping okay sir all right throw those hands up public comment i guess i'll get to public comment for sure okay is there any other consent agenda item or anything that the council would like to move or anything like that okay uh and so at this point then let me open it up to public comment somebody wait

[0:08:19] come on up you just make your way to the mic and and let us know what you're thinking how are you mary sager boster 23 76 river valley lane i have a horse barn there just my question is they're doing a lot of work there already clearing and and the fence posts are in the close to the road with the barbed wire on the road i'm afraid somebody's gonna drive off the road at dark to pull off for a reason so i'm just con what can we if they're continuing work we have nothing to do no uh it's my read that if they were doing if they're doing some things on the city-owned property so as as you know some of it's privately owned property some of it's city-owned property so the stuff on the city owned property it would be inappropriate for them to do anything on that because they don't have a lease okay and so they're operating off of the the lease of the person they bought property from but but on the property that's private property from uh foster road going back to the city property there are certain things they can do with no permit with no uh permissions with no those kinds of things i i believe that the clearing of the land would fall under that so i don't think there's any purview for the city council on the privately owned portion of that land and some of the activities that take place there now on the other hand there is definite council interest in how do we want to coordinate and where do we want to allow and all of those kinds of things and how long do we want to let people stay in and all the things that would relate to an rv park and so the word what we're saying here now is let's not talk about this item as it relates to the lease because why would we provide a lease and send further confusion about the idea that we're saying sure go ahead until we know what the decisions are going to be

[0:10:23] related to the bigger picture and the bigger issue so i don't think there's anything to be done to say you can't do things on your own private land okay others okay let's move forward then with i do have a couple of comments to make oh thanks i appreciate you and and somebody help me because i'll forget with the with a consent agenda motion or something when it comes to i'll make a motion to it okay all right i have a motion in a second to approve the consent agenda as presented with the obvious tabling of item number seven and uh and then mr silva's your comments i just wanted to strongly suggest that you know a lot of the times citizens bring issues to us and we don't discuss them until the very end of the meeting sometimes when we talk about future agenda items so i would suggest that maybe we bring the future agenda items up to this portion of our meeting that's just an idea okay so they the folks out there know that we're listening to their concerns their issues their problems but a couple of them that i do have is i know that a lot of times we go out there and repair roads and we dig trenches and i see it time and time again in my district on avenue b and irving and if shane is listening out there i assume we contra had a contractor go out there and dig a trench and they they they covered back up and you've got collegiate all over the place so my suggestion their suggestion would be if we could at least because there's a lot of rocks you know and and folks are having a hard enough time traveling on some of our streets anyway you know avenue any street bell street for example i hear that one all the time but if we could at least come back and do some black top instead of just letting it sit there i imagine it has to sit there for a certain length of time i don't know but anyway that was one the other one i've got i did get an email from a miss jessica who wants us to revisit do we or do we not have a noise ordinance we seem to have these vehicles all over town with their uh systems just blaring and

[0:12:25] booming and you know windows shattering no it's not shattering but just uh you know just vibrating and so the noise ordinance is it doesn't have any teeth because it seems to have you know gone by the west wayside and the third thing that i have and again these are citizens that bring us they want to know and update on the men have where are we what have we done what part have we funded or have we not funded so we could just touch on those three those are the the kind of comments that are coming to me so uh that that's all i have thank you so much okay um i think i don't i don't think we have to move future agenda items to now for you to be able to say and i'm going to let miss bolling weigh in if i do this wrong but for you to say here are some things on my mind and i intend to ask for them to be put on the future on a future agenda at the appropriate time today so i don't think there'd be anything you want to leave it at the tail and that's fine yeah so we'd leave it at the tail end but you would be able to say now i intend to put this on a future agenda okay at the appropriate time and i intend on bringing those up so okay so it gives you the time to give you the time to say it twice okay okay um let me weigh in on this also sure because i got a complaint yesterday about trucks using jake brakes on 67 coming into the stripes right there on bell street so that falls in with the noise ordinance i'm getting complaints about that as well so when we're looking at it that needs to be discussed as well okay so this is a noise ordinance particularly related to vehicles of one sort or another okay so for the future agenda item we'll try to remember to bring that up okay okay other items or other just other comments okay all right at this point then let me call for the vote on the consent agenda all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed

[0:14:27] okay let me ask then that we move forward with item number 17 on the regular agenda this is the discussion and consideration of the possibility of issuing rebates of water fees and any connection or any action related there too okay good morning marion council thank you hey what's the deal here you you don't look like a morgan yeah you there's no interim there's a lot of a lot of problems with this this morning so how are you doing there mr dang uh good uh yeah i was geared up for the presentation not for this part of the grilling good morning i'm michael day assistant city manager at cfo filling in for morgan today who's away at training we have as part of our code of ordinances a requirement to consider the financial condition of the water operating fund twice a year april is one of those months november is the other the objective of the consideration is to determine whether a rebate of previously charged water fees that have been collected is warranted this was inserted into the code of ordinances a few years back when we implemented a water rate increase and concern that we provide a mechanism for rebating these fees if we were overestimating the need existed and so this wording was added to the ordinance at that time so according to the ordinance during the months of april and november of each year city council shall review the financial condition

[0:16:28] further on down you'll see uh if a rebate is determined to be appropriate such rebates shall be accomplished in may and december or soon thereafter is practical the amounts and methodology for providing a rebate shall be termed by by city council the key there is that if council decides that there is an amount that should be rebated you have uh the latitude to determine how and how much since inception councils used this action twice at one point we uh granted actual rebates in the form of changing the base fees to zero across all accounts in in other words in instead of sending checks out we simply temporarily change the water rates suspended the base fees and i believe we did that for two months at that time and then in another occurrence we determined that there was excess and at that point council was very much concerned about capital spending and infrastructure needs and they transferred that money into a capital account to be spent on projects to improve the condition of the pipes in the ground this year so far at or this year as of the end of march our liquid fund balance is one hundred and twenty two thousand dollars our 75-day gold fund balance is 5.2 million dollars and so obviously with those numbers staff recommends no action now in the way of further information our beginning of the year fund balance was considerably higher than that but this first six months of the year covers winter and we just we don't sell as much water as we would like in winter and so we have operating losses during this time of the year and so those operating losses draw that fund balance down and from a financial management

[0:18:30] standpoint we hope to sell lots of water in the summer to recoup those losses and end up in a net positive position so in general usually in april absent some anomaly we will probably not be in a situation we'll be where we will be granting re granting rebates in april the likely time frame would be in november time frame when we've gotten through the summer sowed lots of water and have had a big profit hopefully okay but staff recommendation at this point is no action okay questions for the presenter mr morrison i do have a comment in the last couple of months we have found a hundred and one thousand dollars in our water department to buy furniture just last meeting we found fifteen thousand dollars in our water department to install automatic phones and then we found another fifteen thousand in our water department to to bring in software for automatically automated meters so that people would be able to access this instead of just calling the water department it seems that every time we want some candy and fluff in the water department there's always money but yet every dime in that water department comes from one place and that is from the meter holders in this city but yet every time we discuss this there's never a cent to give back to the people that pay it we've got all sorts of money for our for our toys but we never have any money to refund back to the people that pay it we need an investigation in this water department an external investigation and we need it now to determine where this money is going so that our citizens will know why there's always money for things we want but yet never ascent to give back to them okay to have other comments i have a quick how do we come up with how do we arrive at 75 days and the 5 million dollars how does that work well

[0:20:32] the gfoa the national organization sets a best practices recommendations and their recommendation is that in funds where you have operating needs or seasonality or other concerns that you set a goal for how much you set aside in a reserve some call it a rainy day fund some call it an operating reserve the key is how much excess do you retain so that you can survive or ride out bad either known bad times like seasonality we are in a highly seasonal operation in this case or you have them set aside for some unknown event a weather event or some other emergency they typically express that in number of days of operating expenses in other words if you had no income for 90 days would your fund balance provide you with enough cash so that you could continue to operate until you begin generating income again so when we talk about a number of days of fund balance what we're talking about is a number of days we can survive with zero income and still pay the operating expenses for that operation and so in this case for the city of san angelo our current we've passed a resolution and we've set a goal for certain funds of 75 days it's not a it's not a requirement it doesn't handcuff counsel we've just expressed that we have a goal for 75 days and so what that means is our goal is to accumulate a fund balance which would allow us to operate for 75 days with no income so that's what the 75 days is about the way you compute that is take your total budget for the year divide it by 365 and multiply it times 75. in this case

[0:22:36] that equation gives you the result of 5.2 million in change so 5.2 million in change is what it takes to operate approximately what it takes to operate that operating fund the water operating fund for 75 days and the question is you compare that goal of 5.2 million to what you actually have set aside in the liquid reserves and in this case it's 122 000 and that's actually troubling that the actual is so low compared to your goal in this case at this time of year that is because we've suffered as we regularly do net losses through the first months of the year and that is because we don't sell as much water as it takes to operate the fund in the winter months we've just come through six months of winter fall and winter we don't sell as much water as we do in the summer so we have losses in the winter which we hope to make up with profits in the summer and if we make up that profit i mean that's just less water we're going to have but and and i assume that 75 day enough slept since the last one but that that is set in stone we don't move that the number of days around no but we can that is it is just a goal at this point and when i said it does not handcuff counsel if we were close let's say we had 70 days worth and we were very close council might decide hey we've got some excess we don't need 75 days we you know or council might say 75 is not enough really the standard is 90 days and we've set 75 as an interim goal to try to move us in the right direction and be thinking about having reserves on hand in other words this the top number here this estimated fund balance has frequently been negative at this time of year because of the seasonality of sales

[0:24:40] and back when we had that major pipeline burst several years back we had we tapped into those reserves to to execute emergency repairs so that we could get people back up and running on water so good questions about fund balance they're valid questions in this fund and other funds and i think within a few months we'll have be having a discussion about fund balance and it's important fund balance allows you to handle unexpected expenditures or unexpected revenue losses you know you can't forecast it's just like at home you can't forecast everything that's going to happen every bill that comes in the mail and so having that fund balance is is good sound management i'm good okay thank you comment yes sir mr alexander i like to present all the information to the citizens i don't like partial information being presented and just leaving it and then people and they don't understand how things are working because only partial was given uh we did have billing problems and and there were people upset about it and they were those those did happen and they're not happening as much anymore thank goodness but we did a couple of things to improve customer service number one we made your water usage accessible to you online something like 15 thousand dollars and and that's so i mean that is improving customer service and improving your access to your bill and we didn't have to pay that company fourteen thousand we could have provided our own servers and paid twenty thousand the thing is somebody has to have servers we decided to allow them to do it we paid them for it that's that's our choice and we did it but we're freeing up time for customer service people to pay attention to the people in the office instead of taking phone calls and more people coming in complaining you now can get your own information same thing with the voice system 35 000

[0:26:44] but you can call and find out about your water bill without ever talking to a customer service agent so that they have more time to deal with the people they're dealing with and they can provide better customer service that's what we wanted better customer service and so we made moves that will improve that uh so the other thing is we're always wanting to give water somebody some people on the council want to give water rebates all the time some of us are going no that's not enough water not enough not enough money in our account we need to be conservative and that's why 122 000 is not very much had we given a water rebate back in october last year or november we'd be in trouble right now and that's why we're very conservative about that and so i just wanted to raise those concerns and those awarenesses out there that there's another side to that story and we may i think the council make good decisions and i think your customer service will improve which is what we are supposed to do is help them out give them the tools so they can do their job in the water department i think we did okay i'm looking for a motion uh or i'm looking for this item to be considered con discussion and for us to move on okay i think it's an action no no no no no it's consideration of okay i think we're considering this a discussion item we appreciate the presentation and i'm going to move us to item number 18. thank you this is the discussion and update on current water supply and anti-action and connection there too there's a presentation by the water utilities director ricky nixon good morning council city manager mayor i just wanted to take a few minutes this morning kind of update you on where we're at and what we feel unfortunately if we don't get any runoff of where we're going to be here very shortly as i've been watching the our local supplies for water in march we were like 19 30 19.3 months of available supply back on april the 2nd i checked again

[0:28:49] and we're at like 18.6 months i checked yesterday just to get some current information for today and we're at 18.2 months of supply as of yesterday from april the 2nd april 15th we had a reduction in our local supplies of about 560 acre feet and right now we're about 1300 acre feet from going into drought level two and i just wanted you all to be aware of that that is it is probably unless something significant changes on the first meeting in may we're going to bring that resolution to go into drought level two i think it's we may get there before that but a team point as of yesterday so i just wanted you all to be aware of that and know what's coming uh i don't want anybody to be surprised i like to keep everybody informed on what's going on so i just wanted to bring that to y'all if y'all have any question or anything i'll be glad to try to answer any but i think next meeting we're going to be there okay questions for him is it is it inappropriate to ask him what he's doing to extend the water supply is he going to pump the water from the south pole earlier we started that we've got the pump set up started pumping some yesterday we still have one pump to get online so that process has started as of yesterday okay now the answer that is no it's not inappropriate because it's a current water supply discussion okay good anything that you want to ask related to what are you doing for our water supply and currently you're right on top okay well i appreciate you doing that that's going to save us some water yeah we don't have uh try to hold nasworthy kind of where it is right now we're still down a little bit hoping for some rains and having some some room for storage uh we got less than three feet of water in twin buttes in the north pool that we can pass through the gates to try to hold nads worthy so i wanted to get ahead of that curve this year so

[0:30:52] we didn't want to work okay if we open the gates at twin butte all the way open what's the flow per day acre feet per day into nasworthy do you know that at the current level no you know any of the flow have you got concerned but well i'm trying to see if we can hold naz worthy when do we when do we it becomes impossible to hold that now it's worth it about one and a half feet i think some things you know some things you know but i'm going to remind you that you know it's going to have to do with head pressure and things like that so right so that's why he's trying to three feet over he's got to be ahead of the game trying to get whatever flow he can uh to save having to take water out and as worthy as we did last year if we had 10 feet and more pressure you'd be moving i don't want to just open and dump and feel nasworthy up to our normal that would pull over a foot out of twin buttes just to bring it that's where you're up that eight inches a little over to get it back at 1871.2 where we normally hold it so i'm trying to just hold what i got until i get some water moved and that way i can try for as long as possible to maintain what we have there now okay question other questions or comments i've got a quick one mr silvas are we whenever we have a major water break or as in the case the last time that i called you about that south chadburn yes sir are we able to measure how much water we lost not really it would we don't have any meters or anything like that there's no i mean there's a guesstimation i guess you would i that thing ran all day and i just wondered how many well it was off and on you know pumping out the hole and trying to keep the hole keeping blues in the street there's a valve that didn't hold we had issues with that we worked it worked it worked we finally broke it completely and had to cut it out we did that two o'clock in the morning there's no way to measure that no not really yeah uh also well said there are other considerations in other words if you wash out everything under the street

[0:32:55] than the the the street issue has become bigger right than fixing the water main um okay one one other thing and now this is here or there except for i certainly have lived through this it doesn't take much of a leak to look like a hell of a lot of water and uh you know and a hell of a lot of water looks like a lake yeah i mean i'm you know you uh i think a long time ago we were talking about pouring a gallon of water on the ground and watching to see how far it goes when we're in two gallons 75 feet but a gallon of water looks like right a lot more anyway so i'll just say you know please we're watching it you know when these folks are out there trying to fix the system please understand some water looks like a lot of water so okay i'm going to move us on then to item number 19. this is a discussion of late fees associated with delinquent delinquent water utility statements and sir you're back on get you get you some more talking points i guess you'll be going until about 2 30. i think two will be all right all right um okay i'll i'll just i'll just start i don't know where we're gonna wind up but there is a 25 light feet on utility account for for those that are late that's established by council uh minutes i found it back in 2009 uh when this was implemented back then we sent out late notices and there's some other things that they did away with and just made it 28 days after the billing date the account is due and non-payment after that results in a 25 lakh fee if the water is cut off there's also a reconnect fee of thirty dollars uh in your council memo i put some approximate revenue levels that that generates 2011 2012. it was almost a million and a half

[0:34:58] dollars and so far through this year we're about 711 000. the reconnect fees in 2011 2012 was a little over 75 000 and we're nearly at 20 000 right now so that's about all the information i have if okay questions for the gentleman yeah i got a question mr hirschfeld what's generally what is the uh the time frame and this may be a guess as far as when you know from you've got from 28 days from the billing date that's the date that it's okay i'm recorded here's the reading on that date we'll move on from the time that i get the bill seven days eight days i mean how the real question is how quick does the bill go out after the billing date is it within three to five days i think it's within a couple of days of of when it's generated so maybe four days it's yeah it's definitely it should have in hand okay all right so that still leaves you take out the that still leaves a pretty significant amount of time right to hold the bill and get it paid right okay i have mr silvas and then i think i have mr alexander okay and then mr morris i want clarification because i've heard two two stories if my for example if my bill is due on the 15th okay and i go to pay it on the 15th at 301 am i assess the late charge we we prefer to have all of the money in by three o'clock that day because we have to make deposits and that money is picked up every day and gotten out of the office and made the deposits every day at 301 i'm not going to hold you to 25 late fee okay do i have 28 days from the 15th or am i late the very next day or the very next minute after three i mean that that late charge doesn't uh apply right away does it not

[0:37:01] after the 28 days from the billing date after the okay but not one day or one minute after three because i'm hearing both sides i hear well at you know i had a lady calling me and it gets back to the discussion earlier uh that paul was talking about she was trying to pay with a credit card and because she couldn't get through she wound up after the three o'clock deal she called me said hey i'm trying to pay i can't get through on the line i said okay we can work those issues out there's not things that we can't resolve on deals like this i'm not gonna okay well it was 3 15. you go owe me 25 not going to do that but we have a 28 day window right after the due date and and i've been told the opposite not after the due date after the billing date the billing date you have 28 days to pay the bill what is not 28 days so what mystery after the due date it's due 28 days after the billing date so walk him back through mr hirschfeld i don't have a copy of a bill here with me it'll have a date what my billing date would be versus my due date how many number of days is in between mr dixon i don't think it matters i think generally you can go through and say if your billing date were the 20th the bill should be in your hand by the 23rd or 24th yes sir okay mr silvas do you have 24 days from there so you'd have around 23 more weeks or three weeks and a little bit for your duty for your due date so you got about typically you're going to have three weeks or just more than three weeks to pay your water bill is what he's saying okay yeah and the reason i even brought this up the last time and i guess it's here again is because we had looked michael had different options a a base fee plus a percentage and did we ever go there did we ever uh play around with discuss you know kick around any ideas on that that's the reason and i don't see it on here i just see what's happened what's coming in but we had

[0:39:03] we had talked about different options those those options still exist but they're not yet we're not talking about them and they're not here well that's not what my understanding this agenda item was to talk about what is being done right it's just a all i had information for it was discussion items of late fees so yeah i had asked because we talked about options the last time that's what i even asked for it to be brought up to the table where we left last time was council wanted to know what kind of balance generates the late fee in other words is the late fee functionally 10 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent of what balance is due in our system if there is a balanced due on that 29th day of 30 or more a late fee is accrued of over 30 a late fee is accrued so there is not a transaction which stimulates the late fee it is simply the existence of a balance whether or not any payment was made there's not a way to pull that data in other words we don't store daily daily balances for all accounts in a file somewhere where we can go mine that data and say that for all accounts assess the late fee this was the balance which existed when that late fee was generated and so there's not an easy way for us to do that in mass or across all accounts we can do it on an individual basis and we could do it across all accounts by manually looking up the transaction date for a late fee and then going into that account and looking at what the balance was on the date the late fee was generated so the question that council had when we left was what balance generated this 25 late fee on a across the board basis we can't tell you what that is because there's not there's not an easy way to do that

[0:41:07] we can't just pull the data we'd have to manually go pull each account okay from my perspective i'm i don't i i don't want us to make it uh some kind of fraction this kind of base fee and this much percent or any of those kinds of things if i write a check and it's a an overdraft uh if i write a check for seven dollars at an establishment or i write a check for 312 dollars my my assessment for writing that overdraft check from that business is going to be the same and from my bank is going to be the same so from my perspective i don't think we should be doing that i think the only thing that could come into play is is 25 the right amount and and part of that is to try to get people to pay their bill in other words it's you know it's to say you've got you've got a bill you have three weeks to get it paid we need you to pay it so we can afford to keep paying to upgrade and repair and and so forth so from my perspective i'd rather be talking about is that the right amount but not complicating the process i see it very similarly personally to you know if you write a hot check you you you pay fees and if you don't pay your water bill you pay fees and and so i think the discussion should be about what is the credible and correct amount to get the behavior we want uh more than trying to complicate it with how we do it or those kinds of things so that that would be my input to your question and i guess as long as we're talking about it you know because some folks had asked for it to be talked about and i think michael two weeks ago you reminded me hey do we want to bring this back up again and i i did throw in the word yeah we talked about options but i i see what you're coming from the last thing we're going to do is is complicate the process but if we're uh and of course i don't i don't guess i i pay my bills but on time you know i don't even think twice but if we've got three weeks or two weeks or something

[0:43:11] breathing room in between then i'm okay with uh i understand those folks that are on low income or social security or whatever then i feel for them but if you're telling me that uh there's 28 days or however many days from the billing date then i'm okay with it you know i think that's plenty of time for folks to pay again there's those folks out there that struggle and i feel for them but i guess that's good enough room for them to come in and pay and again even those that um have are paying you mentioned as far as low income and so forth a lot of times those bills are going to be a lot less you know so if you're at 29 it won't trigger a late charge anyway until let's say the following month if you still have accumulated the balance and so forth then you start worrying about the the late fee there so again when michael mentioned a while ago once you hit the 30 threshold or above that's when the late fees do kick in so there is a an allowance there for those individuals that are probably low income that aren't paying as much on the water bill and they're not going to have that late fee assessed right away ricky do we see bills that low under 30. i mean are they even drinking water i really can't answer that johnny you know that's a good question is it the total bill or is it the balance and the answer is it's the balance so whether your bill was under 30 or not if you pay an amount which leaves you owing less than 30 then you won't have the late fee so good question so a 45 bill i can't afford 45 dollars but i can't afford 16 dollars and so now no late fee because i got it to 29. that's what you're saying and actually the water customer service folks have been good about trying to work things out with customers okay mr alexander you know we're missing charlotte farmer today she's got a really good memory and she usually jumps in and straightens up everything so i'll just play charlotte farmer here

[0:45:12] um we did discuss this and i know that when y'all showed the numbers last time that i was able to come up with this same figure pretty close that there there's 59 almost 60 000 late fees assessed last year which is 1.7 late fees per customer at 35 000 customers and so i was kind of amazed that that that number was there that's a lot of late fees almost um it's about 16 of us have a late fee every month and that's a lot so what we were trying to do what mr silvas was trying to do is find a way and we went into these numbers where the people who owe a lot of money pay because that's where we need our money and so if they owe a lot of money and they don't pay us uh we have these little video balances of 120 somewhat thousand dollars in our bank account that's not we need that money you see so we're trying to think of a way to get them to pay and we were looking at a percentage basis he said base plus percentage you know this time but i'm not sure that's what we said last time what i was looking for last time is a number that got us back to 1.5 million dollars what percentage would we have to charge on our late fee to get there and i was shooting in the dark trying to figure out what it would be and needing that information back here today so if you came back here today and said if we charge six percent late fee so you a thousand dollars you owe sixty percent of a six percent of a thousand dollars that's a sixty dollar late fee correct okay that's going to get you moving whereas a 25 late fee yeah you know maybe not so much it probably needs to be more than six percent yeah so a straight fee again shouldn't be too complicated i'm listening trying to make sure that whatever gets talked about is fairly straightforward for somebody to understand and for somebody to implement so but six a per a flat percent would should be pretty easy to implement

[0:47:15] should be pretty easy for the consumer to understand yeah it may need to be around ten percent now i'm starting to think about this you know a hundred dollars ten percent is ten dollars that's not maybe not enough to get you paid maybe there's a base fee no less than 20 no less than 15 but it's gonna be whichever one is greater well again something like that more complicated but well but again 50 bucks at 10 is a five dollar late fee right okay so i mean your graduate you know just and so again it does take all those things into account lower income person exactly and so forth but so we are in the dark up here with a percentage we don't know we don't have a clue what percentage to charge and so that's what i wanted to come back to now here's what i would ask you guys to do though if you're you know if you're seriously interested in this and if mr silvas is seriously interested in this take it take it off the council and inform two people not a not a quorum go go do some work and uh see what you come up with as some ideas then come back to council with some things is interested but you see what i'm saying instead of instead of us instead of us doing that kind of committee work here why don't you guys think through you know how to win back to you guys okay so that makes more sense to me and and then maybe you'll also get what you want and mr sells will be on the council next month so i mean for sure anyway i just suggest that maybe you know anything else mr alexander mr morrison i have fought this 25 penalty this late fee three times that i can think of since i've been on council this 25 lake fee is very very punitive i pay a minimum water fee for our church each month and it's 39 a 25 late fee on a 39 bill is about a 70 penalty that is usury that is forbidden

[0:49:18] by every by every law anywhere that is a very punitive that is a very damaging amount we need to put a percentage on this thing a 10 would be fine if an individual owes a 200 bill and it it cost him 25 dollars that's no big deal if a man owes a 35 bill and we hit him with the 25 penalty we've almost doubled his bill that's wrong that is very wrong so we need to go to a percentage 10 percent would be fine for me let people know that there is a charge if they're late but there's no reason trying to destroy someone that is already behind in their bills if they owe 40 now they owe 65 and that we're not doing anyone any good we're not doing our city and we're certainly not doing our citizens that the water department belongs to this 25 feet is punitive that is wrong and it needs to go to a percentage okay mr hirschfeld i guess i don't look at this as a punitive thing i look at this as simply an incentive to try to encourage people to pay the bills when they look at the time frame that when i looked at some of the bills that i've got atmos energy uh reliant energy that's my electorate when you look at you know telephone whatever that may be the time frame that the city allows between that's why i was asking this and and i've looked at mine particularly when you look at that from the from the time that i actually received the bill to when it's due is i've found almost double particularly double what atmos energy is i don't know who else has gas out there but atmos energy gives you about two days to pay your bill that's what i've seen so and i'm not complaining to atmos that's just that i'm just telling you that's what i've noticed on that so i i think what the city has the time frame that we're allowing people is fair and reasonable it's you know we've got to collect the bills we've got to get paid so we can perform the services that we have out

[0:51:22] there so okay other comments one more comment question yes uh looking at the the fund balance at five million dollars if we went to a 10 percent i mean what would some of these numbers look like uh on the late fees generated we had a ten percent on there's your committee work i mean there's your committee work i mean that's what you need and i guess my question is would we be hurting ourselves as far as us having a reserve a backup you know the well again see there's your committee work you guys can do that you can say what if it was 10 what if it was 15 what if it was eight what if i mean you can do that and and they can do the work for you and it can that's they're going to need you at the table so mr financial officer be glad to be glad to be a part of that okay i'm good with that 10 sounds good i mean that's just a starting point i like the idea of studying spreadsheets or in a subcommittee i like that okay uh the only thing there is one thing that was said that i you know i always think we have to clarify things that i don't obviously it's not illegal uh and it's not useless uh or we wouldn't be doing it and uh as i said earlier if i write a seven dollar check and it's overdraft i'm going to get hit with 25 or 30 bucks from the from the person i wrote it to and i'm gonna get hit again from my bank and so that would be a huge percentage and that's not useless or illegal so now whether it's a good or bad idea or bad policy is a different thing but it's certainly not illegal let's move on to the public means yes my name is jim turner one of the things that i haven't heard here is we need to take and look at if there are some policies that the city has in place that are actually increasing the number of late fees that are charged flexibility and adjusting

[0:53:26] the date of billing and so on are those actually impacting the late fees because the bill is arriving right after somebody on a monthly paycheck with a fixed fee and so on can pay it the other thing is what is the actual cost of processing a late fee and a reconnect charge and are we is the late b not only getting to people's attention but is it actually paying for the work that must be done in order to take and reconnect the water and process the late bee and so on because there are expenses there and if we it's not a thing where late fees are free on the processing side either there are things that have to happen there what is the expense involved with reconnect fees and late fees that needs to be part of the equation also because that will affect uh how it impacts upon balance on the one hand yeah we're making money off late fees but on the other hand we have expenses involved with lake fees and reconnect fees and sending crews out or whatever it is that we have to do and that part i don't see in this part of this presentation and for complete decision making needs to be thank you yeah very good so i'm so on a subcommittee basis i hope you're you heard that other public input come on up i'm new at this my name is jamie lee tabor and i'm a resident here in in town but i mean i live in an apartment complex so it's almost paid but i know some people have been through some situations who have houses and you know dwayne morrison's been on an investigation going and everything and everybody seems to ignore that i know you want a committee you know and that's a good idea to get some people so all you don't have to mess with that you know and everything uh but i do know a lady who

[0:55:30] rides on concho valley transit i can't state her name right now but she works for council governments contra valley council of governments and um her her little bitty house that she has it's over in the 76903 zip code but uh this is what happened to her you know she everything was going along fine and her living in everything and her son had to move out of his house in great creek and come move into her house during that process san angelo texas cut off her water cut off her electricity cut off her phone because somebody let somebody else know and even the postal service that she was moving out she was not moving out she had no intention of ever moving out but nobody contacted this lady you know about this situation nobody consulted with her one iota she tried so many times to get in touch with the postal service to see why her mail has been cut off and she never could until i gave her a guy's phone number and who to call because i've dealt with that kind of crap can you say crap i've dealt with that kind of crap and i know how hard it is to get through to talk to anybody and um and you know and then they charged her the reconnect fee they charged her other stuff and they had no right to cut it off in the first place her her son had to move in with her to help her make ends meet and things like that go on and she's like me i'm low income and and i know you want all the online stuff all the time but i don't have a computer at home mister i can't afford it if i want to use a computer i have to go up to tom greene county library to do that i mean i'm thinking about moving down the apartment that i'm in and trying to get in a duplex again

[0:57:33] because of all the crap that goes on where i live you know and there's things like that happening all over for low-income people people working for contra valley council of governments you know and they don't have a computer at home they have our service to be able to help you they're overloaded now they're freed up they can help you they'll give you better better customer service that helps everybody there's only a couple of things i want you to clarify okay okay i mean obviously the city can't turn off a phone and obviously the city can't turn off cable television or obviously the city can't turn off the electricity so what did you mean when you said san angelo in other words the city is in control of water but not several of those other things you said but that hap but that happened to this lady who worked at you know she works at concert valley council of governments for senior citizens this happened to her i know it did i just i'm just trying to make sure that you're clear the city doesn't doesn't say or mr dixon in the water department doesn't turn off the electricity so i mean something happened it sounds like the gentleman on pure conjecture it sounds like the gentleman in grape creek put her address on his move out or something means something happened that caused the ball to start rolling i don't know what that was but but i i mean i understand your concern and understand that that was you know a terrible circumstance but i don't want you to think the city turned off her electricity that's where i'm what i'm what i'm really trying to to get to i understand that you know i understand that but i just i don't have you know my own personal story because i live in an apartment complex with all buildings so you're bringing one up to show the first talk to a lot of people in this community bringing one up for to show her come to me and talk to me about steph and i don't know why but you know i was just you know i wanted you to see it from another perspective and whatnot there was one other thing that you said that i want to make sure is clear to you and to others there is an outside entity that

[0:59:35] sources that audits the water department all the dollars they receive by account and all the money that they spend by account every year okay an outside entity a a a cpa driven auditing firm so that outside investigation occurs we pay for it and it occurs annually so i want to clarify that too okay okay now they don't make sure the bill is correct though no that didn't say i didn't say that does it well yeah but no but mr alexander that's a very different thing the the allegations have to do with where does the money go where does it come from where does it go that is absolutely audited uh by the accounting firm every year not at a bill level but at the money that comes into the accounts and then the money that leaves the accounts is audited every year by an outside firm so okay okay can can i mention something real quickly i'm not trying to take up anybody else's time but on the ordinance earlier there is a noise ordinance it's 10 30 pm having to do with you know this is where in experience there this is where inexperience is getting you in a little trouble okay okay at this point we only get to talk about this item okay ma'am thank you very much for coming forward i know that it took a lot of courage and i appreciate your remarks i'm not going to cross-examine you and i thank you very much for coming forward and letting us know how you feel thank you ma'am thank you i want to add this why don't you get with this gentleman and the little lady in the little house that got their water cut off share her name and address because i'd like to find out how that got cut somebody had to have called or something happened to trigger that cut off so if you don't mind getting with mr dixon and i'd like him to get back with you you don't even know okay do you know her address but you don't know her address do you want to come up

[1:01:42] do you know her address where she lives okay okay i can probably find it okay um i think there's some confusion i know i was confused about the late fee because i considered that uh there was no uh i guess what do you call it uh uh allowance after the due date and i think the public is confused about that grace period yeah great great period yeah and i support the percentage fee and writing a hot check is illegal i know i know okay and i'd like to ask mr dixon if they're still looking into uh combating the invasive species sold around our lakes and the reservoirs okay hang on a second again delinquent water utility statements is the item at hand so we're going to have a chance for future agenda items and let's talk about the endangered species when we talk about another item okay okay well that's how i did uh mentioned the current water supply no that was a previous item i've moved us to item number 19 that was a different item we've we've closed that item out we've moved to another item so i'm just again trying to keep you on topic but you're going to have an opportunity i know you'll be here there's going to be a future agenda item section and at that point i'm very much interested in you bringing up to us and telling us let's go through the endangered endangered species stuff at the lake okay yeah okay thank you very much okay just simply saying that right now we're not allowed to talk about that let's move to you know this is just about delinquent water utility statements okay i just uh i'll just repeat that i think there's confusion about the late fee and when it's due and

[1:03:45] that there is actually no grace period after the due date i think that's confusing people i know it confused me because one time i forgot and i went in and paid two days late and they didn't charge me late fee at that time but it was on my next bill well uh mr richardson and mr turner both have made comments that the guys that will be working on this should take to heart so they can look at that and thank you i'm pretty sure mr dixon heard your question so if you'll just turn around and visit with him before it's not oh no okay not right now not right now okay thank you very much thanks mr stilvas all right outstanding anything else related to the delinquent water utility statements all right let me move this to item number 20. update and presentation on boards and commissions regarding attendance meeting quorum issues related matters and any action and connection thereto mayor i will be presenting this item i do have the staff liaisons in case you have any questions in regards to a specific board i did pull the attendance reports for all the boards and commissions what i did note that we did have some cancellations due to lack of agenda items some of them were because of a quorum and normally depending on the items at hand the board liaison would reschedule that meeting probably within the next week i did in looking at this information because of the cancellations it may not be through what we control for example construction board of appeals that board may be cancelled because maybe they don't have the items or they're working with another entity in order to get that information so we have appeared that they missed i think five meetings you know in 2012. so with that said we may even consider looking at these scheduled meetings normally it's held once a month but if we're canceling as many meetings as we have we maybe look at possibly having them every quarter

[1:05:46] or twice a year or just have it called as opposed to a schedule set meeting once per month okay if someone misses a quorum now and again that's that's probably life vacations or whatever if someone misses one one of the things that might be looked at on scheduling of the dates is how that impacts the the affected entities ability to get on this agenda so one thing you might somehow look at is what day of the month or what time of the month are these meetings being scheduled and see if there's such thing in other words for instance this month we meet on the second and we meet on the 16th and it's only a 30 day month we meet again on the second of may or third of may somewhere in there and but what i was looking for is whether or not it delays a process even if they reschedule seven to ten days later if all of a sudden they've missed the ability to be posted it has actually delayed them a month did that make sense to you yes yes okay because they didn't get here on an agenda and then two weeks later they were on an agenda so the person that's trying to move a project forward is delayed not just that extra week for the re you know for the for the meeting to take place they're delayed for a month to get on another council agenda so that's where i'm wanting you to see if there's anything there to be thought of i don't really know and then but you didn't see another follow-up question you didn't seek you know like any given group that's having trouble repeatedly getting a quorum or anything like that i did have one board in particular but it was mainly because um they had a kind of like a turnover in their board members maybe somebody moved away that appointment was not reappointed or the count you know i work closely with council as far as the board appointments if i don't have

[1:07:48] applications to present to council and that's where i'm having difficulty and i'm working very closely with our public information officer about recruiting volunteers to serve on these boards yes um i've been on uh kelly's team i've heard an article here pretty soon um that's where i'm at at this point recruitment you know i'm having difficulty recruiting individuals to serve on sports okay but so not a if there's trouble with a quorum there's some extenuating circumstance you're not finding a seven-member board you know that's not meeting or having trouble getting quorums or you're not finding that um and like i do have and it's mainly only because either that person has moved away and it just happened so i'm not asking my question well it may be a seven member board but because of people moving or different things there are only five on it it would be a problem i'm saying if there's a seven member board and there are seven members you're not having you're not seeing a group like that missing quorums correct okay thank you others that have questions on this yeah i think the key is that we want to make sure that the galvin said it right we want to make sure that the committees can be doing the business that they're supposed to be doing and if it's a citizens or a business or whatever it is that they can get the action that they need and not get held up by you know time because time is huge so we need to see what we can get done with that and make sure that's not a problem so i'm good okay others mr alex yes since since i've been a part of this council um i have uh agreed with mr turner that we need uh board and commission reviews that they they should be here maybe once every two years to where we can exchange thoughts look at their mission their vision are they on the same page as us what what role do they play what what problems they're running into just an overview and they said hey we need this tool then we can maybe change the policies to give them a

[1:09:50] tool they need we don't ever meet we don't ever talk and lack of communication uh i'm trying to think of a time when it's a good thing if we were enemies it might be a good thing but we're not we're working together we're in the same way this is regarding attendance meeting quorum issues but they may come to us and say something about that and give us the information because we don't have these other meetings we don't know there you go so there you go i plug it right in i need you to be honest how i feel all right we've kind of ignored that subject anything else no thank you outstanding thank you okay uh any other comment from council public input yes jim turner again who tried to get the warden commission review process going four years ago and one of the problems you have with a quorum is you have so many different boards and commissions out there and so few people to fill those we have to be careful there are some that are required by statute other law outside and that we have to work with but we still have never gone through the process of making sure that we have the number we need and not a lot of access we're not very good at boards and commissions and that causes an attendance problem especially when we also have limits on the fact that people can only serve on one maybe two boards some boards that's the only board they can serve on and that cuts down the pool of available people not only that are willing but actually have the time resources and everything else because it takes a lot to be on one of these boards and commissions if we're having problems with council or with quorums and with agendas and having something for them to do when they show up we really need to go back in that process and some of those need to be combined or eliminated thank you thank you

[1:11:51] mayor manny sure please starting in 2008 uh staff did review the various boards and commissions and we've combined and consolidated several boards so now we have like 17 boards that we actually oversee other than the external boards that we do have right i mean most recently was the river corridor historic commission boards combination okay any is there any other public input on the item okay this is just an update so there is no other action to be taken at this time mr valenzuela do you have items that we need to go to executive session on okay so folks at this time i'm going to take us into executive session and we will come back after that and at that point talk about these board nominations and future agenda items got to have a quorum while i read this okay at this point we move into executive session under the provision of the government code title v open government ethics subtitle a open government chapter 551 open meeting sub chapter d exceptions to the requirement that meetings be open section 551.072 to consider the purchase exchange lease or value of real property and also under item 551.087 to discuss and offer a financial or other incentive to a company or companies with it with whom the city of san angelo is conducting economic development negotiations it is currently 10 17. it's 11 39 i'll call a meeting back to order and take us out of executive session and back into regular session and we will handle follow-up and administrative issues there is no item to be handled from the executive session at this time so item number 22 is the consideration of approving board

[1:13:54] nominations we have a civic events board nominee from single member district five estela solace and uh a consideration of civil service commission nominee oh no sorry you guys i can't mix two items this is not a and b we have one can i get a motion related to that or some concerns except for approval stop second okay i got a motion from silvas a second from hirschfeld on estella solace please uh call for this vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay item number 23 consideration of civil service com service commission nomination raul lopez uh by the city manager and approved by the city council of approval by the city council motion for mr hirschfeld to approve second by mr silva's any further discussion okay call for this vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay it's time for announcements and consideration of future agenda items mr silvas did some of the ones you talked about earlier uh the avenue being irving street project uh you know what they're doing out there and and i guess i bring that up and i'm glad the gentleman brought to my attention i'd have driven by there but if we could get in the uh in the process or in the routine of maybe covering some of that up because it is kind of rough on stuff like that that could lead you all over the noise ordinance i'd like to re-visit that to make sure that we're following because i've experienced a lot of what this lady had mentioned poor vehicles driving around and they've got their music blaring and and then the third one mayor like i said uh just just a follow-up update on what's happening with the medham and uh you know anything there uh so that's all i have okay others uh i might need to say that uh the next council meeting is on may the seventh

[1:15:57] and i will not be in attendance may the seven okay maybe nor will yeah um i don't i don't like the odds on that uh what do y'all want to just for that i won't be either georgia so do you want to move this uh back a week and then move the other one back a week or what do you guys propose to do uh two weeks from now is april 30th two weeks from then is the 14th so it's what we do april 30th april 30th will that work for any issues there later i'm fine i may have an issue with a planning case they do have one on the agenda okay and that requires um public hearing and they have a public notice that stated but um that is the only thing that i can think of miss bullying about canvassing election results that's going to be the 21st i think they talked about moving that one also no just said and that can be a special meeting i don't necessarily have to have that as a regular meeting i just have to have it within a designated time the second meeting doesn't have to move anyway it could stay just where it is but it's just suggesting maybe this first one actually i know i was a i'm sorry i did cause muddied water there when i said i said maybe if you move one back you move the other one too but it was maybe but that's where you got that um do you want to go with the 30th and then go again on the 21st or whatever if if charlotte's going to be here on the 7th and kendall's not we've got the same thing then we have today so i don't see any reason well except we also don't have a city manager you have an assistant i know i don't see any reason to change okay groups groups desire april 30th two weeks from now it's good pattern

[1:18:00] i'm good with april 30th april 30th i'm game uh in western if we don't do that it was i mean may 7th april 30th april it's april 30th there's four out of four people are saying let's go april 30th so we have more people just two weeks it is two weeks from now we had the three weeks that's what i was saying i need to check with aj on that one posting um i'm not sure if she's already sent it out to be published it may be a little early but i'll need to double check with her and will she be able to get those on for not for the third more likely not they will end up postponing those right that will probably play with the april 30th see that works if not we'll just stick to the regular may 7th again we would just be minus kendall actually are we in agreement on which if i can there's two choices get everything resolved for the april 30th date just leave it as it is for may 7th what is that issue what what is that issue she has a planning case it's a zoning ordinance pd 1302 i just need to check with her because she has notification requirements i don't okay i don't want to have one on the 7th so i mean i'm not going to be here if it's going to be april 30th or may 14th so if we're going to make a quorum so let's do the 30th if it can happen and the 14th if it can't uh i don't want any more pre-election council meetings myself i wish we weren't having one on the 30th so the 30th and may 14th and then of course the canvassing will occur on the 21st with a regular meeting yesterday okay um

[1:20:04] anything else for future agenda items announcements i i have one and i don't know how this is gonna turn out or whatever but uh and this is something that guess it's been about six months ago we created the design historic review commission dissolving the historic review commission and the river corridor commission into one i think that was a solid move a good move but we expanded the district and created i believe we created problem for businesses that we spread problems created problems and more regulation for businesses that didn't need to happen we need to do we need to dissect we need to dissect that of where the river corridor should be and maybe it's a redefinition of some of those so yeah do you understand what i'm asking for well so you would be looking at maybe the when that group gets together and they're talking about a historic commission issue it's this this boundary when they're talking about something related to the river it's not the same boundary necessarily because the historic area is much larger than the river corridor and all of a sudden we're acting like the river corridor needs to be making taking action on things you can't see from the river or that kind of thing so we're saying maybe we ought to be dissecting the boundary and saying if it's a historic commission issue it's this big if it's a river corridor issue it's the boundary is this big so i think in addition to that we probably need to look and see what changes are causing issues at this point so and you know what those changes are so you can be looking at that what kind of time frame are you thinking just at the next meeting or as soon as we can work it up or well so because it's causing some issues ideally sooner is better it is it's all right this is

[1:22:06] creating problems for us a fair number of really small businesses i agree i've had a couple of those phone calls they are having difficulty with the current situation and these are small two-person one-person person businesses and that's not right okay other future agenda items or announcements mayor i believe come on up you patiently waited i'm gonna be brief okay i'm sure you'll learn um i'm i'm a citizen of san angelo jamie lee table and i'm in favor of you considering building a new police station um i'm just going to tell you what i've done i'm trying to be quick i've already called a guy named steve in mapping at the tax appraisal office i've already talked to roseanne roxanne excuse me in zoning and about a property that has been vacant for years and it is zoned as heavy commercial so you know if that's a good location i've already talked to tim vasquez i've actually been in contact with him about coming and talking about this and so i just want to let you know what i've done so far and i've been in a lot of prayer over you know for quite some time what property is it um okay you're going down houston i mean uh arden road okay out aways you know in the new overpass of houston heart some people say it's luke 306. you know do you know where jim bass north is across the ways okay back across this way is that empty uh lot now the first uh or the part closer to uh

[1:24:11] where circuit city used to be you know and all that that's by private investors so we can't touch that but the uh part all the way up to the corner of arden road you know where it kind of turns like that that is available for a new police station and are you in favor of a ground up as opposed to like renovating albertsons or renovating k-mart i didn't think about that that's a good idea what tim vasquez and i had been talking about and everything and that i've been in you know prayer about is uh if we i mean that's a great idea i didn't think about that you know i thought about another building and whatnot but uh you you know we need to consider uh you know um oh let me see probably at least my training i'm sorry for no that's okay i'm trying to make sure i know what you're advocating for and yeah yeah that that's it would support one of those others yeah i would if it's um here's how i think okay you have to consider there's 165 officers in the police station and there's single officers there's divorce officers there's officers that have spouses in the military there's officers who have families you know and and etc and you need to consider the location where it's going to be oh i don't know if i might have the right word darn it where it's going to be good for an officer to go in and come out in a fast emergency also you need to consider if the spouse is home you know while the officer's working and a child got sick and they have to rush the child to the emergency room can that officer if he can't leave his shift can he at least call his wife to see how the child is doing but you know where he can maybe go close proximity to shannon or out to community consider you know

[1:26:15] just keep in mind try and consider a place located where it's closer to a hospital convenience store a restaurant you know like a little community kind of thing so the officers won't be flat out somewhere where there's nothing in case of an emergency you know where they've got to go pick up something they've only got 15 minutes to eat you know something quick and convenient you know there's a walmart super center run and get a deli sandwich some chips and a drink and and leave again or where there's a stripes convenience store where they have you know different things like that for an officer to go in really quickly and come back out and and continue on their shift and that sort of thing i just i just really would like y'all to consider that you know to keep that in mind uh and everything and i'm a calling person uh give me a telephone and a phone book and i can find out anything for you in 15 minutes just about better of it and because uh transportation for me is on foot i walk everywhere and so i see you know where and what not might not be a good place but i'm willing to you know i'll talk to tim some more and i know he has some locations also him and some other officers have gone out and been in consideration where they would like something but if you know if the city can't do a whole new police department consider in the 76901 zip code since we have this station downtown to put a substation and then possibly another substation in a 76904 zip code because the downtown area is considered you know downtown goodfellow and now where i live i live in dunbar apartments but uh that's arlington texas and grand prairie and when you get out to heb and arden road there's dallas texas you know it's expanded hugely and it continues to grow out that way

[1:28:20] and for an officer when i lived at a another apartment complex off arden road and there was a major emergency somebody beating the crap out of somebody you know and i have to call and i'm scared to death it took them 37 minutes just to come to that phone call and by that time everybody has quit you know beating the crap out of each other and you're scared to death still you know and you've got to talk to the officer and whatnot just consider those things when looking at the location and where because if you have something else over in the one area or the 76904 area and something you know still this one downtown uh just consider it takes them a while you know and it takes them a while even the answer a 911 call when you're scared to death i mean i've had experiences where somebody's a lunatic and he's chasing me down the street and i'm trying to figure out how to you know cross the street before and i don't want him touching me you know and it for me it it takes extreme courage just to call 9-1-1 because i'm not used to doing that i'm used to just toughing it out and you know and then going on and so it you know it takes them 20 minutes sometimes even to just come to your aid and whatnot but um i just uh i'm for looking at another building that's already in existence i've actually thought of something just also keep in mind where they're at right now downtown um they're having to take up lowe's parking space half of their grocery store on the whole half of that other side i i can't tell you it was north you know but uh just keep that in mind plenty of parking and plenty of time for them to exit and enter in you know to drop off a report or you know uh that sort of thing and i thank you so much for uh letting me speak on behalf of the police department okay

[1:30:21] outstanding you did a good job other public comment or a question on it come on up announcements and future agenda items bill richardson i i think the sign ordinance has to be revisited especially for the uh businesses along the houston heart and the loop okay thank you yes sir thank you others for future items in the future future agendas and announcements anything else okay any others from council motion to adjourn exactly outstanding let's call for that vote all those in favor of adjournment please say aye aye any opposed okay we're adjourned

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=lil1WYhGJec