City Council 5-17-23

[0:00:00] May the 17th 2023 so this meeting is officially called to order as usual we will start with our chaplain prayer and pledges and we are welcoming back Marcella Jenkins who's been through some pretty scary health issues but she's back she's here and we are thankful you're back so if you all would please come forward and lead us in prayer in the pledges good morning everyone giving honor to Amir and to the members of the city council let's pray Father in heaven in the name of Jesus we bow before you the author and finish of our faith to say thank you for another day that you have made we ask you to Lord to please incline your ear and hear our prayer endow the council with wisdom and knowledge and Revelation understanding and the ability to impart the business of the city with Excellence as unto you I pray father that as we enter into Police Week that we stop to remember this ultimate sacrifice paid by police officers who died in the line of duty we thank you for their families and we ask you to bless each and every one of our law enforcement people throughout Tom Green County we thank you Father for everyone that's gathered here in the city council chambers and we pray that Lord we become a community even better than where we are today in Jesus name amen pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands allegiance to be Texas one State under God one and indivisible

[0:02:15] we will now do our proclamations which we have for today so let me come down there and we will get started foreign our first Proclamation today is the Texas business women of San Angelo day and I know we have many of you here in the audience today so please come forward you can you're fine now because we're going to go up front have a picture in a little bit so you're all right okay the Texas business women of San Angelo or tbw formerly known as The Business and Professional women of San Angelo or BPW celebrates 100 years of existence on May 25 2023 tbw is dedicated to providing a safe supportive environment for women to grow and succeed through leadership training and networking Mrs Ruth Matthews Stein of Amarillo and Mrs Brown F Lee organized the original San Angelo business in professional women's on May 25th 1923 they charted the club with 20 members and elected Mrs Sadie bulwer the first president these women represented different career fields and businesses during a time when few organizations existed for women these women came together to create opportunities for women of future Generations in the San Angelo area in 1938 BPW established an education Loan Fund that later became the Ida Gerber Memorial Scholarship fund the members also advocated lobbied and assisted in passing the Equal Rights Amendment to the Texas Constitution in 1972 the San Angelo BPW transitioned to

[0:04:20] the Texas business women of San Angelo in 2010 and remains an active organization in San Angelo by contributing to other local non-profit organizations organizations and events supported by tbw include MD Anderson Cancer Center Christmas at Old Fort Concho adopt a spot back to school event local family shelter rainbow room and communicating with confidence program therefore I Brenda Gunter mayor of the city of San Angelo Texas on behalf of the city council do hereby Proclaim May 25th 2023 as Texas business women of San Angelo day in San Angelo Texas and encourage all citizens of San Angelo to pay tribute to the hard-working women of our great City by recognizing their invaluable expertise impressive drive and Ingenuity in achieving the highest levels of success congratulations so much mayor this is such an honor and what we like to coin the phrase as her story in San Angelo and for all women the strides that women have made over the years if you can just imagine what women look what our organization look like in the early 1920s 1923 what San Angelo looked like so the women who have fought and have blazed the trails before us is why we are here today celebrating this honor thank you foreign is the 100th anniversary celebration of

[0:06:39] Santa Rita well number one please come forward how are you today a century ago on May 28 1923 an oil well in West Texas known as Santa Rita well number one changed the course of the oil industry Permian Basin petroleum Association has recognized the discovery of Santa Rita well number one as quote the well that launched the Permian the drilling rig itself was brought to the site by train and came through what is now the Santa Fe Depot before the oil industry moved to Midland in the mid and late 1920s San Angelo was transformed into a metropolis metropolitan area it is reported that about 43 oil companies had offices in San Angelo during the early days of the boom spawned by Santa Rita well number one the character and appearance of downtown San Angelo was transformed from a Dusty wooden Frontier Town to a brick and mortar sophisticated City with modern amenities including a new city hall and County Courthouse still in use today oil Executives brought to San Angelo by Santa Rita well number one built the Santa Rita area for their families Santa Rita well number one leasing rides were established as University land set aside by the state of Texas for the financing of the University of Texas and later Texas A M University much of the original drilling equipment now resides on the University of Texas Austin campus a testimony to the Wells importance to the UT system therefore I Brenda Gunter mayor of the city of San Angelo Texas on behalf of the city council do hereby Proclaim May 28 2023 as the 100th anniversary celebration of Santa Rita

[0:08:41] well number one [Applause] Alexander this is Brandi Ellis I'm representing the chicken farm we're having a reunion of people that were involved in the for family and friends associated with Santa Rita number one and that's Sunday afternoon May the 28th would be a hundred years from that 1923 day and so where there's going to be music and food with food trucks and uh local folks being involved and people coming from Big Lake and coming around and we have a new owner of this of the chicken farm so graciously allowing us to use her facility and that's Chastity right there taking our taking our picture and uh so we're mainly uh Brandy organized the group that got together and set this thing up and so they're they're made they all have big lake ties and Texoma ties that's the people that are that will be coming it's also open to the public uh if you want to come out Sunday afternoon one of the groups playing his T gossi Thornton and the old hat band and tease father Mr Gosney worked in Texoma back in he wasn't there in 1923 but he work there while Texoma was still a booming town so we're we have some flyers back there you're welcome to see them but we're happy to celebrate 100 years of Santa Rita number one it's a big deal oil well

[0:10:45] and we didn't step on big Lake's toes we got permission to do our to do this reunion they're doing theirs July the first it's a big deal Santa Rita days in Big Lake five thousand to ten thousand people show up for that but we uh also Dale and Monica uh on Saturday the museum will be open the Railway Museum will be open 12 to 5 and trains were a big deal uh to that they were bringing people I train from all over driving them taking them out to the well to see the well in Texoma back in the day so uh and then another music person is Cindy Jordan who will be here she wrote the book Pearl it has to do with the 20s on Concho Avenue at places like Miss hatties I think there may be a restaurant there now or something but so anyway we'll have some fun come out [Applause] let's have a picture leave these here if you would take your poster our next Proclamation is historic preservation month if you all would come forward the month of May is dedicated to

[0:12:53] National Historic preservation month preservation is an important course of action for us to transmit our understanding of the past to Future Generations our City's history has many facets San Angelo is home to several historic landmarks and historic properties in fact Tom Green County has a total of 69 listings on the national register of historic places Fort Concho National Historic Landmark tells a story of the protection of Frontier settlements quelling the Hostile threats in the area during the 1800s the Railway Museum of San Angelo carries history of an economical Transportation Route connecting lucrative markets of the Orient through San Angelo overall our Cultural District and historic downtown holds evidence of many Western Heritage sites now sought out as tourist attractions national and local organizations recognize historic preservation month by demonstrating all the social and economic benefits of historic places and people's saving places therefore I Brenda Gunter mayor of the city of San Angelo Texas on behalf of the city council do hereby proclaim the month of May as historic preservation month in San Angelo Texas and thank our local historic preservation groups and passionate individuals who have preserved our City's prominent history good morning I'm Monica Ramos assistant director of downtown San Angelo Inc as the proclamation stated downtown and the Cultural Arts District are home to San Angelo's most prized historic sites Fort Concho National Historic Landmark is currently listed as a distinctive destination on savingplaces.org which is a part of the National Trust for historic preservation what historic preservation means to me is saving a historic site or place even if it's not fully restored back to its

[0:14:55] original condition um take a look around downtown take a walk take notice of the historic building 08 detail the architecture the beauty of these sites is so wonderful it's just not the same today as it was then the culture and again the beauty are just notable and attractions to San Angelo there's thought of moving forward and progression and all this can be included in historic preservation when rehabilitating a property and bringing modern Flair a good example of this would be old Central Firehouse Pizzeria and Tap Room so I hope that you all stand behind us stand behind historic preservation as we do and help save our history for our future generations to come I'll just say that we're privileged as an organization to be the lead advocate for historic preservation the foundation of the Main Street program is historic preservation so we're very privileged and honored that to be able to represent our community in that way thank you foreign is for National older Americans month do we have anyone in the audience who come forward and accept this Proclamation National older Americans month is celebrated in May to recognize the contributions and achievements of adults 60 years of age and over in our society older adults in San Angelo are the roots

[0:16:58] from which our community grows who bestow Gifts of wisdom and insight upon younger generations and strengthen the bonds between neighbors to create a better place to live an increasing number of adults are reaching retirement age and remaining strong and active for longer than ever before the older adults in San Angelo deserve recognition for the contributions they have made and will continue to make to the culture economy and character of our community the Texas silver-haired legislators tshl is a non-profit organization that represents the interests of older citizens in Texas by advocating for legislation that enhances their Quality of Life tshl Works closely with the Concho Valley air Agency on Aging or AAA a regional organization that provides services and resources to older adults and their families in the Tom Green County area we urge elected officials and policy makers to work with organizations like tshl and AAA to develop and Implement policies that address the unique needs of older adults and promote their social economic and physical well-being therefore I Brenda Gunter mayor of the city of San Angelo Texas on behalf of the city council do hereby proclaim the month of May as National older Americans month in San Angelo Texas and encourage all citizens to participate in National older Americans month activities and honor the valuable contributions of older adults to our society thank you [Applause] we will now open up our agenda item for

[0:19:13] public comment issues or concerns not on the regular agenda may be raised by the public at this time citizens should speak from the podium address all comments to the deist Begin by stating their name and address or single member district number and limit their remarks to less than three minutes do we have anyone in the audience who would like to offer public comment I would like to start by offering some public comment if I could I want to start today by encouraging every citizen to file a protest with the appraisal district if you believe your 2023 tax appraisal of your property is valued dramatically higher than your 2022 appraised value unquestionably these new appraisals have been shockingly higher than anyone could possibly anticipate I am working with Drew Darby hopefully to come up with a plan that will be acceptable to the appraisal district and the State Comptroller but remember this Drew has no Authority I have no Authority and Tyler Johnson at the Tom Green County Appraisal District reports to the Comptroller not to the city and not to the county his boss is a State Comptroller as mayor as a city we have no authority over the Tom Green Appraisal District or the State Comptroller I would encourage citizens to write to contact the State Comptroller as he is the person who controls the appraisal district that being said I will work with our state legislators to try to find a way to address these disastrous appraisals that does not mean in any way I have the power or the ability to affect any of the appraisals but what we do want to do is to make sure our state representatives as well as a State Comptroller and the appraisal district understands the dramatic stress that these appraisals have added to our citizens we do not know what parameters were put into the system that created the

[0:21:17] algorithms our land prices do not in any way correlate to the I-35 Corridor land prices our cost of construction do not emulate to the I-35 Corridor prices factors such as inflation bidding wars supply chain issues over the last two years cannot be the out-of-the-box issues that have driven up our appraisals appraisals should be realistic and in line with some expectation from our citizens as honest and understandable numbers today no one has faith in the system or the appraised values the system seems to be flawed the process seems to be flawed there is no way taxpayers protests can be done in time to put together a budget plan for the city as Citizens and Property Owners you should not have to fear tax appraisal season you should not have to fear losing your home or being taxed out of your home it appears as if the system is flawed again I'm encouraging you to protest your tax appraisal it is your right to do so it is your right to protect yourself against unreasonable valuations as Citizens we need to know how they came up with the appraised values we do not as of today understand the process that was used to create the year's appraised values what we do know is that they are not reasonable and citizens have totally lost faith in the process use the process that's out there citizens protest that's your right follow the process thank you further public comment Carl speak briefly about vandalism I've been in the Parks and Recreation business for decades and it is the most frustrating thing that we we see you do get the reports the monthly reports that show

[0:23:20] what kind of vandalism do we do get in our Park system it's usually graffiti um it I want to just encourage folks to go enjoy their Parks it's been a wonderful spring we finally got some rain get out enjoy the parks if you see any results of vandalism please report those to us if you see any suspicious activity at the parks going on contact the police non-emergency or emergency depending on the situation but we encourage folks interaction with us to let us know about results of vandalism so we can identify it and correct it as soon as possible what's the area of the of the vandalism generally speaking because when I looked at the report the number one thing was restrooms particularly the men's restrooms so your latest report had a high level of vandalism and graffiti on the restrooms in our Parks graffiti is the biggest one yes and restrooms is a very common location for that further public comment no further public comment we will close the public comment portion of this agenda and we will move into the consent agenda may I ask each council member or I will ask each council member is there any item on the consent agenda that they would like to have pulled for today for discussion Larry no ma'am Karen you know ma'am Lucy d d item d Harry I'm him Tommy may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of item D I moved moved by Karen seconded by Lucy any public comment concerning any of the consent agenda items seeing on Harry none will take a vote all those in favor of approving the consent agenda with the exception of item D please say aye the motion passes six to zero we'll move on to item D which is Award of task

[0:25:27] order number 10 under idiq contract es-06-19 Engineering Services to Frieza Nichols Incorporated in the amount of 118 471 for Design Services for the rehabilitation of the existing animal shelter at 3142 U.S 67 and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents Al you're on Lucy do you have a question yes mayor I just wanted to ask out on this Improvement I saw all the improvements they all are going to start to begin to make I just wanted to know when is this supposed to start and how long will it take to finish I don't have the schedule on the top of my head but basically once we get the design team in place which is what this is I think there's about 45 days to 60 days of design work and then we'll be able to put up to bid so uh Morgan do you remember the actual date that we said completion I think it was the end of the year or yes our estimated completion date would be January 2024 it would depend on we're estimating about four to six months of actual construction time once these Engineers are done with that part of the work so the design work has to be done first then you're going to take it out to bid you bring the bids back to us for approval and then contract will be written and then we will start the work so that's the time frame you're looking at right and it was going to be what three to six weeks did you say four to six months of construction okay thank you so much any other questions would you like to move for approval Lucy I will I mean to approve as presented is there a second by Tommy any public comment on this item d seeing on Harry none I will ask for a vote all those in favor of approving item D please say aye aye with none opposed the motion carries six

[0:27:33] zero we will now move into our special agenda section of the uh today's meeting and I will start by reading the special election which is the city held their special elections Saturday May 6 2023 a Texas uniform election date early voting was conducted weekdays between April 24th and May 2nd in accordance with Texas election code there were three special meshes measures on the ballot proposition a proposition B and Proposition C proposition a passed receiving 789 votes in favor and 343 votes in opposition proposition B passed receiving 820 votes in favor and 317 votes in opposition Proposition C passed receiving 741 votes in favor and 389 votes in opposition the resolution in the council meeting packet includes a prepared tabulation of votes for and against each measure by Precinct and totaled as required by e c 67.004 may I have a motion to adopt the resolution canvassing the returns so moved by Harry second of by Larry any public comment with that we'll take a vote all in favor of adopting the resolution canvassing the returns say I opposed none opposed motion passes 6-0 I will now go into the canvassing of the general election the city held their general elections Saturday May 6 2023 a Texas uniform election date early voting was conducted

[0:29:39] weekdays between April 24th and May 2nd in accordance with Texas election code there was one position on the ballot single member district 3. the vote totals were as follows for the two candidates Michael a pack received 56 total votes or 36.13 percent and Harold Harry Thomas as we know him received 99 total votes or 63.87 percent the city council officially finds determines and declares the results of the general election to elect Harold Harry Thomas to a four-year term by majority vote of the votes cast by symbol single member district 3. the resolution in the council meeting packet includes a prepared tabulation of votes for each candidate by Precinct and totaled as required by EC 67.004 may I have a motion to adopt the resolution canvassing their returns so moved by Larry seconded by Lucy any public comment seeing none hearing none will take a vote all those in favor say aye aye motion passes 6-0 I will sign the Secretary of State's canvas certification immediately following this meeting this completes the canvas of the May 6 2023 general election we will now administer the oath of office by single member district 1 3 and 5 in presentation of certificates of election by myself mayor brenta Gunter and I believe we have an official judge here in the audience to administrate administrate these Oaths so if you all would go down and join judge Gilbert and myself certificate sorry this certificate of

[0:31:56] election is to certify that Tommy Hebert was unopposed in the May 6 2023 election and is therefore duly elected to the office of city council member single member district one of the city of San Angelo Tommy uh Tommy Hebert do solemnly swear or affirm that I will Faithfully execute the duties that I will Faithfully execute the duties of the office of San Angelo city council single member district one of the state of Texas and well to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state so help me God [Applause] this certificate of election is to certify that Harry Thomas was duly elected in the May 6 2023 election to the office of city council member single member district 3 of the city of San Angelo you're ready I Harold Thomas you solemnly swear our firm that I will Faithfully execute the duties of the office of San Angelo city council San Angelo city council single member single member district three of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability

[0:34:03] preserve defend and protect and defend the Constitution constitutional laws of the United States and it's this state so help me God [Applause] this certificate of election is to certify that Karen Hesse Smith was unopposed in the May 6 2023 election and is therefore duly elected to the office of city council member single member district five of the city of San Angelo Texas foreign do solemnly swear or affirm that I don't know that I will Faithfully execute the duties of the office of San Angelo city council single member district five single member district five of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend s the Constitution and the laws of the United States end of this state so help me God [Applause] now Harry would you like to introduce

[0:36:14] your special guest or if Karen or Tommy has any special guests in the audience you may do so as well yes I'd like to introduce first lady of District three my wife Ann Thomas [Applause] thank you for being here we will now have a reception for our newly re-elected members of our Council so this will be about a 30-minute break so we have something yes we played like 15 minutes if that's well we're going to shorten that to 15 minutes so eat fast drink fast and we'll get this called back to order thank you am on May 17th and we will call this a meeting back to order following the reception and move into our regular agenda comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above applicants proponents and appellants are exempt from the time limit above and instead must limit their remarks to less than five minutes item a is direction from city council regarding a proposal from a local archaeologist group to secure and develop the historic conscious mail station site off Highway 87 and the South Concho River as a public interpretive area and you're on Bob good morning mayor council there is a piece of city land near the City Line on South Bryant that has tremendous historical significance and even more tremendous potential Tom Ashmore of the West Texas archaeological society as a

[0:38:17] public citizen has done many months of research on this site it is city-owned land and he has a report for you on the significance of the land and his location and wherefore Concho comes in is the troops from Fort Concho staffed this back in the 1870s and 1880s as a mail station this location has great local Regional State significance and potential and he originally brought this report to the Fort board just sort of as a trial run of course the fort board is only responsible for its own 42 and a half acres but the fort board endorsed this in concept and encouraged time in his Society to make a presentation the council so even though I'm listed here I'm going to turn this over to Tom and he will give you his report thank you morning good morning it's a it's a nice coincidence that this is historic preservation months because we're going to bring you a new historic preservation site for San Angelo I'll give you a little bit of history and some of the work that we've done to show you how we have been identified the site first this was the headquarters of the San Antonio to El Paso Stage Line that was also nicknamed the Ben ficklin line it was uh the primary owner was Ben ficklin who started the town of Ben ficklin later in his honor and it was located three miles of south of Fort Concho began the service in 1868. it was built in 1869 when he purchased 640 acres on the Concho River that you can see there in the map it included a military Camp it covers an area of about three acres south of the

[0:40:20] Concho River as he said the stagecoachers ran three times a week from San Antonio up to this location and then it ran twice a week from here to El Paso and also it ran from here all the way to Fort Smith Arkansas using the old Butterfield Trail route so this is post Civil War a second line was was the main line going up north and Fort Concho was responsible for all of the protection from from here to the west and from here to the north and Fort mcavitt was responsible for the area to the south in conjunction with Fort Concho where military units were detached to this is the area that we have been able to determine all of the site location the buildings and the road structure just a little background on myself I've been doing a historic site rediscovery and archaeological work throughout West Texas for about 16 years now before that I was in the military special intelligence for 22 years and I taught at Goodfellow for 20 more years so I have extensive background in satellite imagery and that is what I was able to use in my skill set to learn how to find these types of places that have been lost what you're looking at here is the road structure coming in and going out of the site and the building locations a little bit closer look here uh in the identification of each one of the site locations now there is not anything left except for one site which is the FC Taylor Stone building which we have a few wall structures on the ground and the reason for this is in the 1882 flood this entire complex was wiped off the

[0:42:24] face of the Earth and there there is very little left we do have some artifacts and I'll show you those in a few minutes one of the things you can see here that I've identified are cut Banks cut banks are manual digs that that were used to get the wagons on a lesser of a slope to go down off of the flat or back up and we use those cut Banks to validate the road structure that we can see in the imagery this is what the the of the area looks like right now you can see that it's it's pretty well overgrown by Mesquite would need to be cleaned out prickly pear there but just to give you an idea this is uh from the imagery that you can see the the remnants or the impression of the main station building that validates the fact that we have the station building identified this is one of the cutbacks I was talking about you can see how it was dug out so they would they would use these cut Banks to get up and down on from the flat and then out to either Ben ficklin or over to the river this is one of the wagon trail this would be the Stagecoach Road and it's called a Swale and you can still see it today you can see how it winds around the side of the Hill here and this is the Cut Bank going from that Swale Road down off of the hill and it went to the river and they made their own River Crossing for the stagecoach to get to Fort Concho this is another Cut Bank this is a walk-in Cut Bank that was behind what

[0:44:28] they called the picket houses that were the employees location to also go down to the river and here is the crossing of the stagecoach area coming off of the the main uh flat there and down to the river they laid out Flat Rocks to make a kind of an underwater Bridge you can see here it's still to this day the same way that it was and it's still only a few inches deep at this point it's it's exactly 10 feet wide crossing the river here this is the FC Taylor Stone building FC Taylor came in to help Ben ficklin from Back East he was a wealthy man already when he came here and he had a very large Stone building built for himself it was about four thousand square feet and we have been able to find three of the uh the corner sections of that building so we were able to measure out the building all of this is documented in historical documentation from many different authors and researchers this shows you some of the in-ground wall structure that we were using to determine the size of the building this is another one here and another one and this pile of rocks here is not part of the wall structure when the flood took out everything it pushed all of the stones across the field and the the field was was actually leased out for agriculture and so they had to move all the Rocks off the field and this is the pile of rocks from the building that they actually piled up on the side of the field use the imagery that shows vegetation that we use for analysis and it's a

[0:46:33] little hard to see here but you can see in the field is where all the worker buildings were and the Corral there was actually two Corrals the one the large Square on the left side there is what we call a staging Corral and it was in the middle divided into two sections and on one section was horses and the other section was mules everything going west and north of of San Angelo for Concho were were pulled by mules everything going from here to San Antonio were horses and they had to have a separation and an area where they can harness everything up so that was a staging Corral the large Corral is out in the field here that you can see and that is also where the wheel right the blacksmith the coach sheds everything else was there for the workers you can see the growth in the in the in the vegetation here the green shows the fact that it validates where the Corral was although I can see it it's very hard to see from somebody who's not used to seeing this but because of bioturbation from the animals the the growth that always comes back uh more uh more vegetation than any other area and you can see there it's much Greener where the Corral was this is the identification of each one of the buildings and we had a military Camp there what he talked about it was the 24th Infantry uh from Fort mchavett with two companies that were detailed up to Fort Concho and the ninth Cavalry so we're talking about Buffalo Soldiers in both cases they were their mission was to protect the station and to escort the stagecoaches between Fort mcavett and Fort Concho this is what the uh the camp looked like

[0:48:38] we were able to determine exactly where the tents were because the vegetation always grows back different where where tense and human activity has been and you there's actually a square rectangle where the tents were we've also been able to find the flagpole area and the two things in the middle would have been dining tents where uh everybody ate the right side was Cavalry the left side was Infantry this shows you just from the vegetation how the uh the the movement from each one of those camps went and you can see that the Cavalry preparation area they would move out or come back to that area and then the Infantry had a similar walking out to where the station was so that is that's still seen in this particular piece of imagery these are these are some of the artifacts that have been found this was done in 2015 by a metal detection group that we were able to contact and they did a very good job of maintaining all of the artifacts most of these are military but many of them are also related to the station and those are going to be available for you know viewing for the public if uh if we find a place to present them so we believe this is a significant part of the history of San Angelo and West Texas not only the division headquarters but this was actually everything funneled through here everything going from the East to the West came through this this specific station compound was a community it was a large community had 34 civilians 7 to 15 soldiers depending on the time of the month and the years living and working there on this this area it was it was large enough to where they determined they actually changed the vote of what

[0:50:41] was going to be the county seat to Ben ficklin because they were able to use the voting of the employees at this station we also believe this is sacred ground because uh many people uh at least six of them lost their lives here during the flood the flood was so high that they actually found cows up in the tops of the trees when the flood was over so all the buildings were wiped away the these people were up on top of the roofs and it actually just finally pushed the pushed the buildings out and they lost their lives we think this is significant both the local area and actually all of West Texas the site should be designated historical historically significant site I've done a lot of work out there and I've come up with what I think might be a walking trail plan and a historic uh difference locations that could be stopping points to explain these different locations and and it could be a walking trail nature trail and a historic preservation site and this I've taken several groups on here we also have artifacts that we have put to the side of the field here that are not the ones that were taken by the metal detecting group so we have the blacksmithing artifacts and we have a lot of battle metal artifacts and glass and bottle that can be shown to people while they're out there and that is my presentation do I have questions for um Bob or Mr Ashmore number one I would say this is incredibly interesting history and I'm glad we found it and I'm glad you've been working on it for as long as you have my first reaction is we need to

[0:52:44] make sure we get a historic marker up and make sure we identify it I'm not sure where we would find the funds to do the walking trails as have been pointed out here we struggle to finance the work that we need to do at the Fort to start with so adding to that seems to be a tall climb but that does not mean we shouldn't designate it as a historic location that we shouldn't have it as something that we work towards and hopefully can find a path forward to make it more than just identifying that area it is the history it is an important part of our history and we don't want to lose it or ignore it and um those are my thoughts so does anybody else have a thought or comment to add yes ma'am we had Tommy I think it's important that we do our best to identify funding source and Bob may have some ideas or maybe Carl somebody may have some ideas of a funding source to to get the project started and then keep it keep it moving we actually are here for two reasons uh first we've done which is to tell you all about this and we're glad that you're enthused second is to give us for you to give us the permission the forge ahead and try to answer all of these questions and bring to you maybe in three to six months of plan there's a lot here there are many options and I think we need professional help and I think we can identify the funding and the people to do a feasibility study and bring back to you some of the options that would be there I also think that funding can be found to fund the feasibility study and all of this in turn will tell us what's achievable and what's the best bang for the buck the marker is one of the many ways to designate this and that would certainly be part of the mix so we're just seeking a green light to move ahead with your direction thank you move forward as as I I think

[0:54:48] you've laid out and helpful and we'll take it yeah right now I mean I think the key thing is is that you're going to have to put together plan and come back and suggest to first of all feasibility study um steps one two to twenty whatever the number of steps and it won't happen overnight no this is a multi-year it's lots of years it's but the good news is we've identified it we know it's there and a lot of work has been done to really tell a great story that I think other people would be very interested in hearing and seeing so I'm really excited coming forward I mean the better news is that we don't have to buy it we own it you don't have to buy it we don't have to worry about someone else's land I would also like to take the opportunity Carl and I both the commend Tom and CA major who's not here today they have done absolutely tremendous outstanding work in already cleaning up the site and in doing years of research here this is just an amazing opportunity for the city if it hits all the high points of Tourism Heritage Public Service Parks and Recreation and everything in between so time take about and we as an organization are ready to help to move forward with the historical side of this in planning everything like that so we're standing by to help in any way that is determined by the by the planning and the feasibility of it all thank you great thank you any other comments from Council okay thank you we propose to come back to you in three to six months with some resources opportunities and options make sure those resources are dollar signs with somebody who's willing to write a check to help us move this forward I get the drift thank you the next item on the agenda is consider a warning awarding RFP p1-01-23 to encode Systems Incorporated

[0:56:53] in the amount of 357 328 and 5 cents for the installation of audio visual equipment in the city council chambers and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents so Brian that's a large number and we need to make sure the public totally understands that this money does not come out of the general fund or any of the other resources relative to the general fund that there's a separate funding source for it and describe what would possibly cost 357 thousand dollars okay so first off I'm Brian Groves I'm our communications director for the city um so you talked about the funding source that is our Peg funds and we get a certain amount of money every year from Suddenlink or Optimum that is can solely be used for Capital cost uh that relate to content on the channel so when this room was originally done in 2015 it was used for our studio the East mezzanine all of those things with the ultimate goal of putting content on our TV channel and so you ask what all in here could cost 300 000 there's a lot that that goes into this to mix all of makes all this work and so it's the last time it was installed was 2015 we've started having different components fail we've had mic channels go out we're having some issues with our system we've had some we had a crash a few months ago during the meeting you all didn't know about it because we were able to get it back up but there are things that are starting to fail because they're at the end of their their life and so we need to update that other things that are in there are some Ada improvements so right now you know if you watch some broadcast they'll have a picture in picture that shows an ASL interpreter we do have a picture-in-picture option it was not built for ASL back when we did the project originally and so whenever we try to use that it's too much for our system and our system crashes so one of those components that we'll be doing will the the video system will be able to support that the other thing that we're looking at doing is bringing live captioning into the room so we'll have some TV screens that will be installed in here that will have live

[0:58:56] closed captions in here and we'll also be able to do a split screen on there to show an ASL interpreter if we have one here so other things you know the audio video there's a lot of components in here that we'll be able to keep like the TV screens and things like that but there's a lot of guts and bones in our room that are showing signs of end of life we actually fell out of our warranty in December so if anything does uh crash we would have we'd have no warranty or support for that so we would have to go out and buy new equipment so um I can I can talk more about that what the project is but that's kind of the Crux of what it is the funding in and why we're doing it again repeat where the money is coming from so people better understand the funding source for this yes ma'am so it is a peg fee which is public education and government TV channel so our TV channel is a peg Channel and state law requires the cable companies to give a piece of their revenue to the the peg channels for use solely for content on the TV channel so it can't pay my salary can't pay lorealized salary can't pay for anybody but it can pay for equipment it can pay for cameras it can pay for things like that that ultimately puts our content on our channel uh which obviously has been super helpful in general but let's just take the the kova 19 pandemic had we not had all of the the equipment that we have the studio all of these things and all these different locations we wouldn't have been able to reach the citizens citizenry as well as we we did and so this is uh our only funding source for video and and things like that and so it cannot be used for anything else it will not impact the general fund at all any questions for Brian may have to approve there's a motion for approval we have a second Karen seconded it any public comment concerning this item see none hearing none will take a vote those in favor say aye any opposed with none opposed the motion passes 6-0 move to item C consider awarding r f b p

[1:01:07] k-01-2-3 to shirts Landscape Company in the amount of 126 301 and 94 cents plus 10 percent contingencies utilizing 100 000 of Civic events funds fund balance for the landscape and irrigation project at the McNeese convention center and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all related documents Sydney you're on good morning Council good morning mayor good morning State manager Sydney Walker Civic events manager here to discuss the landscape and irrigation needs at the McNeese Convention Center we're looking to improve our landscaping and irrigation needs here at the convention center obviously we send out RFB requests for bids in late March we received those back in early April we did receive two bids we're looking to the lowest bid with shirts landscape company with the amount of 126 thousand three hundred and one dollars and Ninety Four Cents we're looking for a 10 contingency as well with the estimated total of a hundred thirty eight thousand nine hundred and thirty two dollars and 13 cents we would also need a budget amendment for a hundred thousand dollars um our fund balance as of now is 796 000 and 500 796 518 and we do have approximately thirty nine thousand in budget currently that can cover the rest of the amount that we need [Music] so I am seeking City council's approval for the shirts Landscape Company bid as well as seeking the authorization to budget a hundred thousand dollars from our Civic events fund balance why are we asking for the Civic events budget to pay for it versus hot tax money because I think hot tax money can pay for work done here at the convention center it certainly can there are some dollars when he's talking about the budget and correct me if I'm wrong Sid there are some funds that are already in that that have been carried in from the hot dollars that on the projects we did here right yes sir and so this is taking

[1:03:09] advantage of those dollars that remain and is it a hundred thousand from our fund balance from our personal fund balance you could instead of the the hundred you could transfer additional hot dollars leaving those dollars in for him to do other maintenance things that need to be done so yes that could happen as well I just think that's an important strategic move to do because there's always issues with this convention center knowing that it is you know somewhat dated that you might find a great need for those Civic events dollars to pay for the future needs and so I'm just throwing it out there as the other potential funding source Tina may be able to advise on what that fund has currently and if that could be moved over easily hundred thousand dollars from their fund balance if there's any issues with with doing that in that way so that's what I would like to a motion to include is using funding from hot tax money versus the Civic events because there's so many projects here and I know that there was a time and I'd like Teresa to go back and look at this but we have new owners of the hotel next to the convention center and at one point the city council had approved that that tunnel or what that walkway from that hotel be done to attach to this convention center so that it was people who were having conventions here would be a covered area to move from one location to the next which I think is important to better utilize this facility is connecting that and the owners would like us to re-look at how that what that language was I'm sure it was some you know 15 years ago 10 years ago so I know it needs to be updated but we need to bring that back forward again and so I would really

[1:05:11] encourage that we seek funding from hot tax not the funding from Civic events fund balance and that would be my motion the mayor on that comment we can pull that we that did happen remember years ago a long time ago I'm that old um but what we're talking but what we also will do is when we pull that I think that that concept was to make that walkway uh better you can't really totally enclose it because it goes under the railroad you know all those issues but it was it did have other strings attached of what the hotel was needing to do for us to make some sort of investment like that bringing that hotel up to a quality hotel that would support conventions and so forth that would draw those here to the country so we'll pull that we'll find it yeah he would he's already spent four million dollars since he's taken the hotel back over again and that's one of the key things that he's looking at I don't remember the language I don't remember the details on it but let's let's pull it forward and see where it stands so I I made a motion to approve the request for the landscape but to have hot tax money supported versus Civic events seconded by Larry any other any public comment on this item seeing none let's take a vote all those in favor of approving the dollar amount and the hot tax money is being used say aye motion passes 6-0 item D consider resolution amending the schedule of fees and charges to amend charges for building and construction related fees business related fees fees for abatement of junk and impoundment and sell a property Parks and Recreation fees planning related fees fire and rescue service fees Cemetery fees and facility use fees this sounds like a very very long conversation sit down buckle up here we go you're on okay mayor um we're going to go over the

[1:07:14] history of Tina dear ski Director of Finance part of me we're going to go over the history of the few review process um and then we'll move into the removal of some existing fees that are no longer used and then we'll move on to current fees that have a proposed increase or decrease or any new fees that are we're looking at adding to the fee schedule so in August of 2019 city council directed staff to review fees annually to accomplish a 100 cost of service recovery goal by fiscal year 2025. yeah I just comment on that I'd like you to voice what happened since 2019 to 2023 I think it's called covered many things happened where nothing was going on and I think our vote on this to have 100 cost recover by 2025 is unrealistic we agree and we're going to have to change that conversation to Future years because we cannot with all that's going on in the economy and the new appraisals cannot possibly add insult to injury on some of these fees requests so I'm just going to make that statement to start with 2025 is not an acceptable date for 100 percent cost recovery we clearly understand yes I agree with that so what happened was like you said when the coveted pandemic hit that was obviously this second year of well the first year that we were supposed to be moving to that cost recovery goal Council of course decided not to review fees that year and each year since we've come to council and asked you know whether you wanted to review fees and so far we have not this now four years later is the first time I'll be reviewing fees since Council set that goal of course that impacted our like I said like you said our goal of getting there by 2025 but we have reviewed the fees for fiscal year 2024 budget process and we plan to continually incremental get to that hundred percent of cost recovery service through Council Direction and that's one of the things that we had planned to get direction from you today was you know how was our timeline now given that we've taken four years off and how do we want to move forward so

[1:09:18] with that I'll start in with the removal of fees and I'll ask directors if you have questions as well can come up and kind of help support what what these fees are and why we're removing or increasing or decreasing and all of that so um so we have a removal of fees for building and construction related fees these discounts expired May 4th of 2021 and so they're just being removed from the fee schedule because they're no longer used what is being used why was it there to begin with and I mean what let me ask John or Charlie to come up and I'm with getting rid of it I just think if it was out there yeah this this was a a discount for folks who submitted their this was shortly after we implemented a new plan review software and to encourage people to use that software rather than bring in paper applications we offered a discount for those at the time you all chose to do that as kind of a trial and it expired I think after a year and so again it's already expired and no longer in use since 2021 but what you'll see in our proposed fees this year is something similar but it's a it's a surcharge on folks who don't submit through our digital system staff spends a lot of time processing paper applications we have to scan them in upload them and do a number of things processing them that if if customers upload them directly to our system it saves all of that time so some people would question that it has and does that so it will be a big conversation that we have moving forward because I think the idea seems great when you say it out loud in practice I don't think that's happening and I think a lot of people would say it isn't working and we can talk about that when we get to that fee but that that tells you why this fee has gone away uh Library kind of a trial run on a

[1:11:22] discount removal a piece of abatement of junk fees for impoundment and sale of project a property and then there's a list of those fees that are being removed now tell me about that for taking an impounding of any personal property because I'm going to tell you a story that is really offensive okay so our rail Park that we are incredibly excited about have been has been broken into twice now the last time was about a month ago where it was cut the locks were pounded off of the facility the double fence and they stole everything inside the container and outside property as well the police called and said they had found one piece of this property that had been stolen but the person who owned that had to go pay 238 dollars to home Motors to recover their property that was stolen that the police found now why would we charge somebody 200 and some dollars to get their property back that was stolen well Motors makes that charge well there's something wrong with that concept if it's a policy that we have we need to be rethinking that policy because to no fault of the owner they'd done everything they could to protect that piece of property and then had to go pay to get it back within 24 hours mayor the issue though with homeowners picking up that piece of equipment Mike's right they do charge for that they're providing the service themselves there's going to be somebody has to pay for that so who pays for it either the the customer the hat is this the stuff stolen or the city does I mean who's

[1:13:26] actually the police found it if the police found it why wouldn't the person go to the police department to recover it so you're saying directly from the police to that person calling to come pick it up I mean I'm just trying to we can talk about it it's a piece of property that you could pick up and carry it's not a piece of property that had to be used by a trailer I mean I don't get it I'd like to get some more details on it and we'll be glad to get it thank you so this first set of the impoundment and sale property these fees are no longer being used and then for the garbage weeds junket and sanitary condition abatement fees we are no longer using the six yard dump truck so this fee is no longer for Parks and Recreation these are some programs that have been disbanded and so we no longer have a need to have these fees on our in our fee schedule for baseball kickball softball and volleyball why are those programs being disbanded I thought we still had baseball used leagues Etc I'm not sure we understood that we no longer had used leagues good morning my name is John Henry Perez assistant Recreation manager filling in for Brent Casey's not in so the reason we're getting rid of these programs these programs were started for uh Team select teams teams that came in so little league is still going on they still offer these programs so we're we just tried this about five years ago it happened for a year and ever since then we haven't had these programs uh take part um kickball again it was a new program we started it took off for about a year or so and recently just with everything going on you know these programs are offered offered offered they haven't made in the last three to four years is that because at covet or just a little bit probably covet and also a little bit of you know um just a lot of things going on you

[1:15:29] know uh kids playing other sports traveling different things going on I mean we can only pull so many from the community to to play in our programs with everything going on you know he got volleyball basketball baseball yeah Trend swing as well as to what they think what's a popular item at the time so right so they may have been popular like pickleball or whatever and then it swings to something we have a pickleball team now yeah yes it is very big one of the growing Sports in in America and also the going back like you said Little League still going offering baseball so the kids are still playing baseball and the softball Sackville the local organizations still offers the girls fastpitch organization in the volleyball tournament that's just a fee for a tournament now we do have fees for a team for entry fees for stuff like that so we're just trying to clean up some of the language okay okay moving on to Nature Center removing fees for services no longer offered for sleepover summer camp adoption basic Memorial and plus and then at the Texas Bank Sports Complex removing the fee for Southern Little League rental and Southern Little League t-ball rental because the band's been the league has been disbanded and then for the rec center room Rental South Side with dance slash DJ that's being removed as well so these are all being removed because there's no audience for these things there's either no audience I would I don't know if John Henry is speaking to this one as well but I'm guessing there's either no audience or lack of resources correct um again we're not able to offer some of the at the Nature Center we're not able to offer uh the camp anymore you know of uh last month or so we have to do a new ordinance every year for that so we don't do the the camp at the Nature Center um also at the Texas space Sports Complex Southern Little League actually

[1:17:32] disclosed they're no longer in service so all those kids got directed through the school and went out to Western Lake View or Northern and then we don't really we're not big enough to offer it you know a DJ and a big dance at our rec centers right now some of those programs like the camps they still do the summer camps they just do those that at the rec centers in various places so they've taken you know taken on different type of activities that actually are bigger the number of kids in those camps and they take them to the pool and all this kind of stuff so just different programs I just want to make sure because we always here I think every council member that is up here has heard from the public there's nothing to do in San Angelo there's nothing to do in San Angelo and then we look at these things that are going away and I just want to make sure that they're going away there's no audience form and that's the reason we're doing it because people keep saying we need things to do and good comment just keep in mind tell people that just because those are going they're they're constantly adding new programs and activities on their end to keep up with the trends and what people are looking for planning related fees that are being removed for conveyance of property interest in the right-of-way abandoned by the city and then for General Provisions again that discount expired May 4th of 2021 similar to the other one that we discussed earlier now we'll move into the fee increases for permits and inspections so permits and inspections for residential construction the base fee the current fee is fifty dollars proposing it at 140. residential structure living areas 13 cents moving it to 20 cents garage carports what is that residential structure living area 13 cents I believe that's per square foot but I'll ask John or Charlie to come up and speak to what exactly that covers I mean if there's a base fee why isn't

[1:19:37] the residential structure the garage carpets porses patios and accessory buildings tournament Camp building official yes we charge a base fee and then per square footage your heated square footage like your living area it's charged out and so the bigger the project the more time it takes to do those so the there's a cost there so someone do the numbers for me if it's a 3 000 square foot home on top of the base fee what are we paying someone has that information come forward I think we've got someone from the audience who might have some information about my how much is it going to be living space how much of it is garage how much of its covered patio porches things like that do you have another copy for the record [Music] so for mayor close to 3 000 we do have calculated at 2674 square feet the fee would be 626 dollars on top of the base base fee compared to imperative previous to the base fee I'm sorry Kimberly said that's with the base fee so compared with 368 before so 326 and 368. so 600 and some what percent increase is that that's a 70 percent fee increase and

[1:21:44] it's moving to 70 70 fee increase it would seem aggressive ma'am yes sir and just kind of like to understand the rationale between the 50 current fee and the proposed fee why such a significant jump well and as well as those other statistics current fee plus proposed so your total is overall a 70 increase so that's significant the question should be where should the amount be in the future and a 70 increase may look like a lot right now but in the future that amount should be higher than that uh we we started looking at percentages from that perspective it's maybe seem like 70 but we may be way off the number of what we need to be in the future so that needs to be considered as well and that's a good question I think if anything uh we do have staff to answer that question uh this the there's a there's a fee a cost for providing a service and right now we're not meeting that cost so we're having a supplement from the general fund to cover these costs so we want to get to the cost as soon as possible mayor but we want to phase it in I do agree that it has to be probably over a few years and we'll discuss how Council wants to handle that but I think we have to look at the overall cost of providing that service the question mark is relative to cost of that service versus what ends up making a home unaffordable because the number one source of revenue for the city happens to be property tax dollars so when we start putting additional costs on top of the cost of building we start to price out homes and if we're not selling homes are

[1:23:47] probably tax dollars become a challenge and we know we need the property tax dollars as a city so what we have to do is to balance the increases relative to how we reduce our overhead and reduce our cost of operation to incorporate some of that into this fee schedule well our concern of course is just to make sure that we have that cost provided by the uh the user right uh we don't want to continue supplementing from the general fund I do understand if we're being we're being called to be as efficient as possible and we do call a staff to do that but again on our end uh the general fund can continue subsidizing uh the fees I mean these fees are should meet the actual cost of service at some point in the future and it hasn't for such a long time for years now okay so we had a 70 increase in the overall cost of operation of the planning department no we were already far behind there so this this is an adjustment to get us closer to where we should be actually so I mean we're still not charging at the amount that we should be charging actually so Lucy Daniel you said that it was coming out of the general fund how much money has come out of the general fund every year since 2020 and on we'd have to take a look at that number but we can provide that because anytime that we fall short on the on a fee uh it has to be covered somehow you know so uh it's just a discounting to the uh to the user uh the city council would have to take a look at it I'm not even sure if it's legal for the city to be discounted and based on the fact that we do get a a benefit right absolutely I agree with the mayor that the more houses go up the more more work that's done there's a benefit to our economy but we do have to make sure that we consider do we can we discount fees and I charge at the at the no at the amount that it should be at I'm not sure I mean that's something that city council have to take a look at and say hey do we really want a discount or do we want to charge at the cost of

[1:25:50] providing that fee there's a a conversation to be had at what percent growth do we have in increasing these fees and if it's not legal why have we been doing it I'm assuming what we've been doing is legal so I can't imagine this is illegal versus non-legal conversation it's about whether we think these fees are reasonable or not reasonable based off of the percent increase in the fees that's a challenge and the question mark is from zero to seventy percent or from whatever to 70 percent would seem to be quite aggressive we're not saying that we don't need to increase the fees it's relative to how fast and the time frame it takes to do it but the problem is is that every year at the rate we're doing it our our overhead cost of running the planning department the permits and inspections continues to grow so how do we stop the growth and overhead to help offset the expense of doing these fees we understand that mayor efficiency is key for anything that we do at this point but again even with efficiencies we do want to make sure that we are charging a fee for the service that's being provided and I get where you're coming from I really do but I want to make sure that in our end we get to the point where not having to subsidized out of the general fund 70 increases aggressive make that comment I do have an answer for you Lucy the general fund is currently subsidizing 1 billion dollars of a 2.5 million dollar budget annually well and I'd like to address the legal question that was raised by Daniel just I haven't done Regal Research on it for this particular meeting but generally when you're looking at fees and charges if you do them too high then it's considered an illegal tax there is the risk that we are giving essentially a gift to whomever whatever private citizen is receiving that if we're not we're setting these fees so low that it no longer meets a public purpose meaning that we're no longer able to function

[1:27:52] effectively for the benefit of some private citizens so it is a legal determination on whether or not there's a public purpose it would be a Judicial determination they do give a lot of deference the courts do to the findings of counsel but I think that the more out of whack things get the more likely it is there could be a problem in that regard so the question mark is at what level do at what level do we increase annually and again I go back and say we understand within all the things are going on um in fact costs have gone up the question mark is is 70 percent the correct percentage and that's the challenge here it's not about whether the fees have to exist obviously they do the question mark is at what rate do we increase them and I repeat a 70 percent increase is very aggressive mirror map proposed something so I think in order for us to phase in a user phase and approach we need to know what the actual total fee really really would be and then kind of know that we're going to phase it in over three four or five year period to get to that point so what would be the amount that we go up this year uh instead of talking about 70 or whatever numbers are talking about right now we need to know the end game what exactly what is the number we need to get to uh and then phase it in over a certain number of years and I don't disagree with that the question mark is how you how you get to that end game because as we know every year there's a percent increase and the question mark is as we increase it at what level do we do because the needle keeps moving to the right it's not like you're setting a base number of operating expense and overhead today that won't increase so is the fee going to increase at the same rate that the overhead increases and what becomes the reasonable balance between today's fee

[1:29:55] next year's fee and what we would hope is the cost of building due to commodities would stabilize enough that these fees don't add in salt to the already increased cost of building a home okay well you do that mayor is by reviewing costs of service full cost of service on annual basis and adjusting the phased approach to make sure that we meet that the total cost of service I mean if you have something that be reviewed on an annual basis yes Tina have you has Finance received guidance or direction from Council that uh essentially guided your actions in fee review did we pass something previously that said this is what we're going to do on fee review and finance shall act accordingly yes we passed an ordinance that said that that's what the first slide and showed and reflected the question mark is when we passed that when we created that strategy that that idea of getting to a hundred percent many things happened in our economy and so where that seems realistic in 2019 multiple things have happened from high inflation to commodity costs to supply and demand and so our Direction in 2019 needs to be reviewed because of all the things that have happened interest rates have now gone up there are so many issues that have contributed to the cost of building a home today and we know that just the fact of interest rates is its own hiccup to Selling Houses today I just want to be realistic and I am saying again a 70 percent increase would seem to be too aggressive Tina for my benefit repeat the number two numbers you gave the total cost and what

[1:32:00] what we are subsidized repeat those numbers the 1.5 million the 2.5 whatever they were repeat those for me please planning and development services budget is about 2.5 million dollars this year for expenditures and their revenue budget is about a million so we're subsidizing 1.5 million maybe we need to see to Daniel's point and also the mayor's point the relationship um that may not be the right way to say it where I again this may be repetition what's already been said I would like to see what if we were charging what we should be today what would that number be also like to see what the shortfall is today based on what we are charging that's not the 2 million in the 1.5 is it uh you you said planning department was 2.5 another was one that's not the shortfall of the fees though is it that that's a that's a grant an order right because you we get a report from you all that shows the fees we've collected and having reviewed that document which I don't have with me today it doesn't appear based off the fees we've collected that we have that shortfall that's why I'm confused maybe maybe you can come back and give us okay it would if we were charging what what would cover cost not no no profit in there but cover cost what would that number be and then in fact give us a in the big picture it would be 2.5 million dollars total fees for planning and Bill for it to cover its cost of service so that is the number and we're only that includes planning permits the whole the whole John's whole department yeah and I I think we would have to go back

[1:34:03] and look at that because we do do some things that aren't directly attributable to a customer coming in applying for something so as just one example our GIS staff does all the computer mapping for the whole city that's not something that a customer would would pay for so the general fund we in other words we do do some activities that the general fund would would cover they need to be split out so we get a realistic number which we're not talking apples to apples and that's one of the problems here because we get those reports from you all that show the res the fees we receive this conversation 2.5 and 1.5 is not relative to the fees that you send us that you've collected at least to be based on the fees actually our Revenue budget for fees is a million dollars for the planning department so maybe you could lay that out and and then also uh I would just as maybe to move us along here I would suggest let's look at a four-year we've been um I'll say uh dormant for four years let's look at a four and if if you need to stretch it to five but to get to where we should be and then the council will need to hold ourselves uh accountable and responsible for reviewing that and keeping those up to date hopefully we have no other pandemics or other things that would occur that would cause them to to be put on hold but that that may help us then to get to get to where we can see the bigger picture something you'd be interested in I think we have to realistically re-look at this and understand what we're really asking to have happen and I repeat a 70 increase in one year is not realistic we've got to look at a strategic plan to move it forward and that ordinance that we passed in 2019 we need to bring it back and we need to un approve that reapprove taken it away so that this approach is reasonable and I will say this is the first fee

[1:36:07] that we're looking at and most fees are not increasing that substantially on average total fees that we're looking at this year which is one-third of planning and developments fees or permits fees um on average they're getting to 73 percent of the cost of service and it's very hard for us to say okay in four years be at that number because as we found out when we passed that ordinance in 2019 I won't say the word happens okay so we got to make sure we don't get so firm in our perspective that we forget that life happens and we have to be flexible enough to ensure our community construction Community is not hampered by our Direction and we do propose in mayor we take a look at let's take this back okay we'll look at the the the total cost and we can look at on an annual basis by some uh price index or whatever to make sure that we're at the the full cost rate but we can come back and then phase it and break it down Over a four-year period and propose it that way if you're good with that uh rather than having a big long discussion about that today since the direction is let's face it maybe Over a four-year period then let's find find out what that is we'll tie a price index to that and make sure that on an annual basis we get to that point within the four year period but let's see our property base to grow and we've got to be supportive our community approach is a good approach this we cannot live with okay then we'll come back and give that information on on what that number would be and then the first year as far as the first phase with that adjustment would be okay okay do we want to go through the rest or just well I think that an overview would

[1:38:11] be really good it does not mean we have to debate it to the level that we've debated this perhaps but at least do an overview we will not make a decision today and we will not vote on okay um so again under permits other construction permits fees um would be a base fee of 125 with an additional thousand or fraction of seven dollars and I would have to get John to come explain what that means to you or Charlie so meaning if you have more square footage versus less square footage and what's the base square footage you're talking about this is actually for commercial use so um we base all the permit fee on the evaluation would you talk in the microphone please yes Charlie that's the commercial fees so it's based on the cost or the value of the construction so it's the base fee as of today is a hundred dollars and then it's five dollars for every um thousand refraction thereof again off of the value the next one is for change of occupancy for no alterations minor alterations or multiple inspections this one I would say has a lot of conversation that should happen so um so if I if somebody buys my house they're going to have to have a new permit of occupancy that's going to cost them two hundred dollars no ma'am if it's going to stay a house it's only if they're going to change the use so say they're going to buy your house and and convert it into a store a retail store then it would require a change of occupancy but residential to residential or Mercantile to Mercantile does not require a change of occupancy and minor alterations would be like versus multiples because that multiple inspections is what Electrical Plumbing yes ma'am and miners only if they're going to be removing some walls and it

[1:40:14] doesn't require any electrical Mechanical plumbing work to be done the major or multiple inspections then it requires additional inspectors and additional will continue to review those the next one is for foundation only for residential or accessory structures pretty aggressive I think keep going next is demolition fees for commercial residential or accessory structure if a building is considered not livable and is in such damage that it has to be torn down is that part of one of these fees if the city has to come in and it has to go to the construction board that's a little bit different but yes ma'am if it's where the owner is moving forward and taking the responsibility of that and wanting to demo their residency yes okay Tina go ahead did you say I just wanted to clarify for me the proposed fee that we see on all of these still does not cover the entire cost of service is that on most of them yes there's I think one or two that was a hundred percent but on average we're getting to 73 of the cost of service okay with all of these fees okay thank you so next is the approach curb cut for residential commercial and in-state right-of-way in-state right-of-way from 5 to 30 what is what are we talking about if your approach is off of a state right away it has to go to text offer and so we have to send it over to them for their review and there's additional um communication between text Dot in our our division or our department we issue the permit and then go from there and

[1:42:15] issuing the permit but there's extra steps that are involved in regards to that swimming pool inspections for commercial residential above ground and residential in ground again all that will be reviewed right so this is for overview yes temporary occupancy permits for residential and Commercial so what happens on these because the planning department the Planning Commission has seen tremendous amount of strs over the past six months is this part of that would go back to the residential change of occupancy so not the temporary temporary occupancy is typically they want to start um maybe doing a soft opening where they're not ready to do a complete opening but they're they're almost there there may be like one or two things that they want to do you typically see this in commercial residential is very rare okay and so for electrical there's a base fee proposed at 70 dollars in insulation requiring more than two inspections would be sixty dollars so that must be one that we're a hundred percent covering the cause it's okay just keep going I'm just making comments since it's only a ten dollar increase okay Nexus plumbing and fuel or gas a base fee of 75 dollars small fixture ten dollars in a large fixture fifteen dollars okay go back so a small fixture is like a small chandelier no I'm sorry this is Plumbing so it's like your water closet your lavatories those are going to be your small fixtures your large fixtures or your your water lines your gas lines your sewer lines your grease traps and those

[1:44:18] would be considered large fixtures okay mechanical base fee at 75 mechanical commercial Venta Hood sixty dollars mechanical voucher 35 tents or temporary tents 85 dollars those for like events yes ma'am billboards 285 wall 105 freestanding 2 to 50 square feet 115 dollars freestanding 51 and up 120 and then a portable at 75 dollars General fees an hourly rate in excess of two hours would be sixty dollars and an inspection convenience fee would be sixty dollars non-digital submissions this I think is going back to what John was talking about earlier where there's incentive to do your uh submissions online is that what this one is if you don't do it online what's the fee and if you do do it online at zero right and that's to encourage people to do it online and there therefore have less paperwork involved and less Hands-On for the and that's the other reason these fees are becoming an issue for me and that is is that we keep asking people to do more and more online and yet we're saying our costs are increasing X potentially so what are we talking about all I would say to that is the cost were already there so we're trying to minimize future costs by putting things online those kind of things which reduce the amount of additional labor we might need so this is an effort to keep it cone down the cost was already there on the front end business related fees under Code Compliance limousine permit renewal would be twenty dollars abatement for a 12-yard dump truck would be 650 and mowing services would be 175 dollars pretty aggressive

[1:46:29] Parks and Recreation moving on to that for recreation at wake nasworthy looking at a entrance fee daily of five dollars an entry fee for annual of thirty dollars annual Plus or for 65 plus of 20 in annual for disabled or disabled of twenty dollars campsite daily fees at ten dollars and then the peer rental for two hours would be 150 dollars this is a sideline but when is that new fishing pier going to be done where the the pier itself is completed we're waiting to complete the the parking lot aspect of it of course the Ada component that goes into it but uh that's left and I think um Shane right now we're probably about a month and a half away to get that done yes we're pretty close well it's summertime it is so make it available this summer yes ma'am hey and so again for Parks The Pavilion Rentals would be twenty dollars Park venues for two hours at sixty dollars and then Visitor Center grounds for sixty dollars for one hour how do you monitor that is going out there and watches I know I mean people just go out there and do it without no permits I'm not even sure who even comes in to ask for a permit where is it he wears his swimsuit I'm like on the grounds if if they're using the grounds usually for like a wedding that's the most common thing is they get a slip that says they they've rented it so they have exclusive rights so if anybody else shows up they can say hey I've got it reserved how many fights have we had none that I recall of but we have for for practices for sports practices but that's how we control that but it's really can I say but it's really not controlled because if I want to go have a picnic nobody was having a wedding or nobody was doing anything I could still use it for free correct I think the purpose of

[1:48:33] the fee is so that you have exclusive rights to it right you only pay if you want otherwise otherwise it's open to the public we have a lot of other areas great scenic areas other than the visitor center and I see people out there having pictures taken all over the city so we have a new historic archaeological site from today so we can send them out there so Recreation or baseball fields that are lighted be five dollars an hour those that are unimproved would be three dollars an hour and for basketball for an adult team the proposed fee would be 275 dollars and for a youth or individual would be eighty dollars basketball youth team would be 500 youth team with uniform 600 dollars um youth Regional 175 dollars and then rental of Carl Ray Jim at thirty dollars football youth proposing eighty dollars flag football youth early Reg 65 late reg hundred dollars and pre-season flag football for youth would be 175 dollars when we're doing this analysis let's make sure in the analysis we do quote Recreation over here in one category construction over here so we don't separate it as I mean we don't look at as one great big fee schedule but Recreation should be separated from construction so we could probably accomplish that either through the caption having separate parts or through the presentation but we can you're wanting to be able to vote on them separately correct okay um okay so for Carl Ray activity room rental would be thirty dollars softball for adults would be 350 dollars softball resale would be seven dollars forty dollars or seventy five dollars

[1:50:35] and volleyball for a youth team would be 325. volleyball youth team with jerseys 380 volleyball adult at 225 and then the restroom trailer rental would be 575 daily for youth summer camp registration would be 50 weekly fee would be 75 the holding fee would be 25 and then for track would be 90 dollars is generally what it looks like is obviously the fee increases on the recreational aspect of this presentation or minor compared to the fees for construction permits relative to construction so these don't seem the increases here don't seem to be an insult so much for the Nature Center birthday parties would be proposed at a hundred dollars each additional person would be five dollars for admission for four to 12 year olds would be three dollars and for over 12 or for 13 plus would be five dollars for an off-site tour would be 125 on-site tour would be 80. each additional person would be two dollars and a family pass would be 60. uh the sports complex for field rental with no lights would be 85 a day or 15 an hour for a lighted field would be a hundred dollars a day or thirty dollars an hour Association field rental for the season would be six hundred dollars now we're moving on to planning miscellaneous the design and historic review admin fee would be 120 dollars administrative Amendment would be eighty dollars a surcharge for non-digital like we talked about earlier would be a hundred and twenty dollars and a site plan reviews resubmission would be 280 dollars so there's currently no fee for non-digital surcharge and there's no fee

[1:52:40] for resubmission so we go from 0 to 280 and 0 to 120. I cannot I will point out top two fees fees um yes the the non-digital I think we talked about that is not currently a fee the resubmission we don't have a resubmission fee but what we what we looked at doing was uh we can keep the site plan fee itself lower uh by charging for each additional because if if an applicant has everything in order they submit a site plan it's all good they just pay the one fee if we give them the list of things they need to change they resubmit it and it hasn't made all those changes we have to send it out to multiple departments for review again takes another week or two for the applicant waiting on those comments more staff time they would pay for each of those resubmissions again with the idea of keeping the cost down for those folks who who basically get everything right the first time the question mark is or the comment I'm going to make is sounds great unless we forget to give them the entire list of things that need to be addressed and many people have had to come back two or three times because the first time they're told to do one two and three and then they come back and they'll oh we forgot to tell you about four five and six so as long as we're efficient on the front end and detail absolutely everything that that person has to do this makes some sense but we cannot add to it after the first review and decide oh we forgot to tell you that oh we didn't catch that then they should not be expected to pay for things that we didn't designate as issues absolutely and that's a pretty rare occurrence but if we if we do have a situation like that if they've addressed all of our comments and we find something else we absolutely would not charge for having them to resubmit something uh that was something we missed but that the

[1:54:42] again that's a pretty rare instance that the examples that I can think of are when one in particular I can think of they had to move their building and shift their parking and so we never told them that they had to move the dumpster well they didn't have to move the dumpster on the first version of the plan but because of the way the building and parking moved now the dumpster was in the fire lane that applicant complained that that was a new combat well it was only new because of the other changes that had to happen on the side because we requested those other changes right-of-way encroachment admin would be 130 sidewalk waiver 75 development plan fee would be 75 dollars if I could add on that top one it's a little misleading because that is a new fee but right now all right-of-way encroachments pay a 450 dollar fee so it would be more accurate to to say that this is 450 because what we've done is created a new administrative process that's a quicker simpler process you all changed the ordinance a couple years ago to allow staff to approve some of these right-of-way encroachments we never created a new fee for that and so this remedies that and creates this new lower fee and then these other two are just new processes that have been created in the past with no fee ever associated with it the one that I hear the most about in terms of problems is the development Review Committee where people will go because no one takes notes which I'm sure I don't understand and so then they come they get ready to move forward and they go oh but you have to do this and you have to do that and oh this also has to happen those develop a review meetings are a great idea as long as somebody's taken notes and somebody understands that these were the things that were discussed

[1:56:46] instead of whether somebody remembers they were discussed or whether several people didn't make it to the design Review Committee I mean the development Review Committee so it wasn't a complete approach to that meeting and that's the biggest concern I have is because people say well they said this or they didn't say that or I didn't know this or I didn't know that we've got to make that development Review Committee more official well we actually do we have we have two different processes within that one is called the consultation and one's the actual development review commission committee uh in a development Review Committee that's when they have actual plans in hand and and for those we do take notes we send out a comprehensive list of notes to the applicant and all of that's done we do not do that with a consultation because that's when someone comes in and says hey I have an idea I want to do X Y or Z maybe it doesn't even have a property in mind and so that's when we can give them ideas of well make sure you think about this or you might want to talk with fire marshal or but that's when we don't have an actual plan or an actual property that they have in mind so it is more just a kind of a general overview of what our requirements are and what applications they would have to fill out and so you're right we don't give them a full list of written notes but for the drcs we absolutely do give them notes and John just to piggyback on that we've received actually over the last few weeks I've actually gotten several compliments from usually outside the city who are working with San Angelo saying it actually was very efficient one of the best processes they've gone through they do a good job of documenting all of that as always I encourage anyone who has an issue I need to hear about that not six months later but if there's an item going on then we look into it if if there's a problem on our end we're going to do our best to fix it on the other hand if it's documented and we did it I'm going to defend that you know here's the evidence that shows so but yes if you encounter someone who comes to you with that please send them our way I would be happy to visit with them please don't

[1:58:47] wait till six months later we need to know it as it's going on so the next fee is for fire department for ambulance standby Services that's currently 400 the proposed fee would be 500 and for additional hours would be a 125 dollars per hour um the base would be a four hour minimum Cemetery uh the fees are concrete box going up to 795 dollars concrete ball to 8.95 opening and closing for an infant would be 500 outside container setting would be two hundred dollars burial opening and closing would be 700 lot transfer 150 marker survey would be 150 and hourly overtime would be 250 dollars over time on the weekend would be five hundred dollars a grave opening five hundred dollars set up for a tent 500 and for an additional tent five hundred dollars well that was aggressive 150 to 500 yeah it's you don't want to die until we fix the piece I'm guessing that's because it's just as much work to put up a second tent as it was for the first tent it probably is I think Jeremy is that correct okay and these have been reviewed with the Fairmont Cemetery board go ahead Jeremy you want to add any comments discuss with the board we're going to discuss it next week at our board meeting so this is just an overview you'll come back with some comments from the board

[2:00:49] yes ma'am okay thank you okay moving on to Civic events for El Paseo electrical hookup proposed at fifty dollars for the grounds at a hundred dollars and a base rate of 200 facility seat fees for ticketed events five dollars and under would move to a dollar Farmers Market base rate would be 125 dollars Foster Coliseum non-ticketed would be two thousand dollars and taking it would be twenty five hundred dollars Foster Coliseum non-commercial non-ticketed would be 1750 what would be that event sit here so normally for a non-commercial not taking it like a graduation event or something of that nature and I do want to say before we go through all of our fees we have not increased fees since 2009 so we can do the same thing on Civic advances Analyze That separately too so we don't want to mix apples with oranges in this conversation mayor speaking to that would you have any interest in considering the parks and rec and the Civic events fees today and just bringing back the rest of it later well I would ask Council if they're okay with these fees if that's something they want to do or whether they want a total evaluation by category Civic events versus programming Athletics versus construction planning and permits so if you don't like these fees and feel like you need an opportunity to better understand them we don't have to prove anything today I'm assuming Sydney's asking for that because you've got something coming up that

[2:02:51] will be in the fiscal 23-24 budget that you would need to be quoting people today in terms of them booking these facilities is that correct they're just as one council member I'm I'm okay with the Parks and Recreation and um Civic events yes ma'am to approve them today if that'd be the pleasure of the council this council members have any other vote any other point of view what hearing I said I'm okay with it also I've actually reviewed this with uh with Sid in his particular group some months ago what's the comment we would just need direction on firing code as well that would be the only one we haven't done that other than the ambulance right the ambulance is yes the ambulance is the only fire fee and this year and then the code was the one for the mowing that I think you thought was aggressive so we could bring that one back as well but I think the fire one is pretty realistic the mowing one seems out of line but um all right so what we could have is a motion number one let's take this in pieces we could have a motion to approve these Civic events fees as one motion and we'll take categories at a time so the first one should be a motion to approve the Civic events proposed fees seconded by Harry any public comment on the Civic events proposed fees go ahead there's still more okay all right well then we're not taking a vote yet because there's more fees to be looked at so we might end up changing that motion if there are things that we don't think are correct so continue because Sydney said there's

[2:04:57] more yes ma'am McNeese Convention Center for Ticket events would be three thousand dollars for a convention would be 27.50 and then the base rate would be 2500 a kitchen fee of 200 so my question Sydney is the following is obviously it's important to keep this facility booked with lots of events do these proposed fees put us out of the market for the use of this Building compared to other facilities private facilities that exist in this market no ma'am so we did a study actually with some comparable cities as well cities I mean within our city meaning if somebody has privately a building that they lease out for events oh man we've also did those two as well in in city as well and we've compared to other uh other venues that would do you know that would be comparable to the convention center as well and say we're in good Market because I hear people comment that it's too expensive to book the McNeese for events so I want to make sure we haven't put ourselves out of the market with these fees no mail so you're going to continue to bucket yes ma'am every weekend yes ma'am the pressure man yeah these fees are too so we're in line okay mayor I can back in a test to we had a high school class reunion and one of the things I checked on was different venues the city was was by far the least expensive of other private venues in town so and that's been within the last uh nine months okay so that's important to know all right continue okay so again with McNeese the ballroom base fee would be two thousand dollars Ballroom ticketed would be 21.50 a

[2:06:59] convention would be 2 000 and then one third of the ballroom would be 750. Ballroom two thirds set 1500 the north meeting room at 850 North one third would be 300 and two-thirds of the north would be 500. so those percent increases maintain the same percent increase on each of those categories yes ma'am for the most part on on those right there also um I mean just in general yes ma'am all right I'm not sitting here doing the calculation on each one of them but I need to make sure it's pretty consistent uh so for the entire upstairs that the knees would be 500 dollars single room upstairs would be 300 the city hall East mezzanine 250 and the Pecan Creek Pavilion for weekends would be 600 dollars so that one's pretty aggressive stand there for a while so for Pecan Creek Pavilion we could probably book that venue twice over because we're always getting calls for to do any bookings at the concrete Pavilion um there's something that us as a staff have discussed in the future maybe looking into building another Pavilion on that property as well and doing something because graduation time uh summertime uh you fall time that that concrete Pavilion stays booked awesome good to know concrete weekdays would be four hundred dollars the river stage base fee would be a thousand dollars River Stage ticketed two thousand dollars and additional staffing needs would be twenty dollars so additional Staffing you can get for five dollars more either yes that's so that's a per hour as well yes

[2:09:00] for our minimum yeah yeah mayor it looks like that's all I have for you today all right so with the final review of these Civic events numbers we are going to stay with the motion to approve the Civic events New proposed fee schedule it has the motion was made by Tommy it was seconded by Harry we will open up the conversation for people in the audience who would like to make public comment with no public comment being offered then we'll take a vote those in favor of the new proposed fees for civic events say aye aye that motion passes 6-0 then do we want a separate motion for the ambulance and so just the ambulance allowance I mean I have a motion for the increa proposed increase fee for the ambulance services so I moved in second by the same two people I got it down already so uh public comment saying on hearing none will take a vote all those in favor say aye the ambulance fee has been approved six to zero so the rest of those fees will go back oh parts and Rec with elimination of lots of things I believe approval of parks and rec okay any public comment on those items see none hearing none will take a vote all those in favor the parks and wrecks say aye aye none opposed that passes 6-0 okay and that does cover everything with the exception of planning permitting and performance and code okay right and I would hope you'd have a chance to go back to the development Review Committee sorry and Cemetery I need those Cemetery ones discussed with the cemetery board before it comes back here I want them to be well informed on that before we take a vote on it and then we'll bring it back

[2:11:02] and then I want to make sure that we have an opportunity to meet with a development Review Committee on the proposed fee schedules so they're well versed before it comes back to council all right with that we'll move on to the next item on the agenda and that is item e first reading and public hearing of an ordinance amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 2022 and ending September 30th 2023 for capital projects and an additional full-time planning position Tina yes ma'am so because our FTE count is adopted in the budget ordinance we have to bring this back to you anytime we want to try to add an additional FTE John has a proposal for his Department whereby he would convert one position into two lower level positions and that one position would almost cover the entire cost of the two lower level positions it would cost an additional like seventy six hundred dollars in next fiscal Year's budget to do this but for the current year you're seeing no revenue or expense associated with it because we can probably find savings within the department to cover the cost for the remainder of this year if he does fill those positions so the issues is whether you can find that person or those two persons right because the biggest challenge is finding people to fill the positions that are open in the planning department so that's right and that's one of the reasons we're proposing this is that the the current vacant position is a high level planning planner position and what we're proposing is two planning technicians which have a lower lower requirements for that and so and higher efficiency yeah I believe so and we'll we'll be able to spread the spread the activities yeah and have the actual professional planners do the higher level work and some of the things that they're doing now like stuffing envelopes to send out mail notifications on zoning cases more of that can be done by these that's how we have cost savings to lower these fees absolutely okay with that keep going

[2:13:07] and this budget amendment is just to budget for the co proceeds of 13 million four hundred and fifteen thousand dollars I mean you saw this before a few times now um came to you in February of last year um to allow us to go to the Texas water development board to receive this loan from them low interest loan and so this is just now issuing for those proceeds and we're well aware of this so there should be an issue there approval on that okay so may I have a motion Tommy's going to make that one Lucy you're going to get the second on that one because I wish you on the other one and any public comment scene none will take a vote all in favor say aye aye motion passes 6-0 we will now go into the closed session the executive session under the provision of government code title V open government ethics subtitle a open government chapter 551 open meeting sub chapter D exceptions to requirement that meetings be open under the following sections a section 551.072 deliberations about real property regarding commercial lease and possible sale of lots two and three block one group middle Concho Lake Nazareth Edition we will return following that conversation I want to say doing that

[2:15:22] okay we'll call this meeting back to order at 11 55 a.m there is no announcements uh from our closed sessions so we will move into approving board nominations of which there is one for the Zoning Board of adjustment Mimi Clark smd4 to a first term ending January 2025. may I have a motion for hi mayor you've got also the Concho River watermaster we do not do not okay yeah well I moved to approve on the motion okay may I have a second second by Tommy uh any public comment with none we'll take a vote all those in favor of Mimi you want to make any comments give me okay all right all right all right so we'll take about all those in favor say aye aye motion passes six zero uh may I have now a motion for German second uh any public comment if not we'll take a vote all in favor say aye aye motion passes six zero remind everybody we meet on May 25th for strategic planning meeting at 26 actually on the 26th at 8 30 A.M is that in this room or at East mezzanine here I like to do them here okay with that we are adjourned thank you

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=q8pibxlC6ng