Infrastructure - 5-26-23 City Council Strategic Planning Workshop

[0:00:00] all right good afternoon um a couple years ago y'all Council included drainage in the top priorities with infrastructure so with that we have done a little bit of work and we have made some advancements within the drainage issues that the city of San Angelo faces um most notably if you go into the East Angelo draw along Bell Street as part of the Bell Street Improvement project we enhanced that crossing right there made it much more passable during rain events so that was number one of the year 2000 Master drainage plan so we got that one accomplished along with the Avenue P detention Basin that we spoke about earlier that is just doing phenomenal um in its results along Avenue P we've had a couple of rain events to test it and and I think it's performing absolutely great so um and currently in in progress as a college Hills drainage improvements we were graciously given the money to make those improvements along with that project and so those underground infrastructures and improvements in the roadway at the red Arroyo Crossings are are being performed right now are being put in so it's progress along that it's moving very very well really we're waiting on the manufacturers of the Box culverts is the only reason that we're taking a a little bit of time but getting that infrastructure in so I do want to make a quick note it's not on your screen here but an example of drainage improvements that are on the cusp as we continue our conversations here in just a little bit as an example is an in-house project that we did at the end of Foster Road improving that drainage we talked about it earlier councilman Hebert and I and and my assistant director were out there yesterday just seeing the effects of that and that was a completely in-house project that had a tremendous effect on on a res on a neighborhood that was feeling the Gardens of that drainage issue so completely in-house the guys

[0:02:03] did a great job there but those are the type of improvements that we're going to discuss moving forward as some options that we want to take care of with some some additional resources that we're going to be asking you guys for so uh we did as well complete the update to the master drainage plan we got that one completely wrapped up and we re-ranked 36 problem areas within the city this was important so that we could start pulling down some of those grant opportunities um here recently with the region 9 Upper Colorado uh flood planning region recently started developing some grants and there's some some opportunities there but we needed this master drainage plan updated to identify those projects and and have them in a plan to apply for those grants so we are looking forward to doing that and and hopefully pulling down some of that money to make those improvements as you see there on the screen there is however 60 million dollars in deficiencies just in those top ten CIP problem areas so it's 60 million for the top 10 and some additional money in the in the additional 26 projects remaining there major ones are in the process of because certainly the Bell Street the Avenue P and college Hills major issues those were major issues and that's the reason those weren't necessarily hitting the list on on this current mdp Master drainage plan because we we did take care of those in our recent projects so moving on to the streets update um as you all well know 80 million dollars over the course of 10 years we just issued the fourth of our 5 16 million dollar allocation so we have one more to go in that um in 2024 we'll see we'll see that issuance as an annual operating maintenance budget that we that Council gave us back in 2015 we have about three and a half million dollars for seal coating and preservation techniques that was in

[0:04:05] order to accomplish council's goal of sealcoating every street every eight years and 2023 is the final year of that eight year program and I'm very happy to say that we accomplished that goal by 2023 so I'm very proud and very thankful for you guys giving us the opportunity to make that happen by giving us the resources we needed to to do that so thank you um we also have an additional five hundred thousand dollars that was given to us at that time that we utilize for not only crack sealing ahead of that Sealcoat process but also doing a little bit more in puddle repair and small construction projects that we're able to do in-house so um we are limited on Manpower and issues so those guys worked really really hard to to make sure that they're prepping the streets and taking care of what they can do that doesn't constitute a major reconstruction or something that's beyond what are what we're allowed to do in-house right now so and then a couple years ago or last year actually Council y'all also gave us that .006 portion of the property tax rate to do some additional Street Maintenance projects that Nets us about 340 to 400 000 a year so we did not spend any of that money last year we're kind of banking it for uh to make a good bang for your buck project hopefully try to score some of that for a matching fund on a grant or something like that to maximize those dollars so right now we have about seven hundred and twelve thousand dollars at the anticipated end-of-year funded fund balance for this year we went over a whole bunch of these or Shane did earlier in the CIP project so I'm not going to overburden you with those again I'm again just Southwest Boulevard is still active and college Hills Boulevard is active for us coming we have Howard Street it's about to kick off we got the bids received on that they were a little higher than what we had budgeted but not as high as what we were necessarily anticipating in today's

[0:06:08] environment so we will be able to take care of Howard Street Jackson Street is coming up that will be starting this year as well and then Edmond Glenn on 29th Street is the next project that you're going to be seeing along with Christopher or chadburn street I'm sorry from the 7th Street all the way to 43rd and hopefully encompassing that s-curve if we can get textile coordination on that on that little piece of property there So when you say it's in design it's funded but it's still in design state so what what funded in InDesign means is we actually have construction dollars earmarked for those projects unfunded means we want it we we're working on design or it's or the design is complete but we just don't have the construction money necessarily right now to do it so it's sitting on the shelf waiting for those opportunities to present themselves so as we look at our our current funding sources just to give you all a real quick snapshot as y'all are looking at this and And discussing it um our street Rehabilitation money 80 million dollars in bond funding is what we have that four million dollars in uh annual operating money as well as that property tax allocation of about four hundred thousand dollars a year I did want to note that y'all gave us a grant administrator position last year to the budget process and we have absolutely been utilizing that that position um and she's been phenomenal for us so far we did get a ss4a grant for five hundred thousand dollars that we're utilizing to uh to build an action plan that will let us apply for some construction dollars in in coming years but we had to have this action plan taken care of first and we are currently about to wrap up on June 5th the tasa or the set-aside grant applications are due so we're right tying up the loose ends on those and submitting those for those applications and those projects are those the 20

[0:08:10] million dollars that's 20 million dollars in the 1.2 yes ma'am and then we also have about 11 grants that are kind of on our high priority lists that we're really watching pretty hard for the no foes to come out the notice of funding opportunities and those are you know dedicated toward our infrastructure drainage Sunset lake is on one of those that we're watching to try to find some money to do that so and then 23 more just general grants on our list that seem like they would have they would be applicable to different projects that we would have coming in and then also last year we found I think we kind of finalized a discussion about the street use fee and got some direction from you guys on that so that's on the on the horizon as well potentially thank you all right we will move into the water utility update uh I love this picture that Brian was able to come up with on this this is uh the overhead of the two nuclear Wells being constructed is what this is so uh this has been a very neat process and uh to watch watch these two nuclear wheels go together yeah Tom Thompson thought it was Thunderdome [Laughter] this has been a great project so uh and great to watch uh from a uh Public Works stand up 100 feet yeah it's it's it's amazing it's yeah it's amazing project so uh is going on just kind of give you all a brief update of where we are from current water supplies uh as of May 1 uh oh IV and the Hickory 25 months uh unfortunately O.C Fisher um it only has a day of what one day of water in it so that doesn't count or

[0:10:12] calculate and then our other sources uh twin views Lake nasworthy uh combined with the Hickory of 13 months give us a total of 38 months of water currently our conservation measures don't kick in until 20 to 24 months hopefully with the rains we've been getting uh that will alleviate some of this and it'll extend extend this 38 month period out so keeping our fingers crossed there uh average daily usage we can continue to see a upward Trend in this I saw a little bit of um last year I'm not sure if we just gave up on some of our yards and things like that in conservation mode but again we did uh in 21 but here in 22 we are seeing usage increase again those 22-23 we don't have the final numbers yet on that so we're still working through that um we can look at some trends moving forward if you'd like come here uh water use uh just kind of let everybody know where where we use the most of our water the majority of our water is residential uh 12 commercials 16 institutional and three percent Industrial a quick update on Hickory was talking about water supply this is uh where we're adding an additional five Wells out at the actually at the well field itself we're moving very well with this project we they are working on the last well drilling the last well as we speak uh they're about halfway through that process they should be through uh Drilling and then the drilling should be completed hopefully within the next 30 days and we will the drilling portion of the contract contract one hopefully will be finalized complete and everything sent to the state and finalized uh mid-july that's our time frame on contract one contract two with plw Waterworks uh we'll be tying in all of the new facilities uh out at the well

[0:12:16] field tying all those into the pump station increasing the pump capacity at the pump station as well as uh rehab rehabilitating some of the existing Wells there and adding some backup generators to the project they're also part of this again just to let everybody know the goal of this is to get us from the 8 million gallons per day to 12 million gallons per day capacity for water off of this and then of course part of this also is the update to the um to the clear Wells the two nuclear Wells there that we're building at the plant and also the Hickory treatment plant the report of that for the upgrades in the actual treatment building itself for the Hickory projects moving along well total overall construction probably roughly 60 to 70 percent complete I put 60 percent on there just because that's about two weeks ago when I was going through all this that's about where about what we were looking at guys are making great Headway on this project it's moving along well Concho River Water Project we went over this a little bit earlier so I'm not going to dwell on it but one we we have received the discharge permit and currently working through the bed and Banks permit and we'll be again we saw the we saw the the numbers for what some of the improvements were going to be on this the cost will be for this project and the going to the CIP so we're just looking at that so other part of this is from a water supply perspective is West Texas water partnership currently on that working through the city managers of the three cities are working together to start start working through the next phase which which will be the actual production phase of this to to try to yeah last time we met trees other well where we are right now so the city

[0:14:20] manager of Midland retired a couple weeks back so we have the new interim in the position at this point uh city manager of Abilene myself will be scheduling to actually go and visit in Midland next week to have some some discussions uh and have a better understanding of where they are it's been a challenge mayor I mean as far as trying to move forward with the the project I know that Theresa's worked on the preliminary agreement that the city managers are reviewing and going through at this point to see if there's any changes that need to be made prior to the city manager of Midland leaving he had reviewed the contract but really didn't have anything solid from them saying hey we agree with this yeah not yet no no it won't be signed until actually everyone's in agreement and we take it back to the council members but those details still need that to be worked it's only had to be worked through but again we are hopeful that we can pull everybody together by next week and have a sit down in Midland to go over that agreement and see if there's any any qualms or any changes that need to happen on it unfortunately we all signed at one point there was a signature from all three cities um yeah for the for the water itself yes ma'am so uh the city of San Angelo would be receiving the 5 000 acre feet of water from from the agreement itself but we do need to work out the details as far as uh moving forward uh the the line uh the starting the actual project from Fort Stockton Holdings I mean from Fort Stockton so again a lot of detail it still needs to be worked out mayor um I'd rather not say it much more after until after we meet with the city managers have a chance to meet with Theresa Teresa is a trusted attorney working on the on the project and I think all the city managers agreed that we're good with her working out the preliminary parts of it and then we'll work out the details uh to get that finalized and said to the city council members all right moving along just wanted to we

[0:16:24] touched we touched on this uh a while ago in the CIP but just to kind of give Council an update on the sewer project again it did come in uh both both contracts came in with McKees construction doing the pipeline Austin engineering doing the lift station both contracts came in at 35.9 million which was a whole lot better in the 50.4 that we were expecting so uh we were very glad to see that again we should hopefully begin this project in the next 60 days or less if we can get by with it and hopefully again it's a 24 month project uh just give you a quick update on the customer service inspections as we're looking for any any cross-contamination issues out there again not going to read all these off but you can see that the guys the the four guys that we have assigned to this task have been very we approved three csis uh three csis in the supervisor and all of them are certified so all all of them are certified so not only the three inspectors that are out there on the front lines every day but also um well in a uh that their supervisor as well as last and so he can go out in the field and and create and do these inspections as well so um but again these guys have been really busy uh again we've gone through the majority of these already um uh if there's any questions on those some of these are in conjunction with the street uh Recon projects uh of course with some of the other ones as far as the uh shallow Wastewater improvements another one that we didn't mention a while ago in the CIP because it's not necessarily A CIP it's the water hydraulic model that we're working with with our consultant to get the new the new model out which will help us kind of determine where the water flows and how everything is going through our distribution system and also help us as we start looking into our needs in that northeaster town that we talked about

[0:18:25] earlier with elevated storage tank I think all the rest of those we already covered and then I wanted to bring up rates and fees as we look into the future now I'm going to preface this uh right here it's saying that I'm not asking for any increases in rates or fees this year or in this budget cycle so but again as we're looking out into the future I think um you know we've talked about this and the mayor's talked about it you know trying to be proactive and look at what's going on out in the future and what we need to do as we move forward and I've kind of broken this up into three different uh three different phases and and uh kind of kind of outlay what my thoughts are and and get y'all's feedback on it again but as we look at look at some things we have the storm water fee from the drainage side of things now storm water and drainage are two different things in our minds in public works what we think about when we talk about the existing storm water fee that we have now is the O M that we do that is uh to cover the quality component that was State mandated or federally and state mandated uh component of it back in 2010 and so in that fee has not since its Inception has not been increased we've been uh it's been the exact same rate and so that's something with especially with the inflation rates that we've seen recently something that we cannot sustain a whole lot longer without seeing some kind of increase on that o m side of it on the on the quality component side of it as well um so we are going to have to we are going to have to start talking about a fee increase on that side as well but what I wanted to bring up today is the drainage as you know we've we've talked about some of the other aspects of of the of our Master drainage plan that we created Patrick talked about the region nine flood Planning Group uh and and some of those opportunities and and with this as we are creating the the region flood plan through the Texas water development board uh a lot of our Master

[0:20:29] drainage plans since it was a brand new master drainage plan we've been able to incorporate a lot of those projects into the region plan and by doing so that allows us all those projects that were incorporated into the regional plan to be available eligible for Texas water development board funding whether that's low interest loans uh grant opportunities all of those things that makes us eligible for that uh what one of the bad things is is that currently there's no designated funding source to deal with the drainage portion of things the flooding that we're seeing out there there's not any designated funding for that hasn't been much designated raining going on we we have been a little shy on that for the last year yes ma'am so uh and then there's kind of as we're looking at this and this has kind of been brought up recently uh but since this since the Inception of our plan uh or the storm water ordinance in 2010 a lot of the residential areas around town especially on these some of the outlying areas that we're seeing have been developed in the last five to six seven years uh we're already planted prior to our storm water ordinance plans going into going into effect and so now we're starting to see now that these pre-platted areas are starting have filling up and they're being completed and and built out we're looking at developers and home builders looking into new areas of town or new areas to develop in Platte and so and as they do those part of the requirements is to for storm water detention so they're retaining the water the extra water that they're creating on that property for so it doesn't run off and create issues Downstream but with that comes uh the long let me ask you a question so so when you talk about the storm water situation and it was being created in 2010 that we had to deal with it does it not allow you on already designed plats to be able to go back in and ask for a

[0:22:33] revision of that plot based off of the 2010 mandated storm water drainage no man we were not we were not allowed to go back in and force somebody that already had a plait in place to to replant uh for drainage um but one of the things that we're moving moving forward into the future and one of the the a lot well quite a few of the developers have brought to the city's attention is that as they're having to you know they're we have not because we did not have any drainage funding available and of course it really hasn't been a big issue up until now because some of these older loss they didn't have to conform to those and so we weren't seeing a lot of detention basins being built in some of these larger uh development areas but as these new new areas come on their developers are being required to build these detention basins well the the long-term maintenance and upkeep of these detention basins is becoming an issue one you know the developer once they once they build out and they get through you know they're kind of interest in that development is gone and so there's not necessarily an interest for them to maintain that pond for eternity uh basically and so and then the other option is create an HOA well HOA is probably an all all development areas is probably not one of those things it's a a desirable thing to have and especially quite a few of those developments and so they have come to the city looking for the the city um basically if what can we do to help out for long-term care maintenance of these facilities and so that's kind of been an issue in one we currently do not have the funding or the Staffing to be able to start taking on detention-based enough for detention-basing after detention Basin for maintenance we I mean we have taken two or three

[0:24:36] detention basins that back up to basically the red Arroyo or something like that where it is uh where it is we believe that from the city standpoint it's critical for us to be able to own and maintain those structures because of the impact that they could have Downstream and so we want to make sure that those specific ones stay intact but there's others that are in town that aren't so impactful that we have not taken on the responsibility of maintenance on it or accepted those into the City and so developers are being trying to figure out long term what to do and how to what they can do basically or how they're going to deal with maintenance long term on these uh 22. it is and we believe and we believe long term that uh we we will probably see some of those those basins basically for those detention basins actually forfeited or whatever and we're going to have to take on take them on anyway uh but as we kind of look through um and make a long story short as we're going through and we start talking about we're talking about rates and fees we talked about water rates uh in the you know our long-term water needs and development and to continue though progressing those Concho River Project all those things the skyrocketing chemical cost that has chemicals or chemicals are eating us up I mean we're we've we've seen chlorine triple in price we've um we just got bids back for polymer Biz back that y'all are going to seeing on the next uh next council meeting um in the next council meeting for Mary today and so uh you know we're going to bring those and you know a contract you know a new contract for those and and we already know that they said they're going to go up again in April the costs are going to go up again in April so they're already telling us that that you know our pricing is not going to be good six months from now and so people are taking advantage of the situation yeah earlier or a year from now or whatever yeah or a year from now we already know that you know our week we aren't going to able to meet these prices again so

[0:26:39] and then another thing that we have looking that we're going to have looking especially on the water side is the pfos and emerging contaminants issues that we're going to be dealing with the EPA is set the limit at 0.4 parts per trillion on pfos which is the the minimal detectable limit for pfos so basically if you've got the fire right time yeah that fire retardant styrofoams those type things the forever chemicals and you know by setting that limit basically at the detectable limit means at some point in time we will have to be treating for that well I mean the only way to treat for that you know is through an RO system or some kind of membrane system and so the massive you know it's going to take a lot of money you know in the future to deal with those making upgrades to the water treatment plant so just things that we have to keep in mind as we're looking forward same thing with sewer rates as we're looking forward so again I'm not asking for right now I'm not asking for this but what I would like to do is basically step back and and do a basically another water rate study that we did a few years ago except one I want to not only take take a look at the water rates and the sewer rates and kind of take that long-term cost and look at that but also want to add drainage in there as well start looking at these drainage projects as we're looking at this uh for the rate studying again because the last thing I want to do is is have an emergency situation or have something come up sneak up on us that we're not prepared for and then all of a sudden we're trying to we have to have a rate increase right now and it's a big one or it's a substancy one let's take a longer look at Approach at this and and look at this over time to see if we can ease into ease into these things and and try to work work them through and so by doing a rate study we can do that to where we can look at these projects and kind of time them out over time to see what that looks like and then look at look at making rate changes very gradually over time to accommodate these these needs as we as we're looking

[0:28:43] at it over time but again that would take a great study to do that but again I believe that us looking at that sooner rather than later will benefit us as we look at some of these issues that we have coming up again we know that the uh one of the biggest things that is really becoming a Hot Topic is the pfos emerging contaminants issues and so I think us looking at those now we know the Concho River Project is going to be fast approaching as we go through the permitting as we kind of ease into this next phase of the permitting phase with the bed and Banks these things are going to start coming up and we're going to need to move on them sooner rather than later but again I don't want us to come up a year from now or 20 24 months from now and go oh my gosh I need you know a 10 or 15 increase today to to cover these costs I'd rather us take a longer term look at this and ease into those ease into those numbers versus a big hit all at once additionally it's good to raise a red flag and I think that's what you're doing right now because I don't think you're saying we need to do it for this year's budget we all need to do is to look at it as you say long term and look what the rates and fees are you know we hear constantly from the citizens that we have the highest cost of water of any seed they've ever lived in and perhaps we do because of where we live and and what the cost of acquiring the water we need to run our city today and then for in the future so no one denies that the Investments we're making whatever whatever cost they are are not needed they're needed for the long-term viability in the economy of San Angelo Texas with that said we also have to be sensitive towards the citizens um and and what we can possibly do to change the rates and still understand how that converts to govern our needs

[0:30:46] and it's got a we I get it we got to look at it thanks for raising the red flag and we'll start taking a look at it in a future projection mayor yes Karen clear how how what the burden is on your Department I'm curious if you feel like you have the employees in place to accomplish all the things on your to-do list there's days there's days that do and days I don't uh you know and and I think we're really starting to see it it's probably on the the in the field the guys in the field are probably um or probably where we're starting to see the majority of the stress is out the guys in the field um again we're the city's growing and and when we're and we're with the Aged infrastructure and everything else the need keeps keeps growing and so I think uh the boots on the ground is probably where we're seeing some of the gap of course you know we do have we have issues up in up in the higher levels as well too maintaining those but uh um one of the reasons when they talk about developing plans such as this 2009 plan the city sprawl because the more sprawl there is the greater pressure on the system not only on an infrastructure but on people as well and yet we still haven't taken care of and and all of the needs and the core of the city in terms of infrastructure and yet we're adding more and more and more and more and more which adds more and more and more it does and so you know the the question becomes strategically how we make sure that quote infill projects continue to happen as a as a strategic plan so that it doesn't keep Whedon thinning out what we have and and increasing the expense not necessarily

[0:32:51] the first year the second year or the third year but down the road the cost of maintaining an infrastructure quadruples based off of sprawl and that's really and like I said I think that's where we are we are starting to suffer and see see some of the worst needs is in the is in the you know the rank and follow the boots on the ground folks the guys that are out in the field doing the doing the work you know we are starting to really see see that um see the need there I mean we are and a lot of it is pro we're moving out we're growing we're building more streets we're putting in more water lines we're putting in more certain lines we're seeing more water breaks um and so um more sewer stoppages I mean it the list goes on and on and so um but the guy the guys in the field are where we could really use some help yes ma'am Karen I do want to mention that uh so at the end of this month uh City staff director is also submit uh request for ftes uh and they have to justify those requests as far as why those positions are needed we do a thorough review of that for that justification and determine moving forward when we come to you for the budget to say hey we do need these after these are now we're fine but we are we do a very good study of that to determine what those those look like a conversation for another time got it will be an ongoing conversation continue uh that's that's it I was just basically I just wanted to see if Council wanted to entertain a water rate study as we're moving into the future I mean it's a process it's it's not something that happens overnight and this is a year-long process uh even could be plus year long as as we look at this and look at look at those three areas specifically uh we have you know we have put a you know request for qualifications go through the whole process all of that so as we do that it is a longer process something that takes a while but again um I'd like to get moving on this sooner rather than later so as these things start coming about that we're not caught off guard and we're not having to do

[0:34:54] anything that is sooner versus later so I would say that sooner versus later we need to move forward and look at something like that but I would also say that as this is the first day of our hearing about needs of various departments and issues infrastructure is a key issue and it ought to be a priority for us but if we wouldn't have to answer you today and through the budget process we can determine the biggest priorities that we have in terms of focusing on the citizens biggest issue and that is our infrastructure needs so I think it ought to be on our list of things to talk further about and decide priorities in terms of those things but I don't think we're prepared to answer today based off of this being the first five hours of the budget process yes well I'm I'll take it I'll take the opposite approach mayor I'm ready for them to start the process on a rate study it's it's going to be a year before before we get there so my answer to the question to your question Shane is different than the Mayors yes I would like to see you undertake the uh begin the process to go through that study one of my biggest takeaways from today I'll describe it with one word future planning for the future to me that's what I'm hearing repeatedly in what the staff has presented to us is we need to do a better job in planning for the future and to me this is planning for the future so I answered the question yes the rest of the council can speak for themselves I think we have several issues that Council will have to address and as I say I don't think this is about saying no to this it's about hearing all of their requests I mean I think there was one a couple slides back in terms of the street use fee that has been brought up you know there are several of those issues that I think we owe you answers

[0:36:58] to but I think we got to get through the budget process and that doesn't mean within the next month we won't be able to say yes or no but I think what we have to do is go through all of these issues and at the end of the budget cycle we can say move forward on this but there's lots of requests here and the future is all a part of it yes and this is this is not a this is not a I mean it there there will be dollars attached to this but again they're not they're not these are not large number dollars and so these These funds are available in the in the utility uh to to accommodate this study that there those those dollars are already available for this but again I don't need an answer today I'm just raising in the question let y'all think about it and again as we're moving forward through the budget process again working through and again food for thought so you answers and we know we and I think the ask is not unreasonable I just say that today let's hear everybody let's talk through everything that's out there and I think we come back with you know as a council some objectives and priorities and I think this is certainly going to be one of the we got to be looking at it water is one of the most important parts of the economy into the future of this city and to Tommy's one word future it's future thinking mayor uh I do want to point out something if you didn't notice as Shane was talking um where he was shy about talking about exactly what we need money-wise because we do take very seriously being as conservative as possibly and we understand the citizens we definitely get that but we also understand the business aspect of it and he he got around to asking for what that need is and that need is there and and you're absolutely right right now we don't have the numbers just yet to justify any real commitment at this point but we will hear in the next month and a half uh and will it be able to have those conversations but we just wanted to make sure that y'all were open to that and obviously y'all are I mean and we're

[0:39:01] glad that you are and uh you want the red flag absolutely absolutely there's no question and it is the time to do it yep and there'd be a couple of them race today so again thank you for for that presentation Shane go

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=mVc4O4Yv3Zw