Joint City Council and Development Corporation and City Council January 22, 2013

[0:00:00] we will start the meeting this one is is going to have some uh just a little different procedure we're g to we need to go into an executive session before we have the combined session okay uh also at that time while we're in executive session I'm going to get them to rearrange these tables and get y'all closer to us and set things up a little bit differently but we need to go into executive session to to gain some knowledge from Council about what we can and cannot do under your bylaws and those kinds of things so so that'll happen and so I want everyone to kind of understand how this will work this morning we'll have a call for prayer we'll have the pledges we'll have public comment we'll get through the consent agenda then we will go into executive session and that won't last long but it's just a it's just explanations and then we will come back and and start the combined meeting and then we'll go into the regular agenda so that's going to be the the way things move around right okay so at this time let me ask uh is she not here that's interesting so um who's whose turn is it to lead us in prayer Mr silvas Mr silvus will lead us in prayer this morning let us pray our gracious Heavenly Father Lord we thank you again for this day father we thank you for your many blessings I pray that you be with us today Father and just help us make the right decisions that are that come before us be with each and every member up here be with all the uh the people in attendance and again father just watch over us and and again bless us with your uh your spirit and thank you again for everything you give us in Jesus name I pray amen amen okay I got help her do I have a card

[0:02:12] yes you have like a obstacle this is Piper B and she's a third grader at Cornerstone Christian school she's going to help me with ples this morning this is Piper Bowden I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all Texas flag Texas one state God indivisible good job I have one Proclamation this morning this is Schoolboard recognition month and I saw several of you do I have several joining me or do I have one joining me or why don't y'all come come send send the Entourage okay outstanding th uh this is from our stt Angelo Independent School District we have Lanny Layman who's the board president and Bill dindle who's the single member district one uh board member and then others are here from the school district so welcome all and we

[0:04:17] have a proclamation this morning take those off so I can read it whereas the mission of public schools is to meet the diverse educational needs of all children and to empower them to become competent productive contributors to a Democratic Society and an everchanging world and whereas local Schoolboard members are committed to children and believe all children can be successful lifelong Learners and that the best education is tailored to the individual's needs of individual needs of each child and whereas local school board members work closely with parents educational professionals and other community members to create the the educational Vision we want for our students and whereas local school board members are responsible for ensuring the structure that provides a solid foundation for our school system and whereas local school board members are strong advocates for public education and are responsible for communicating the needs of the school district to the public and the Public's expectations to the district now therefore I Alvin new mayor of the city of St Angelo on behalf of the city council do hereby declare our appreciation to the members of the St Angelo Independent School District and proclaim the month of January 2013 as school board recognition month thank you for the work you do guys thank you uh the mayor said I could recognize a few of our team I hope I can remember everyone I see Jeff bride he's one of our assistant superintendent stand up Jeff uh Steve Van hoser is running our bond project he's worked for the district for a number of years but uh really worked hard on our bond project um Steve Gil and Stephanie all stand up together they're our executive directors of schools um Dr Carl dof is one of our assistant superintendents um Jamie heith U is in charge of our public relations she's the one that made sure I got here today uh Marty tney is our the board secretary out depend on her um a whole lot during our meetings and finally I think Dr

[0:06:19] Carol and bonds our superintendent's here so I want to thank y'all for of y'all's recognition and certainly on behalf of the over 2,000 uh School District employees and the 14,000 students that were uh have the honor and and privilege of of serving on behalf of then I I thank y'all for that very much we appreciate you thanks man also this morning I have a a recognition and so I would like to bring uh Brian Groves up here and how do you take pictures and being a picture there's Anthony you know I can take a pictures there's Anthony first thing we need to do is ask Brian if he wrote this I did not okay Anthony did you write this okay it's all right I just want I don't want Brian writing his own stuff so all right here are just a few of the many good things I could say about Brian's recent works and I'm going to uh Brian a filled in as the interim public information officer from June to September running a two-person operation solo maybe we should think about that through months of drought a city manager search and budget just to name a few issues Brian is responsible for the programming on Channel 17 including all of the videography production and scheduling among the recent programming he has spearheaded the pet adoption spots which has led to the adoption of each animal featured thus far nice employee spotlights which highlight some of the city's excellent public servants the city a new interview show that he produces a series of videos updating progress on the cono River improvements Stan Angelo scenery short video tributes to some of the most beautiful spots in the city water conservation tips starring horticulturist John begno a

[0:08:22] special report on Street Maintenance additionally he championed a new s Angelo promotional video that will soon debut for use by the city the chamber our Economic Development partners and other local entities he has been the website's Chief caretaker and will be instrumental in the in the redesign and implementation of the new site he has been the city's forebearer of social media ensuring a strong presence and following on Facebook Twitter and YouTube so I'd like to recognize Brian for all the work he does for the city thank you Brian thank you Brian public comment the council takes public comment on all items in the regular agenda public input on a regular agenda item will be taken at its appropriate discussion public input on an item not on the agenda or on the consent agenda may be identified and requested for consideration by the council at this time the council May request that an item be placed on a future agenda or for a consent agenda item to be moved to the regular agenda for public comment so council do we have items to move or Mr Morrison I don't have any items to move but I do have a request and I realize that the time to say this is at the end of the meeting but I will be leaving at 10:15 to be with my wife through a medical procedure so I will not be here

[0:10:25] I have had calls from several people in my area that have asked that we appoint Don bman to fill Fred Adams seat I realize this takes a unanimous vote of the council so I throw that out that there head that there is some interest in that and to kind of give the council the ability to think about it if there is a consensus then I'll have it put on the agenda next meeting we'll consider it also uh I talked last night our text last night with Steve mofin and he has asked that we pull number 23 from the agenda so that's all I've got number 12 also skine I'll do that hang on just a second please what 23 is on the regular agenda regular it is on regular agenda it will to be T table it so you're just tabling it to the next meeting post okay got it are there others uh items to be pulled from the agenda motion to approve consent agenda and I'll also say motion to table item number 23 Second okay I have a motion to approve the consent agenda and to table item number 23 you guys out of uh courtesy I need to make sure that one of these consent agenda items is is okay with Miss farmer that's not good I have a motion in a second let me call for that vote all those in favor please say I any opposed okay at this time then um

[0:12:29] I need to see if there's public comment that on items that are not on the agenda is there any public comment come on up this is Linda Williams and I wanted to make sure she got up here and she has some questions for us uh it is it is an obstacle course sorry about that Linda it's not normally like this uh right there there's a microphone Linda is from smd1 and she has comments or questions good morning um as Paul said I'm Linda Williams and I do live in his district and last year on um ma'am could you pull the mic down just yes how's that better okay thank you last year on July 22nd um I sent an email to Paul and this group regarding the Ben fckin action Baseball Academy I had a lot of questions regarding the operation to date I have not received any answer to my email other than that they recognized from my email that it was residentially zoned and they would have to look into it okay my questions now are still valid because now the uh sign is up that they are going to change the zoning so my questions had to do with the designated area and I'm representing the neighborhood and we want to know um you know what are the out just simple things that I think that need to be answered before you can go forth with a business of this type what are the hours of operation what are the number of days per week that the field will be in use what are the number of participants that will utilize a facility per day per week per year what's the projected increase in traffic for the area what is the projected increase in noise for the area

[0:14:33] what is the projected increase in the amount of trash for the area are there any plans to expand the low water crossing which is a on lane road that goes underneath the bridge at the Ben fickin Crossing um you also noted that they would pave the parking area what requirements from engineering will be in place to ensure that the drainage ditch that fronts the Benin Road will not flood as it does now causing damage to the homes and their property and if the proposed 5-year lease with a one-year out clause is abandoned by action Baseball Academy which I see on his website he's now changed to action baseball camp what are the plans for the abandoned structure and these are the questions we brought up last year and we still have these questions okay they're very appropriate questions but they're more appropriate for the the person in the city staff who is uh taking on the negotiation of that contract and so the city is the the city council is a policy board so we give guidance to the staff and then we give them Direction on what they should do but we don't go into the details uh of of of what are the business hours and those kinds of things we we give guidelines and then they take on that responsibility so I would suggest to you that that U your questions here aren't going to be answered to your satisfaction but let me an appointment an appointment with Mr Valenzuela or an appointment with somebody in City staff will get you headed down the right PA and she knows she knows that explain that to her that we can't we cannot discuss it she knows that uh but in six days the Planning Commission hears this zoning change and they're still without the answers they need so it it becomes urgent with six days left when she's

[0:16:37] been waiting six months for some of the answers we'll get actually we'll get a schedule within uh the next couple of days um I'll sit down with AJ fer also with the planning department and we'll schedule a time to sit down with you and address those questions okay and so what I'll do is I'll take the email what I have and send it to you so that you and I explain that to her as well we have a new city manager that needs to get be caught up with where staff is and and he will see it through and we'll get this answer before the meeting with the Planning Commission on the 28th I believe that's Monday I think there's another way to handle that though just by contacting him and setting up the meeting there's there's a anyway thank you very much thank you very much she representing a lot of people let me say that there's a lot of people it's kind of a brand new issue thank you Linda are there other public comments come on up how I get here it's a long long Tri my name is scale stepinsky and I am in district one and only last week on Thursday did I see a sign go up at Benin Park requesting a zoning change I did go down to the Planning Commission and I was told that only people who live within 200 ft H get notices about this this is a public park it is used by hundreds of people I would say about oh SE 65 to 70% are lowincome people that baseball field was set up by the Lions Club for lowincome children it is now going to be a baseball training camp for 500 for $500

[0:18:41] a month to train there and it will or you can take a a 3-we course for $750 that excludes the kids who use this park this park is really a Unique Park in the city of s Angelo it is a natural area it does not have swings it does not have uh it's not a playground it's a natural area it's a Flyway it's a Flyway for ducks it's a Flyway for cranes they want to put in as I have learned from going to the Planning Commission asphal this is a watershed they want to have a commerci commercial Venture what other parks in San Angelo have a commercial Venture for that for elite kids it was just not set up that way and people go there because it is an oasis it is pastoral it is a beautiful place where you can hear fish jump that's how quiet it is fishermen use it hikers use it mothers with toddlers use it uh little boys after school come exploring cyclers meet there to go cycling there are Runners on Ben viiin Road there are walkers on Ben fitland Road I am here to speak for the park and the people who use the park because a park cannot speak for itself so I would ask you to seriously consider putting this commercial expensive Venture for elite children somewhere else not in a fragile ecological environment the only Park on that side of the it's the only partk just one people come here little ladies come here in the morning I see one

[0:20:44] little lady every morning who who comes in her house robe in her SUV and drinks coffee because it's beautiful I see people come for breakfast who are workmen because it's beautiful and it's quiet I see PE the same workmen come back at lunch and eat I see people who who uh yeser I'm going to give you an example yesterday I'm asking people to write to you and tell you about this park uh yesterday I walked up to a man and I said do you use this park regularly because I'm I'm trying to tell people what's happening to it he said no this is my first time I stopped here because it's just so beautiful in fact I just called my wife in Montana and I said you're not going to believe what I found in s Angelo he said but I'll write a letter for you if you'll tell me who to write a letter to so I implore you do not destroy Ben fckin Park and and a a pay $500 a month a pay $750 for for a 3we course with batting cages and a commercial Venture does not belong here try somewhere else thank you okay thank you other public comment thank you okay I'm going to pull us into executive session okay at this time I'm going to to take us into executive session to get um some advice from Council and so excuse me yeah I'm I'm gonna ask Miss bowling but are we 15 to 30 minutes okay let's we're thinking we're 15 minutes in executive session so some in that time frame and so let me let me take us into executive session we'll be back in roughly 15 minutes maybe

[0:22:47] slightly longer and I think I normally say one thing and it's normally just a bit longer than that so okay it is yes we will leave the room so those that are in the room will not have to leave there's simply too many of you it' just be easier for us uh to leave so let me start folks let me keep your attention till I get us taken out of this regular commit regular meeting into executive committee okay all right this under executive committee law I need to read something it's 9:32 we're going to move into executive or close session under provision of government code Title 5 open government ethics subtitle a open government chapter 550 1 open meetings sub chapter D exceptions to the requirement that meetings be open uh to consult with an attorney under Section 551.071 so we move into executive session at this time see you in roughly 15 minutes at this time it is 959 and I'll bring Council back out of executive session ask that we open a joint uh meeting here between the city council and the Development Corporation and we'll operate under a special agenda uh at this time what I'll do is open uh the and and uh bring Council into that meeting Mr Teague if you would open uh the meeting for your board U call I call the meeting of the city of St Angelo Development Corporation to a special joint meeting with the city council to order okay okay so both uh entities are called to order and uh we we can now trans transact business according to our agenda okay basically we have one item this is the consideration and possible action regarding the city of St Angelo Development Corporation administrative procedures included including purchasing procedure project approval levels and other areas within the scope and purview of the cadc board possibly including establishing a more efficient means of obtaining Council approval I'll leave it

[0:24:50] at that and um and move forward from there Mr Teague would you guys like to start us off off and introduce your thoughts and and let us go from there okay our thoughts are that we are trying to streamline the process on projects when uh we have budget numbers and contingencies built in that we don't have to bring everything back as long as we're in in the budget mode I mean not $1 over that we can have the authority to uh do change orders or stuff without having to bring it back to city council for ever approval as long as we are in budget okay and and what do you think uh is required to create that does it require any changes in your bylaws or does it just require a permission well our bylaws pretty well say that we have to bring everything for y'all's approval way I understand it is that not right Miss bowling yes okay and that's what as long as we're in budget that's what we were trying to so are you saying your bylaws now require you to bring expenditures to council per for approval which comports with state law is that if I heard you right so yes the current bylaws are in line with state law state law okay okay the the um did I fall off all right I've been waiting I've been waiting for that to happen so yeah it was supposed to make it until May but this is as good a time as anyway um let's been waiting a long time to say that I got one two three four five six council members I'm I'm welcome any of you to speak or I would just continue to let them walk through what they're thinking try to get that articulated clearly what whatever you'd like I do think it might be quickly important

[0:26:55] because we're being recorded just to start with Mr schneeman and walk around that table and let you introduce yourselves uh so that that that anyone watching this knows who that who they're watching and and so forth if you don't mind okay I'm uh Robert snan interim director of Economic Development Pedro Ramirez member of the co DC board okay John bario I'm also a member of the co DC board Randy Brooks member of Costa DC board Larry TIG chairman of Costa DC board Chris Cornell member of the board Scott tankersley member of the board uh Cindy Harton Economic Development coordinator thank you very much okay is there anything that any of you would like to add to what Mr Teague has said at this point Mr Teague I'm sorry for recognizing people on your board you're welcome to take that over but is there anything further before I let Council start asking questions or well I think Mr snan could probably make a a real succinct presentation kind of about the item and how it came about and what we're you know how we're seeking to uh streamline the process yeah if if I can um of course we had a a PowerPoint but we've we've sort of moved things around so uh as Miss bowling pointed out we are currently operating in accordance with um state law which says that uh all programs and expenditures of The Economic Development Corporation uh must be approved by uh in this case City Council or the creating public body um however it also goes on to say that and that the city council will annually review financial statements of the corporation uh corporation's authorizing unit is entitled to access the corporation books and records at all times what our question is uh I don't think there's any doubt that that that city council is uh required to to approve all expenditures

[0:28:58] uh made by kosad DC I I think um the question comes up does that mean each and everyone individually or does that mean a sort of overall uh approval uh at the budget stage for example or perhaps at the beginning of a project uh if if uh we could present a project to sta uh to Council in such a way that uh uh we were asking for approval of for example selection of an architect selection of a uh contractor execution of a contract and uh a total budget for the project and then perhaps not have to bring it back to council uh unless it went over that approved budget amount uh or the scope of the project changed significantly from what uh Council had had approved to begin with I think in a nutshell that's really what we're talking about out okay on the feedback I I I know from being here for 3 years if you any of you have your phone in your pocket or any of those kinds of things up close to the mic that's going to cause the feedback uh Miss Haron if you're got if you have anything going out and back like emails or things like that feeding your computer they're going to cause feedback uh so and if Scott's iPad is uh 3G that'll it so those are the kinds of things for you to know or we'll deal with that the whole time okay usually AT&T okay um now uh I I think there are legitimate I understand your issue fairly well I think there's some legitimate concerns about how to move that forward if we move that forward and so I think maybe some of the council members could ask you direct questions or give you some idea why they think maybe that doesn't work and U or couldn't work and so let's start that do that discussion back and forth and and see where we land on this okay okay and

[0:31:02] again basically the way you articulated it Mr snan was we oversee your budget on an annual basis and so then do we need to see each item that comes along during the year uh related to a specific project and approve that project if we've already approved something and uh and so I'll I'll let some others kind of start walking you through what they think and how they think okay uh I've got Mr hfield and Mr Morrison so I'll start with Mr hfield then Mr Morrison and then miss farmer I guess a couple things I'm not excuse me I'm not sure who drafted the uh you know your proposed bylaw changes uh but I'm assuming that y'all have read through this and this is what y'all are hoping and planning and would like to have because what I'm sorry Larry what you described and what is described is not what is described in here it's not I mean what you're describing in here is basically complete autonomy of all budget items period end of story well I thought basically I mean is that the new bylaw changes that he's looking at those those are the ones that were originally proposed uh to kosa DC um they were requested uh through the city clerk's office I understood by Council we're not we're not uh married to those uh by any means uh I think they were uh you're right they probably were way more extreme than uh uh I think than we were even hoping for um they were basically drafted by I think by my predecessor um and so we're not we're not married to those by any means okay and then then I guess the second thing and this should come as should not come as a surprise to any of y'all down there I've been at your uh Retreat I've talked to you guys you guys have heard my

[0:33:06] opinions this is Kendall's opinion we are elected bodies you guys are appointed bodies and I say guys in a generic sense so anyway but we are the ones that are directly accountable to the taxpayers and what you guys are spending is taxpayer money and the only conduit that we have for responsibility direct responsibility back to the taxpayer that is supplying that money is through these elected officials that is my opinion that's where I I believe that it that it is um you know I I again I've stated that Crystal Clear at least two three four five times uh to all of yall as a group individually whatever and so I still stand by that that I feel that we have an ultimate responsibility to our taxpayer that we we cannot let go of and that we have to be accountable to our taxpayer that's just my opinion okay Mr Morrison very well said I wanted to make my statement because in about 5 minutes I've got to leave Larry Teague is my appointee and has been for many many years and I'm very proud of the job that you have done but two years ago there were five letters sent out to members of coost DC and five new members were put on the board Larry Teague stayed on because I wanted him to stay I don't want to give y'all more Authority I want everything y'all do to come through us because when something goes wrong it's not TIG that takes the hit it's me because I appointed him and I I want to know where every dollar is being spent if there is a change order I want to know about it and I do not want the authority given to Costa DC that should belong to the elected members of this Council and I

[0:35:08] will not support this okay Miss farmer the bylaws were set up according to state law and for you to ask for uh complete autonomy in in what you're wanting to do and complete control over half cent sales tax money is a little disturbing for me because of opinions you know there's seven opinions up here is to what is good or not good and and and we take your opinions collectively is to recommendations on a project and weigh those opinions and most of the time find in favor of your opinion so I have to ask myself why why um do you want to take something that is not in state law the way I'm understanding it and change it for what purpose the purpose of it being transparent clear line item spent every dollar that is in half cent sales tax is of the utmost importance to me it has taken a good 10 years to earn the trust of the public and how that money has spent and when the arguments have come up from the public about well why can't we raise policeman salaries and use that half cent sales tax money we have labored over these explanations to the public that money can only be spent as intended I'm not saying that you would knowingly spend it on something that it wasn't intended I'm just saying as it is set up it has the watchful eye of the finance department accounting department the legal department and counsel and in something that is dealing with public funds this is the taxpayer's money it needs those Watchdog and those eyes and I I have to ask you why would the seven of you want Total autonomy

[0:37:12] over spending that money I can I can speak to that I'm going let me recognize you in just a moment okay and first let me just be sure I don't have any other council members that want to I'm going to definitely get you on into the discussion I just want to let you go ahead and answer different questions and Mr Teague um it's your board you decide how you want to recognize folks and those things as we get to it but let me finish letting folks give you an idea of what they're thinking and then let the discussion start back and forth Mr Silva I just wanted to add that you know a couple of months ago there was an item that slipped through the crack so to speak it was a $100,000 item that you know we took the hit for you know it just never should have happened the way it happened so right now you know I I don't want to spend here all morning you know we've got other items to to discuss but I'm very much interested in in hearing that you know every other department and from now on we are going to look at it even with a microscopic you know GL whatever you we're going to look at it real close uh there's a $50,000 threshold policy that we have out there and I have no problem with that because in the end you know it's not better Ram Ramirez or Larry TIG or Chris that you know in the end it's going to be these Council people that have to answer to those folks out there that put us in these seats so that's what I'm saying just I'm very much interested and I don't I don't I heard the comment that maybe you guys feel like you have to jump through hoops to get things done I don't I haven't seen very many projects come to us other than the what do we call it the barn what was that Cattle Barn the Cattle Barn uh I mean that's the last thing I remember in and I appreciate the job you guys are doing don't take me wrong I uh you know I applaud you for what you're doing so but to keep us in the loop is is just is what uh of utmost importance to me to this council person so again if it's 50,000 that you have to come to us so be it uh and that's all I'll say okay Mr Alexander do you want to speak before I

[0:39:14] yes okay um there there always seems to be another side and and I'll say that uh I I'll bring it up that that flexible organizations that are able to make quick decisions based on a clear Mission a Clear Vision succeed more often than organizations that are heavy-handedly controlled and and you shall you know every single move is watched uh those organizations are less flexible they're less creative uh and so there's something to be said for what you're saying and what you're asking for uh because uh it could make you more effective in in what you're doing and so I I think that you have to you have to respect flexibility creativity and what it brings to the table its Effectiveness so there's something there and there's also accountability that we're we're looking for here from the council so there's a balance between these two and so for example if you brought to me a block of projects that is Phase One of a project that's all the Planning Engineer and your architect and and said this is the this is what we expect to spend and asked for approval councilman Alexander is going to look at that the whole package and I'm going to be able to say yes I I can approve that uh because I there's benchmarks in place I can see if you're out of line in line and you go and you seek approve you do your deal on your own phase one and we don't have to see every single uh transaction because it's it's understood it's part of a project it's understood phase one so to me that's within balance and that is something acceptable uh in my in my opinion but clear benchmarks to make sure that you guys are on track have to be established at all time or or we lose control up here because it could it could get it could be a problem that that gets worse festers and by the time we get a hold of it and understand what's going on it's way too late that

[0:41:16] can't happen so when you guys are thinking of what you want to propose maybe if you're making some modifications think about flexibility and think about accountability make sure they're balance and and I think that I could say yes okay Mr Alexander um I would like to see add some explanation while you're talking to Mrs Farmer's why question um you you can respond to anything else you've heard but but uh one of the things about approving things kind of on an annual basis and then giving you a lot of leeway through the year that would would be a problem for me is the future future actions part of your budget okay so in other words I I could not see myself uh allowing that to be unencumbered okay uh it's different to say the taxpayers from my perspective it's different to say the taxpayers have passed a uh a a ballot measure and allowed $500,000 to be spent on the uh airport and a million dollar to be spent on a Cattle barn and so much to be spent on the river and you're administering those projects which are preapproved with a with a uh a ceiling on the budget uh and if the council said something along the lines of you can administer the Cattle Barn process uh and you cannot spend more than $1 million if you spend 1 million and $1 you have to come back to the council uh would be an approach uh but the future the future items would give you cart blanch to open negotiations on things that don't exist and I don't see my ability to support that so you'd have to curb uh even further than the once a year oversight for me to understand that there's a path forward for what you're asking for so I want you to talk about that and uh the second thing is what Mr Alexander spoke to I want some specificity on you know if you if you had the administration of the Cattle barn for instance and

[0:43:18] something happens and it and it has to go out for change order or it has to come uh back through a bidding process is your bidding process different from any any any bidding process that the rest of the city uh staff has to go through do you look for something that's different in its look than uh what the purchasing department has to do uh because I think for us there's some comfort that that this is done a certain way bids are let a certain way and and there's no chance that those things then uh don't comply with state law and there's no chance that that someone gets a bid without it being fundamentally put out properly and all those kinds of things so I want you to address that a little bit and I want you to address uh the the worst case scenario that Mr Alexander talked about where you have a million dollars to spend and because something goes wrong uh it's now going to you know supposedly going to cost 1.2 million I don't think we want to catch that after it's supposed to cost 1.2 million and that's so you've got to address why would we not be involved along the way so that we can see that coming just like you see it coming so those are the things that I think need to be talked about while you're walking us through this project so Mr Teague why don't we shift this and let y'all discuss things for a while and and and let us know what you're thinking and some of the answers and and U thoughts that you might have okay okay well the autonomy that we asked for in the beginning when we found out that the state law regulated that and we had the meeting last week with uh you Mr new and M Mr Valenzuela it changed pretty dramatic and so I'm up yeah and I'm I'm pretty much on stage with uh and I'm kind of excuse me Larry can you pull your mic up closer please and I'm kind of unexpectedly you know where the autonomy changed we didn't we realized we couldn't have the full autonomy of the whole project but like what we discussed in that meeting where if we get a budget amendment pass for $1

[0:45:21] million as long as we don't go over that $1 million I mean we perfect examples just like the BRC where they had to come back for some approvals the other day uh to finish the project and we still weren't over budget but we had to come for approval that's some of the stuff we're trying to you know present in a manner that we don't yeah so the business BRC is the business resource center and you're basically saying look we have a budget we're we're uh renovating that building and remodeling that building and then and and we changed some some things we want to do to the building but we didn't spend a penny more than we were going to spend we'd like to just be able to go ahead and make that decision and move forward uh and not have to go back through that process right and and the whole deal is you know when you do a remodel of an old building you always run into some unforeseen but the unforeseen still didn't go beyond our budget and so therefore it took our time y'all's time and then back and forth and we weren't over budget when we finished the project that's what we were trying to stream line okay we know we'll never get the autonomy to have a open checkbook as precise let's Okay so let's back up and talk about the things that are in between there though how how do we govern how do we how do we take care of you not running over budget if something happens that requires more money than you've been given in your budget and that that that idea that all of a sudden 1 million really needs to be 1.2 million or when we address that problem I guess we bring it to you because it is over budget at that time okay the opposite is true too if you're way under budget and you have 200,000 left over do it sounds like you guys would spend that money maybe on some extra stuff you weren't planning and and see that's that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about you give me what your goals are and you fulfill them and and I can go for that but if you have extra money and you put uh added LED lights outside and it gets real fancy and BL

[0:47:26] that's not what I was talking about that extra money we need to hold that back and the council has to be a part of that process so you see my my my guidelines are you tell us what you're going to do you achieve it that's okay but anything extra is not okay can I ask a simple question I mean most of really what you're talking about is contractual the construction type projects and such like that am I am I correct that's kind of the gist of where the focus I think we're we're talking about our entire budget document we're we're talking about any of the programs that we're involved in annually public housing any of the ongoing incentive packages okay well when you talk to the the total budget that's where again I have have trouble because again I'm going to accentuate with what mayor new said and that is item number 452 900 future projects there's almost $1.4 million in that I am not going to give y'all cart blanch on one .4 million period for future projects for future projects and they're undefined the taxpayer hasn't had input I don't think our staff has put that in front of us yet okay I don't have a copy of that that's a problem that that I've got on that I mean that the and and really the point of where I'm going is is how many I mean most of the projects that that y'all have been administering up to this point have been ballot items how many more ballot items are there to come out to be administered Mr DNE I mean are we I mean are most of the ballot items on there I mean are they done we we still have ballot items ahead of us that are yet to be accomplished I mean one five 10 less than 10 I think but uh the the first one that comes to mind is uh the fort Concho work okay that's still in concept at this point okay I not even in concept yet so there are ballot projects yet to come

[0:49:30] that okay that that's then then all of this is a valid concern for the future I think that if you listen to what you heard up here and just and I I I'm conceptually and and and could be on board with a baseline of some items to be done that uh fall within a budget what I will not go on is saying yall approve your annual budget gidy up have a nice day we'll talk to in a year from now I am not on board with that what I can be on board with is there are basic items in here and I won't go through every item but there are line items in here that are typical standard administrative things that y'all are going to do on a regular basis number two there are things that there there's some BRC items that for that you're going to administer and manage those are things I don't think we will have a big problem with if it falls within the base parameters but you know we need to you're hearing what we're saying and I and I I don't think that the proposal and package and of course I'm looking at the proposed bylaws that were that were presented and I want to see a product and this is not a product that I'm comfortable with M farmer if if your request is for the purpose of cutting out a lot of the red tape and extra steps from a a finance industry I have to say that that red tape Keeps Us in compliance and keeps us out of the courts um so I I'm not in favor of cutting out um red tape that could possibly fall out of compliance with the way the bylaws and the funds were set

[0:51:31] up uh a lot of times we get to doing our job and we fail to read what we can and cannot do and what state law and sometimes it's a little late we we think maybe a big golf tournament is a great thing to do for all of the people that we've given kosa e money to and and I'm here to tell you that's not in the heart of what the taxpayers voted to spend that money on as a golf tournament for people that got the money to begin with that to me is just was it didn't have anything to do with any of y'all but was a a huge insult so that's why I'm reluctant very reluctant Mr Teague I saw two things and U uh one was two things popped into my head as I'm listening to the discussion one thing is we do all need to understand that whatever we do is not really about the people that are sitting in this room right right uh you know I understand that your term's up in February and that you wouldn't mind uh letting someone else take a turn and and I'm not going to be here after May and so one of the things we need to be clear on is that we don't want to make a decision today that's based on well what would be good for this group of people uh to administer or take care of right it's got to be something that has has some uh uh foresight involved in it second thing I want to do is make sure I reiterate from the discussion the other day that one of the things that's important to me about uh this process is that it's collaborative so I don't want to give you the ability to go do your own thing because I don't think that's really healthy um I think in a city are in this city in all cities of any size but uh if you're not careful you start running down a bunch of individual paths and then what you realize is you're using taxpayer money to do something with the left hand that the right hand already did uh so uh for instance you know as an economic development policy

[0:53:37] what what do we want to do with rail well maybe that decision's already been made by the Metropolitan planning organization and and so if that decision's already been made by another entity then uh then there ought to be the ability to to have people involved that are involved in those other organizations to let you know before you're off doing something that's already been done or or things of that nature so the collaborative nature of things requires that we want to work together not independently but so I see this more procedurally which frankly I think is what you're now asking for more procedural things but recognize I don't think you could get the votes uh up here to give you $1.4 million of future actions and so now you can go find something to spend the money on uh and I don't think you could get the support up here for just reviewing your budget and then saying go forth and and do good works or that kind of thing but I do think maybe there's some ability to to start trying to fight through uh and I don't think it's today I think it's a a more deliberative process led by your staff and and maybe a few of you and Mr Valenzuela and maybe a few of us but but to W what what parts of this could we set up for you to have constraints and guidelines and let you let you move forward with some of those things on a project management basis uh I hear Mr hersfield saying he he if he could figure that out and get away from some of the real problems he sees that he might be supportive of that I see Mr Alexander saying he might be supportive of that I could be supportive of that uh the the idea that here's the budget here are the here are the processes and you don't have to bring things back each time I I like the idea that the staff reaches a point on that uh on some of these things that come come through to us again and again because what we end up doing is arguing again about whether or not we should have done it in the first place and Hell the that's done we you know we did it uh so now we need to

[0:55:39] let people go go make it happen but I don't think the the you know the overarching we need more autonomy I don't think that's going to work uh we need project management uh Authority maybe that's something we could work on but probably not like this anyway that's what I think I'm hearing and feeling what are you what's further feedback from you after the meeting you know the other day I I think everybody come to a conclusion that the autonomy of us not controlling everything we we realize that we were just wanting to maybe as long as the Project's in budget but I would like to hear from other board members of my board and let them spread their thoughts that's what I was going to suggest so we'll just start with Pedro I guess if he has anything well on our behalf or at least on my behalf what I would like seeing is you know it's a compromise of events here you know I think what yall have in front of you and what Mr Kendall had in front of you was not the finished product of what we intended at our last meeting which is we want to be sure that we have a streamlined process that's that allows us some flexibility to be able to administer some of those faces in those projects without necessarily having to come back to you all the time you know eliminate some of those things but also give you the ability to oversee the projects and be in line with with what your ideals are and what the people that you represent are that's one two I think in from the short amount of time that I've been on this board which was October I believe what I've noticed is that there isn't enough communication between this board and city council and that's something that I spoke to Johnny about and I think it might be a good idea to consider perhaps having more frequent joint meetings of some sort between Council and and our board and not necessarily have to go through staff

[0:57:42] to relay those sort of messages because I think that's where a lot of the a lot of that miscommunication takes place that could help resolve some of the issues with where are projects going how are they taking place I'm not not sure how each one of you individually meets with your board member or how often you do but I know for a fact that I've spoken to Johnny and I've told him Johnny we need to meet more often because that way I can update you on what's going on so that nothing blindsides you guys as far as what's coming down the road and we have a clear direction as far as what your people that you're representing want you to do so there there's just got to be more communication between city council and this board and there's got to be a little bit of of work toward some sort of of plan and flexibility and strategic planning at the end of the year whether that means having joint meetings you know once every half year you know I think that would be a good idea and then individually meet with your own individual council member on a regular basis once a week at least once a month I think would be appropriate but that's just my personal opinion from the short amount of time that I've been on this board Mr Wario okay the there were uh several points very good points brought up by council members and I appreciate them uh to specifically speak to Mr Alexander's point about cart blanch on uh specific projects and not our board not getting involved in contingencies that were unexpected that could lead to expenditures that were possibly perceived as frivolous from what I've seen of the Contracting we have done uh each one is set up to basically pay the bills to get the task done that were the marching orders that were approved by the city council and in each one there is a contractors and Architects contingency funds specifically for contingencies not

[0:59:47] extras and so long as we march to those orders I see no problem with the oversight you would like to see Mr Mr Alexander uh that is already built into the system uh the repeatedly we're hearing the autonomy brought up and I think we have put that to bed autonomy is not what we're looking for in this joint meeting uh but we are looking to streamline the process so I come back to miss Farmer's uh comments that uh when this was all set up and the bylaws were written it's my understanding of the history of the kosa DC that there were several decisions made because this was Virgin Territory that we would use the city purchasing department which was allowed but not required and in doing so there were some additional checks and balances in bid processes in Contracting that the Costa DC by law is not obligated to if I understand correctly but we have opted to participate in because it kept the accounting Under One Roof and we could use the city as the contractor to do that we don't have to stick with that so we are not asking that the bylaws be something that uh shall we say are constitutional and we take that as a fundamental Foundation that cannot be changed but the board the the corporation has evolved to the point that we need to consider the shortcuts that were taken years ago and see how we can streamline and see how we can get bills paid in a timely fashion I personally take a budget approval as marching orders to go and execute certain line

[1:01:49] items when we look at $1.4 million for future projects future projects in and of itself by definition would be things that are unknown I doubt very seriously that this board or any other future board of the Costa DC would randomly go and spend that future money without consulting the the council in getting project approval but once a project is approved does that or does that not mean that we have the pre-approval to go forth and spend the money that you've authorized you have retained the the approval Authority required by law in my perspective you've authorized the project to go on and get done each of us board members are appointed by a member of the council granted my councilman just resigned but I still sit on the board I still sit on the board as an involuntary participant of sorts when I was approached to serve I wasn't seeking to be put on this board I was identified as someone who would be a good Steward of the taxpayers money and I trust that this Council each one of you as members trusts your appointee to do that and as such you could also fire any one of us should we not car carry out the plans as you wanted us to in that you still retain ultimate control of this board our meetings are public our meetings are aired and just like any other member of our community we'd love for you to come and sit in on them step up and speak when when necessary so I suppose part of what

[1:03:51] we're asking for is your affirmation of trust are we the good stewards that you want us to be if you've given us marching orders and approved a project can we simply go on with it if you've approved our budget that says we're going to pay certain utility bills we're going to pay interns do we need to come to you and get each line item approved but essentially the going to hyper to make a point I appreciate that if you're if you're going to say something happens then then let's be sure it really does happen Okay uh I think I've pretty well said what I need to say okay and thank you yes sir okay thanks John Mr Brooks well I apologize for what got into your hands on the agenda because I think it was my understanding that was what I had in my hands was what you guys had in your hands and that was simply to talk about streamlining project management processes so I'm sorry if that was a misfire so when Kendall said this is what I'm reading my stomach got tightened up because I thought where did that come from but so anyway Miss farmer that's not what this is about it's simply about in my opinion um getting rid of redundancies but in regards to projects that are already approved and if a project is a million dollars we'll spend the million dollarss the way it's written in the contract and not a dollar more if it's a dollar more or if it's going to go over we'll bring it back and so that's where I would like to go with this and then thirdly we do to as the mayor said we do need to set this up for how it works when we're not here in the future because that's very important because it's very easy to sit here and say this

[1:05:54] this is the way I think we ought to do it cuz I think we ought to do it and so we while I do think we need to do some discussion on streamlining I do think it's more important to make sure that that policy is great three years from now thank you thank you Mr tankersley I'm not going to beat a dead horse here I I agree with what Randy had to say you know that what you guys got and what we anticipated to have presented to you two different things you know I'm I am all for the Streamline you know making this easier on us easier on you guys and that's it because I agree with what Kendall said yall are the elected bodies yall are the ones have got to answer to and we're appointed and so I definitely agree that you guys need to be involved every step of the way but I think know just making things easier on us making things easier on you guys is what we're after here not autonomy no don't don't have any use for that okay Mr Cornell well I think that the use of the word autonomy should be avoided I think originally what we had sought was to put forth a budget an annual budget that contained certain activities and projects uh seek council's approval and then thereby have the authority to move forward on projects obviously uh if we're budgeting conservatively uh we'll have an unreserved fund balance for future projects uh but unless a project is you know specifically contained within the budget we're not we're not we're not seeking approval on future projects we're seeking approval for the projects in in the approved budget so it's a streamlining process and and just keep in mind I mean I think we're very fortunate to be able to use the the services of Finance director and assistant city manager Michael DNE so uh our budget process is is controlled and it's conservative and uh we want to make sure we have the the money to meet our Uh current and future obligations

[1:07:58] so anyway I think we'll we'll avoid the uh the use of the word autonomy and say you know budget approved projects in the future okay well I want to see if Council how Council feels about a couple of things real quick so let me bring some some uh again I don't think we get to real answers but we do get to some direction uh here if we can get this right but what I would like to see us do you know on the Metropolitan planning organization what happens is you you would have these budget items the Cattle Barn the airport process the okay the those meetings are roughly six times a year or more often than that but every time there's a meeting the Texas Department of Transportation engineer will step up and say this contract has been let this is uh how many days it's been in operation this is when it's supposed to be completed this is how much money is authorized this is how how much we have spent uh and here you know here's how this project is going next next project and that's the way I see us having some oversight while giving them the flexibility to run a project so it would be also very much like what we do with the CVB or what we do with some of the other entities that come in quarterly Downtown St Angelo gets money from us and then does some things but they come and say Here's what we're doing here's how things are going on on roughly a quarterly basis what I'm wanting is somehow that that staff takes us toward a relationship with the Development Corporation very consistent with some of those other relationships so that we don't take a one-time vote annually and then you're off on your own uh I don't think that works for the taxpayer I don't think it works for our oversight and and I don't think it's very healthy anyway I think you're a more collaborative board and body than that and we want you to be collaborative you have other entities that are also in Economic Development so we need that interaction but I would like to see us try to move forward toward something that says you know they've got a project it's got a budget let them run it but

[1:10:01] let them come to before Council just like those other entities and say Here's here's the budgeted amount here's what we've spent so far here's what we foresee uh you would then Mr Alexander see things coming and it would be with the guidelines that you were describing and so and they would do that basically quarterly in my mind and they just uh you know Mr snan and then and and then at least their board chairman or or one or two board members somebody would come in and and be here for some interaction and discussion but that's where I'd like to see us uh send this thing is where you do get some of the streamlining and you do get some of the authority to run some projects with a reporting mechanism uh and an ability to be called to account hey what doesn't look good looks like you're going to have a problem what's what are you doing about this or or those kinds of things so that's my own design desire to see how to move this forward um I've got Miss farmer first and Mr silvus next Miss farmer just clarification I I thought I heard and understood for streamlining purposes you do not want to do what the city is required to do as far as the bidding process uh uh and stuff like that is that what I heard I think we wanted a little leniency I mean we've had some problems with the bidding process and the cattle being one of them we we we almost didn't get a project complete because I mean I know we're going to have to go with the guidelines of the city because it is City money in in some instances I mean for example for Professional Services like if we wanted to hire an architect we we we don't have an obligation to put out a request for qualifications we could just hire the architect to design the project that we have budgeted and so I mean Lisa could probably speak uh more articulately and clearly to where we are required to go through the public purchase processes and where we're not well there are there are some construction techniques and Contracting techniques that are out in the industry that

[1:12:03] are easier and that are better uh design builds are are a big thing these days and you know I I Believe by our purchasing methodology and our laws we're not allowed to do that I Roger Banks is here so I I I don't know but I would presume that that's probably not an acceptable answer correct you're right some of some of the techniques we are not are not available to us we con but it would be available to them is really the point of where they're going on that okay I you know I don't have a problem with streamlining as mayor pointed out I I I don't have a problem with that except the requirements the way that the city is required to do in the bid process uh and the accounting I I I really prefer to see that method followed um simply because of favoritism Etc and so forth out there they've done previous jobs plus this group doesn't have access to information where a contractor or an architect firm or whatever has um um we're not able to use because of letters of complaint or whatever in the files just kind of back to the left-hand and right-and issues but okay but so again I think just like we would in another contract with some of the other entities we interact with the downtown St Angelo the convention of visitors bureau some of those others I think we should get that covered via what staff puts in in the in this process and I do think It ultimately we would have to approve that but I'm trying to see if we can't get staff to put something together we can approve that lets them move forward on their projects if it's a compromise could be reached and we don't want to ask for anything that doesn't meet state law I mean that's not the intent of this board at all I think we've heard you clearly and uh I think we're directing Mr Valenzuela to work with you and see what we can't do to help you get through some things uh that are legitimate concerns the BRC issue

[1:14:05] that you described and how could that have been handled I think it will require an update of on ongoing projects on a periodic basis so that the council always feels like it knows what's going on and could ask questions and uh and certainly requires more collaboration than once a year here's your budget and but I think we've heard you I think we can help you move forward and try to get you closer at least to where you want to be okay I just don't want to read that I approved a project that I've never heard of or was never presented in the newspaper that's the future agenda okay Mr Sila Larry or anybody very briefly I know that here a while back we approved that million dooll Cattle Barn we that keeps on coming up but give me an example I mean we approved it there's a million dollars go build it aside from the bonding issue that happened that it came back to us what other Loops Hoops did you have to jump through I mean I don't remember anything coming back we had re we had to rebid it okay aside from that I don't remember anything coming back to it well time was I mean to build a million dooll project in 5 months that was the problem we're trying to get it ready for the St believe his thought process is something like look it was bid instead of rebidding it and taking a chance on not getting it built if they had autonomy or more Authority or an ability to just administer that they might have said here's the second lowest bid let's give it to them and and let's keep moving so we can get this thing done on time where in our process we weren't allowed to do that we had to send it back out for Reid but and that's something that just has to be part of the discussion I'm not saying personally I don't want to get into today I'm not saying we should have or shouldn't have I'm just saying that that should be part of this discussion uh but it should just be clear that the that the council would like to see us move to a point where they can administer functions uh very much in line with downtown San Angelo we don't see everything they do they didn't come ask us if they could buy the Roosevelt Hotel for instance they bought it and but uh but at a 90day update they said here's what we're doing here's what we've done here's you know well let me

[1:16:07] finish by saying that uh this joint meeting is a good thing I mean we're both getting our feet wet we may not like everything we hear but at least we're on the same you know in the in the same room at least talking ideas so this is a good start and uh whatever comes of it comes bit better it's a great start the only thing is I wish we would have had a little more collaboration before this meeting because we were over after our meeting last week with the city manager and the mayor we were over the autonomy part of it already and knew that that was not a reachable goal so we were all kind of blindsided by that part of it I'd actually like to speak to that um what I propose also is is actually scheduling a meeting uh to come up with those guidelines even those performance measurements that can actually be presented on a quarterly basis uh we can develop that together I I have an understanding of what the council is looking for also kind of have an idea what you're looking at too um you know we do want to be more efficient and more flexible we do definitely understand that so if we can get together with staff and meet with you also and come up with those guidelines and uh we can come and develop something of course as far as performance measurements that can be presented too so I think uh that would work out really well for us too and I think that'll work out well for you and we're also going through a new Staffing procedure for a new executive director and and other position position so we're trying to fulfill all that at this time and the collaboration between us and y'all will help extend that problem sir real real quick I just need a clarification okay we keep bringing up the cattle bar as an example and that's a very good example because we had a contract that went out and that it had to be pulled back if you had had the procedures as you're laying out what would you have done knowing that number one could not Bond it would you have negotiated with them on not bonding it or okay because I consider that unacceptable that's unacceptable as far as I'm concerned I mean I'm in the construction business and and you've been too the next procedure really uh you go to the second lowest bidder and try to negotiate with them okay but that was not you see my concern on that and

[1:18:10] that would be you know if if you could relieve make sure that that concern is one of those that's addressed where I know you're not sending a million dollar project out to someone who can't bond it right should have been screened to start with though problem actually starts before that Kendall it's it's uh we said hey we're going to go build this million-dollar building it's a voter approved project and uh instead of just hiring the architect that has done all the work for the Stock Show and Rodeo Association we had to go through uh requests for qualifications that took you know 6 months of time to come up with the architect who's done all the work for the Stock Show and Rodeo that they like and love and and you know the board would have done that differently had we had the autonomy to just go out for a Professional Services contract so the the point of what I'm saying is that there you know to me part of this needs to be some guidelines of what our our our expectations are a project needs to be bonded you know above a certain level you know a criteria of you know uh experience with and you know professionals or whatever like that I think that would have been a great example that if the architect had been doing all the other buildings why wouldn't we have just negotiated with him for a deal so I'm just saying a defined criteria that that we can all buy off and sign off and agree and say you fill you you you fit these parameters then we're okay and that we all feel that when we're not here right it' still be okay that's exactly right Mr Mayor yes uh as far as the communication of the board between Council I would like to suggest if if it's okay that in our workshops when we were in budget workshops if one of those meetings could be jointly with the cadc to go over our expectations projects and you know set the pace at the workshop would be a good communication level to work with Co well that that's what I was going to

[1:20:13] get to next and then the other thing I mean that includes you and the other thing I wanted to say uh I'm very pleased with uh my appointee which is Scott tankersley uh there's never been a phone call that I haven't returned or he hasn't returned or a text message uh because his time is limited a young family and and business and we try to communicate in those manners instead of a one-on-one lunch or something like that and I have to trust that he will convey you know my thoughts or whatever or or whatever I can convey to Mr schneeman to the rest of you because it is virtually impossible with the number of committees and other duties that fall under the council that that I can communicate with each one of you individually so I rely on just my appoint e or whenever I see Mr y'all are killing me all right Mr silvus I want to get this I have to go back to Chris the comment you just made on the architect search whatever you did that because it is written where or who or why our rules is that our rules our rules go out there okay sir so do I get 15 seconds of course all right it's real simple I want yall I see I feel you guys I I can tell there's a bad taste in your mouth about how this went today it went it took off in a different direction but you know I I'm trying to get to a solution here I think it takes a lot of a lot of brain power to come up with Creative Solutions and it's accountability versus flexibility if the staff will just get a balance I think we'll be all right I think that's kind of what mayor new said I'm with him on that we can we can make something happen here I think we can Mr Teague if we've got it at least going down the right path I'd ask you to uh consider adjourning your session and allow us to adjourn a session and take a break and then start with our other business okay I think we're going down the right path I just think collaboration between all of us will work out all the indifferences okay and

[1:22:16] I would entertain a motion to adjourn I'll make that motion Mr bario second by Mr Brooks all in favor say I I iour thank you sir um having having no no further business here and based on the fact that they're adjourned we are also adjourned from that part of our meeting and we'll uh take a break now and then reconvene in our general in our normal meeting okay that's good it's 11:16 to call the meeting to order I uh need to make sure Council and everyone understands that I I just have a quorum I don't even know who he is so okay I just have a quorum so bear bear in mind if you have to go blow your nose we lose a quorum okay so okay uh now having said that let me start with the first item on the public hearing and comment agenda this is item number 18 the presentation and discussion of the 96 gallon cart pilot program survey results conducted by Republic Services and any action in connection there too we have a presentation today by our interim operations director Shane Elon and from Robert surles who's the munip municipal easy for me to say Municipal services manager for Republic Services thank you mayor and Council my part's not going to be long just little background uh back last summer y'all approved a pilot program for the 96 gallon uh rollout carts and uh Public Services implemented that passed out the survey have survey results and they want to share them with you today and then U may have a couple questions for y'all to get y'all's directions on the back end of it but with that I'll turn it over to Robert S and let them get going with their presentation okay thank you chane uh my name is Robert Sir with Republic Services and um we had the about a six-month pilot program and uh we hired a uh independent uh contractor to conduct the survey for us and uh he's done it once

[1:24:20] before I think in 200 uh six in the Bentwood area so anyway with the with the results uh he's got a few slides here to look at it shouldn't take very long and um we'll go over those results with you guys hello Council uh my name is Steven mcclaflin with mcclaflin advertising uh as we did in 2006 we were hired once again uh by the local trash services company to survey the homeowners in a pilot program um okay there were 523 total homes in the pilot program and uh we use the same methodology that we did before uh which was that initially what we tried to do was get an in-person contact uh and then we followed that up with mailers by anybody that we weren't able to reach in person uh all of this was designed to uh try to maximize the number of responses we got so could we could get as close to 100% uh feedback as we possibly could our first attempt we enlisted youth groups from local churches uh they included TLC Church uh uh St Luke United Methodist and Harris Avenue Baptist Church uh and they went door Todo and captured as many people on the front porches as they possibly could um the design of this was to use Area Youth so it could be a fundraiser and something that was positive and so that people when they were responding to the survey could feel like they were not just helping out a a trash compy or the city but could help out these young people and you know the thing about trying to conduct survey information is nobody likes to be bothered and you certainly don't like telemarketers this sort of thing so the one thing that you don't mind is helping a a nice young kid on your front porch who's just trying to earn some money for their church so that was the our our primary focus there now once we gave that ample time uh we followed that up with a mailer which is a postcard which uh gave them a a non-invasive Anonymous opportunity to express their opinions

[1:26:23] and and give us their feedback there uh we again we're just trying to eliminate any obstacles to resident ability to give their opinion and be counted in total we have 357 completed responses that equals 68% of the participating households uh there's some breakdowns there that show you how many we got of each thing our kind of consensus number one question number one thing we need to know was the very first question in general do you like the automated trash collection system using the Republic Services 96 gallon cart they had uh yes or no response and then obviously they could fail to respond at all uh the results are we had 304 who replied yes they did 44 who replied no and seven who failed to answer at all so uh let's see let me back up one so that gives you an overall result of 86% who were in favor or who replied yes to that initial question do you like the automated trash collection system using the Republic Services 96 gallon cart you'll see on this next page uh the postcard responses uh were 74% in favor and 11% against and also where we were able on the door-to-door responses we went back into each of your districts to see if there was any great variation from one area of town to the other and as you'll see they're all very positive included in here is a little py graph uh from councilman Alexander's area which wasn't uh survey this time because they weren't in the pilot program but it's held over from the uh last survey that we did six years ago just to kind of give you a basis that actually there's no great fluctuation from six years ago when we did that survey as well further past there you you'll find information on a variety of other questions that were built in the survey and those are more uh housekeeping kind of things how often should it be done

[1:28:25] people want to pay for that sort of thing so there's a whole lot of different information there but by and large what I'm to present to you today is that you have an overwhelming majority who were in favor of the program both via the mail and via the in-person responses and in each of your individual areas of town any any questions I can answer for you you have questions for the gentleman I've got one Mr what uh what was the response on folks waned maybe a once a week collection versus a two-day I mean a twice a week collection I I I don't know off the top of my head if that if you can directly answer that um the questions are more structured like is it full or is it empty and that sort of thing um the C is easy maneuver I believe the cart capacity is efficient or it's full when it's been picked up it's a fairly large number though that says they strongly disagree okay I'll go from memory so so they disagree with see on the on the second collection day your card is usually full is 138 half full is 142 32 almost empty is that question the one you're you're asking me about go to the other question that says uh number eight I believe I believe that the car capacity is sufficient for once week collection to minimize truck traffic in my neighborhood one being the highest five being the lowest am I I'm correct on that scale right that's it it was 114 on the high and 117 on the low it's one of the few question Sor one of the few questions you have that has a fairly set of uh answers everything else tends to congregate toward one end or of the

[1:30:28] of the deal but this one you got strongly agree and strongly disagree both as fairly large numbers but we'll clarify this that really the issue that they're disagreeing with is whether it's enough to do it once a week not whether it's to do it at all agreed no I agree with you yeah that's what I wanted to bring out yeah exactly anything else well I I'll just say that if you were to throw in and I've done this on the St Angelo connection page you throw in recycling and say we'll pick up once a week trash once Recycling and and it was very heavily in favor of once a week trash pickup if you'll do once a week recycling as well so you'd have to ask more questions what that says is we have to ask more questions it it means this is not a decisive answer that they wouldn't go for once a week they would if you put recycling in I think made to me the survey and reading each district and their responses my district had the most responses you know favorable yes I mean they liked it and I I've talked to a lot of the constituents in my neighborhood and especially this uh when the wind has been much greater than it normally has and uh they've seen where my trash can is not blowing down the alley like all theirs are and the lid is not popping up like there's our trash to pick up uh they're very pleased and want to know when we're going to get started with these cans okay let's uh we we have your slides let's see if there's anything else besides discussion of this that needs to be done at this time so U mayor new members of the council um I usually have with me my uh my management team but I just wanted to to recognize uh some other folks here that do the real work at Republic and that's our operations team Randall and Larry are back here um with us and and they're the guys that uh take care of any issues

[1:32:34] that may come come up and I was talking to them this morning and collectively they have uh about 50 years of experience even though they don't look that old and uh also there's uh there's a third member that's out he couldn't get away uh Bruce and he uh he has 35 5 years with the company so based on our long history since 1977 here in St Angelo taking care of getting the trash off the ground and burying it at the landfill um with that and um the positive results of the survey we are ready to negotiate with the city um to incorporate Automation in a uh in an agreement that's uh that can be done through um a solid waste committee that can be set up through a couple of council members and uh Mr Valen well as some some of his staff um so that's that's commonly done um so that uh everybody knows what what is going into the negotiation process but we're ready to negotiate okay thank you very much um It's seems like to me that our our natural next steps are some discussion with Mr valence Vela about where we've been over time and and how we got here and then uh maybe start discussing then what we want to do on either renewal of a contract and so forth and let that process take its normal course but what is what is it in looking at you know the high numbers are favorable yeah for the system and you know as a city we've grown and we need to process and we need to update and uh I can tell you that every negative call that I received during this trial period uh was met and turned into a positive once they understood and okay I I can honestly say that Republican took care of every single

[1:34:36] call that I received and I'm most appreciative and I would like to see Mr Valenzuela move forward and discuss and negotiate with I tell me I want you to understand something really quickly though what when is the contract up up for uh for the current the current contract provider and the landfill the current contract expires July of 2014 okay and so what I'm saying is you probably want to want to be covering this as one set of one basket correct instead okay so you're probably not wanting to implement these 96 gallon containers as an action and then turn around and do something so I I'm looking at it and thinking that it's so close that this is probably all one one basket yeah okay and uh so I think what I'm saying is it's it's something to to uh describe for Mr Valenzuela in some different discussions in individual discussions what your history is what you know about it and let him start down the path of of creating U something to bring before Council that says here's what we're thinking and here's how we're wanting to move forward uh that kind of thing I I I would say that I mean we need to be we need to be answering phones or turning them off my phone in um you know really what we're really the discussion is not necessarily about to me these just saidy is that an abandoned ship deal hold on no Quorum we can't have a quorum somebody sneeze so we can just talk about if that's Abandoned Ship or not I think it was Abandoned Ship yeah I hope that's not a sign okay Mr Kelton what was that joke you were going to tell us uh no I'm not okay here we go okay all right I I I guess the issue that really is is not necessarily whether we like the the trash containers or not I mean

[1:36:41] because I I think it's overwhelming yes the real question is whether whether we're going to because it is so close to termination to talk about are we going to talk about essentially a brand new renewal of this contract because they're not going to bring in all the equipment they're not going to spend the money on all the all the buckets and everything like that for a one-year period right that is a fair statement I I truly believe I don't think they would I wouldn't if I was in their shoes so that that that's the real question that's got to be coming coming about and and and I'll say and and I've said this before that that you know these 96 gallon buckets are not what make the difference in our trash collection I mean they're they are a commodity they are one item they're one piece but it's beyond that it's the landfill it's uh you know the rolloffs it's you know the commercial it's the you know it's the entire package that we have to be looking at and so uh you know I just want I'm just kind of a key a key that out a key element being the life of the landfill and whether or not some changes in how we do things may be related to recycling would extend the life of the land absolutely that's why I'm saying there's really a big forward with their talks with Mr balance absolutely to get it back to council for approval or non-approval of a new contract but we need to move forward with those talks with Republican m b but there's there's one stipulation though um and the question is is is rep public willing to terminate the current contract at agreed upon time to where we know where the cut off is so when we're we negotiating we other vendors have an equal shot you know what I'm saying but it already it's June of 14 June 14 but if we're going to do this now then we need to terminate our contract at a at a predefined point to where end and we're

[1:38:45] going to start a new take take some time 2014 take some time you've got a landfill with only 17 years of useful life you guys need to to take some time um you're going to have some new council members in May you're going to oh if we're going to respect the 2014 June 2014 date I would start him down a path but I would not be in such a hurry you have to go through a fair practices uh methodology and and other vendors need a shot at this as well take some time and so what I'm hearing is we can renegotiate to just get this thing going and rolling and I we can't do that no and it's not even that discussions yes I think I'm with you miss farmer that if if you guys are willing to bring us in the meat of what you want to offer I'm all for it I want to hear and and I want to be able to tweak and not tweak just any details I'm interested in what you've got you've got you know on the table yeah we're uh like I said we're willing to enter into negotiations with the solid waste Comm committee that can include a couple of council members and some staff um to negotiate what what options you know we can negotiate the landfill piece coupled with the automation coupled with uh yeah you know the what I'm describing to you is I'm saying let's not go quite that far that fast let's not appoint a committee and move what I'm saying is let's make sure that you have some time in the next 60 days or so to be informing Mr valence what what you know what you've been through on on Solid Waste what you know about the landfill what your thoughts are about recycling what your those kinds of things then let a process like this start forward uh and you'll still have a year to 15 months to get the thing completed but I don't I you know and I think that's fairly consistent with what I a six-month period is what it would take and so this it's premature to say some of the things we're saying so that's why I stopped yall and said if if

[1:40:47] we can do this in a six-month period I bet you we could but we have to make it uh in a six period it would really be be pretty rough process if you try to get a bunch of stuff done then have an election then have a bunch of new people making the final votes and so I just find myself saying let's let's get started down a path but let's not be in such a hurry that that we don't uh let some of the processes take place well call it what you may I mean if it's a committee or not I think again the talks the idea that we're feeding between us and and Republic between Daniel vuel and Republic is something that I think it's I'm certainly willing to to jump into well basically what I'm saying Mr silvus is I want to start with him just talking with you he'll then we'll decide at a future date to put a committee together and start talking with vendors okay but I'm wanting first for it just to be let's be clear that he really understands the Simmons process on gas that he clearly understands the life of the landf F let's be you know let's that's where I'm wanting to be I'm wanting to just say let's let's be sure everybody is up to speed inside our staff then let's go out into the vendor community and start discussions with the vendor community so how long is a normal contract 10 years for for for TR trash 10 years or 10 yeah we had 10 initially and then fiveyear Ren understand so so what the mayor's right I mean what we're talking about is this is not something boom let's do it right now because this affects at least 10 years you guys have been here 30 years 30 years plus and uh you know and so you know and and I don't think any of us up here are saying we want you gone and all that but we want the process to take a very clear clear solid step forward and uh and and I personally and I've said this before

[1:42:50] that I want to respect because you have been here for 30 years you deserve some respect for being here for 30 years and the service that that uh that uh trash away and Duncan and then now Republic has supplied the city I mean you deserve some respect for that uh but with that said it's 30 years later and we do need to see you know really what's the next 30 Years going to hold for us um whether it's 10 years or 20 or 30 right and and that's exactly what you know what I was talking about and and we don't have to form a committee I mean we can deal directly with Mr valenzuela's team but I was just wanting to while we have the momentum going we can enter into negotiations to come up with a proposal to put forth to the council in February or March to it's agreeable to Republic and City staff um so that we can you know maybe act on it CU it's it's one thing we can we can talk about the landfill the life of the landfill we can talk about all those concerns you're mentioning um but we can go ahead and start doing that through negotiations now but see I don't agree with you Mr surl on the reason I don't is because I I think the experience at the landfill needs to be discussed uh clearly and heavily and uh and so for instance right now if I take a load of trash down there I go down into the dump with everybody else including your trucks and so there are some things about that experience versus the experience at other landfills that I'm familiar with that I want to be part of a of a long-term discussion so I don't think this is about 96 gallon cases I think this is about what is it what does recycling look like in Stan Angelo Texas and the surrounding area Does it include other communities that you serve and is is there something we can do to make this a regional hub for pulling recycling facility uh into this community or or supporting one in another community in the area but but so that recycling might can come to come to

[1:44:53] pass in this organ in in this city so there's a in my mind this is a fairly involved discussion not not about you know okay why don't are we going to have the landfill or are we going to sell it to you are you going to run the landfill for us or we going I don't see that as what we're talking about I see what we're talking about is what do we want Waste Management to be over the next 10 or 20 years in San Angelo and the surrounding area area as it relates to recycling as it relates to the landfill uh and as it relates to pickup so I mean I don't want us to be in a hurry I want us to get it right and and that's why I'm and who's going to take us there okay yes sir mayor Reed Donaldson and I with Republic Services I grew up here but that's where we are and I'm sorry about Probably sounds like a little bit of a miscommunication but we just finished the pilot program on the carts so we are now at that point and and I actually I remember a meeting before before the change to Mr Venezuela when we talked about the landfill and one of the you know because I'm overall in north Texas and West Texas I have we have a lot of landfills and part of this discussion will include a convenience station at the L it's going to include some form of recycle program in the future um one thing we have to get out here is a single stream type facility to take those recy it'll have to be it probably has to be a regional facility it be a compreh program yeah and and it's just one of those things where it's a stair step process and you have to start somewhere and and this happens all over the state happens all over the nation so that's appreciate that's the conversation we want to have I just don't think it will conclude February and March for instance I think it's going to start and we go down a path and and I I want to explain to you know I want council members to have the opportunity to to tell Mr valin well what they know what they've learned those things and then let the process move forward and then you know I'm mindful that I'm not running for re-election I leave in May I I you know I don't know that a decision will be

[1:46:56] made before I leave and if it does it'll surprise me so well but also I'd like to disclose that many of us maybe all of us have been thinking about this talking about this meeting with different companies and representatives uh We've toured plants so we've been doing this for two years we pretty we're pretty informed about what's going on and so when this came to us I looked at this and said we could make a decision under six months and that's before the contract's out but the newest piece to the puzzle is Mr Valenzuela that's why I don't want to that's right and that makes sense and I think this just to be clear on both sides here and I think we're getting on the same page pretty quick here okay but anyway I look forward to discussing with to begin in order to get to where we're going again and what we're trying to do here is there's the Mr hfield said it earlier there's a huge investment not only huge investment we already have what's different about trash business it's hard for I have 225 of these contracts that I deal with and I deal with counsels at every level I think sometimes people say are thinking their mind that doing a trash contract is like buying paint it's not there's only a few of us that do it we buy we spend 250,000 Plus for our trucks every one of those trash cans is 50 bucks so and if you went and bought it at Home Depot you'd pay 85 so um we buy 4 million trash cans I mean it's it's a big deal so the reason why we get to this point is we're now at a point that we need some direction from you guys to look at this investment and then look at where we're going to put the future investment because we have a big future investment as well his point yes and and so we're just looking for you guys today to give us some direction say hey get with let's get going you guys give us something and then let's say we get five months down the line and you look at it you go hey we don't like this we want to go this way or we do like this can tell us but just looking for a direction yeah that's very fair I just want to make sure I put a time frame on it though that's not we're not going to get to an answer on what to do and extend a contract and all that because we really in my mind we have extended before but

[1:48:59] right now we're at a at a point where because of the gas issue because of the life of the landfill because of uh just the fact that there really isn't or or how do we want to handle recycling I mean there's recycling being done now there's a private company going around picking up products and taking it and and so forth so I mean there's there but we need to the the whole discussion decide where we want to go and then and then go there and and and get involved with you guys and and I just again if we stopped with the survey the reason why we asked for this is because if we sto with the survey then that doesn't give us truly the direction you want and again it's not about the carts it's a lot bigger issue than that but we're looking for direction from you guys super D thank you very much okay thank you question yes sir so and you may have been going there but so then now we're we have at our in our lap the the this idea of the 96 gallon cart uh does I know it benefits us it certainly benefits me I am very much a proponent of these carts but uh does it benefit Republic I don't know do they move on do we move on or what they okay move on with the idea with the 96 let's talk about the specificity of the area that has a cart currently do you want to continue operating those 996 gallon carts uh while these other discussions are taking place or do you want to revert back to one system all over town what are your thoughts on that no we really want to we believe this is a future I mean we truly wouldn't have gone to this much hassle to do this and bring a truck hold this in place get the discussions done now now I will tell you this is like anything else you sit on it very long and all of a sudden you're going to have I mean I had a person catching me at the end of the council chambers back there during the little break saying when I get my car when do I get mine yeah so that's the other side to that thank you okay but so I think you see we we hold on to the status quo we start the process but get to an answer for the landfill the the

[1:51:02] landfill's future recycling's future uh trash uh hauling future and and get the whole thing done as a package there's a lot of yeah there's a lot of areas need to be reviewed also so absolutely okay I'm going to move us then from item number 18 treat that as a discussion item and go to 19 this is the consideration of adopting the 2012 s Angelo Cultural District planning study and any action related there to presentation today is by our Parks and Recreation director Carl white and Howard Taylor who's the director of the Museum of Fine Arts bye y' and thank you thank you yes Carl white here Parks and Recreation director I as well as other staff members uh Fort conso site manager Bob blueart assistant city manager Rick Wise as as well as Tom early with the stt angel health foundation and folks with the Ernest and Dorothy barl Foundation have worked together to develop this study and uh our staff does recommend adoption of this study and I'll introduce Howard terer next who has a presentation which does have I believe a slideshow with about a 9 Minute slideshow with some audio I'm getting coaching I'm getting coaching that's productive coaching um even though it was a discussion item I I I dropped the ball by not allowing the public to weigh in just to inform us and so I want to ask you guys to let me reenter item number 18 long enough to ask is there anyone in the chamber or in the in here that would like to talk about that uh uh process that we were just going through with the the pickup and the recycling and all that okay thank you sir I'm sorry for that I I dropped the ball there and now let's get back on item number 19 and let Mr Taylor take over on the St Angelo Cultural District planning study good morning thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation uh I'll just quickly remind you that in 2009 the art

[1:53:07] museum applied for the opportunity to lead the creation of a Cultural District in San Angelo we did that with City council's approval and a resolution uh and we've been working at it ever since last year uh we felt that it would make sense to undertake a planning study with some outside input uh and indeed we put together a terrific team led by artwolf and Mimi konia who are with us today and they're back here and they'll come up after a very short PowerPoint we'd like to present uh and also I'd like to introduce Daniel Wy uh I think others were mentioned Tom early is here today but Daniel Wy heads up what I consider to be an extraordinary resource that most of us are not familiar with but they partnered with the city the Art Museum and the health Foundation to create this study and Daniel's over here and Daniel if you just wave your hand so everyone knows who you are uh and uh then I'd like to go ahead with this PowerPoint it's very brief uh I believe you all received a copy of the study the one thing I would say about this is that this is kind of the tip of the Iceberg and there's an appendix in here that has an enormous amount of supporting documentation that's available online and that will try to see if we can make this work and hopefully in 2009 the St Angeline Museum of Fine Arts was selected to lead the creation of a Cultural District in St Angelo this was granted by by the state of Texas and was the result of a highly competitive process supported by the city of San Angelo the designation was for an area from the South Bank of the koncho River South to Washington Street and from South chadburn East to South Oaks including the site of Fort koncho at the request of the health

[1:55:10] Foundation the district was expanded to the Bryant freeway the health Foundation has acquired substantial land along the river and wishes to participate in the development of this District this resulted in a 200 acre District which is the largest in the state the grant reviewers were amazed at the vast number of historic and cultural sites in the district unmatched anywhere else in the state the St Angelo Museum of Fine Art s has gained International recognition for its exhibitions and programs SFA received the nation's highest Museum award in a ceremony at the White House in 2004 the district includes our historic Depot which is magnificently preserved and contains a railroad museum the adjacent railroad Warehouse is now operated as a Senior Citizen Center the Senior Citizen Center has been so successful that an Annex has been created in an adjacent building our visitors center is one of the most attractive and best located in Texas the WPA era Municipal swimming pool has been recently renovated and has become an exciting venue for the children in our community the river stage is a beautiful outdoor Amphitheater on the river that will seat up to 8,000 people the poo Santa Angela was created after the rudat study of 20 years ago it has become a beautiful pathway through the heart of the Cultural District beginning with the celebration bridge on the north side of the river the Poo continues into a large open area that was designed for festivals there are two handsome Pavilion buildings on the Poo that shelter exhibitors and allow for dances

[1:57:14] and programs Oldtown is a street comprised of historic buildings which now houses the Upper Colorado River Authority and a number of Galleries and shops the farmers market is a large covered area adjacent to Fort Concho where local produce is sold on the weekends located adjacent to the grounds of Fort Concho is the State Office Building there are a number of agencies and offices such as the MHMR Center throughout the district the district also is comprised of residential areas where many of the houses have been lovingly cared for or restored recently in 2010 the art museum the city of St Angelo the health foundation and the Barrow Foundation commissioned a team of Consultants to help assess the possibilities for our Cultural District the team was led by art wolf an internationally recognized expert in preservation and Community Development and his partner Mimi tenia who is a noted educator and who serves on many Community boards such as the San Antonio River Authority they were joined by Gary Smith president of the Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park and also by Calvin Smith the executive director of the Western Heritage Museum complex in Hobbs New Mexico Philip Collins is the executive director of the inter ational mimine Foundation headquartered in Dallas and he has served as the curator of the African-American Museum in Dallas Douglas Harmon has served as the city manager of Alexandria Virginia and also of Fort Worth Texas for 17 years he headed the Fort Worth Convention and visitors bureau and it's recognized as one of the leading Visionaries in the field of community marketing this Dynamic team made an

[1:59:18] intensive site visit to St Angelo March 4th through 7th 2012 and they met with more than 50 institutional government and neighborhood stakeholders the team made site visits throughout the community visiting with individuals such as Tom Early Head of the St Angelo Health Foundation they also hosted public meetings and met with members of city council and other Civic leaders the team recognized the remarkable assets that our community possesses and also saw a broader vision of how those assets could work together they observed business and artistic efforts such as a number of new art galleries the Consultants recognized that the district is a major Center of activity with nearly a half million visitors annually attending activities such as Christmas at oldport Concho the July 3rd event on the river stage and the art museums and ual ecoair they noted the vast range of education programs for youth hosted by the fort the art museum the Upper Colorado River Authority and other agencies in the district the team also observed significant problems such as the lack of visitor signage dangerous speeding traffic on the north south corridors and the need to restore and enhance assets such as the Oak Street Bridge I think it speaks for itself hopefully start I may have to start talking we have a great uh Depot and we have a wonderful Fort but there is no place that tells the story of the more than 12,000 year history of Native Americans there is not a significant

[2:01:20] recognition of the African-American soldiers who were here early on nearly half of our population is Hispanic and yet we do not have a Hispanic History or Cultural Center Fort koncho has thousands of artifacts that could help tell this history but they are now confined to storage one remarkable opportunity is that the Barrow Museum which is located in Eola is looking at the possibility of reload locating large portions of its collections to the Cultural District their collections number in the hundreds of thousands and Encompass Regional Heritage including Natural History agricultural traditions and Native American history there are also a number of private collections related to our heritage that the owners may be willing to lend to A History Center that's the one we're going to build next year the point we were making there is we've been studying the art museum has taken on some significant challenges to demonstrate to the community the possibilities that exist in the district it acquired an entire block of buildings bus on South Oak Street that many felt should be demolished this is an example of a building that was virtually abandoned and collapsing this is what it looks like after restoration this is an interior view of the same building it was redeveloped jointly with the Upper Colorado River Authority the ucra now holds its education programs here and works jointly with the art museum the city and the San Ang Independent School District the streetscape in this area

[2:03:23] was also horrible here it is under reconstruction today this block of South Oak Street is one of the most attractive and exemplary areas in the city the art museum is continuing its planning and efforts to show what can be done the highly successful rudat study that was done 20 years ago is essentially a model for the current study that is being undertaken for the Cultural District the Cultural District study is however richer and more detailed than the original rudat plan a recent article in the New York Times highlighted the importance of the Texas cultural districts in the state's Economic Development effort the article focused on the St Angelo Cultural District as exemplary it is our desire to move forward with thoughtful plans excitement and energy we are focused on creating one of the most beautiful and intensively used cultural districts in our state we seek to become the shining star of Texas Music work that was um I just wanted to say very quickly one of the things that we seek to do and we would like permission of city council to do this is to publish uh in the standard times a supplement that summarizes the key findings of the study uh and also some of the aspirations and ideas of the various entities that are involved uh and I'll remind you that that was what was done uh originally with the rudat study uh and uh we think that would be one of the things that was critical rudat just celebrated its 20th anniversary probably you don't know this but the American Institute of Architects referred to it as their most successful dad ever done and they uh in their publication featured it recently and also did a program uh that apparently is

[2:05:27] available on YouTube uh and so we felt that that was really important and I think it's in the spirit of San Angelo to share and communicate with our community and now if I may I'd like to have art wolf and MIM konia come up and if you have any questions we'd be delighted to answer them thank you thanks Mr Mayor counc people and new city manager uh I'm art wolf and Mimi K is here with me uh we're just glad we could come and uh stand up here and and expose oursel to any questions you might have you've seen the study uh your pictures are in it some of you um please the geographic boundary of the Cultural District is it's uh the on the north of the cono on the South Washington on the east uh Oaks with with the fort also and then on the west uh to the Brandt Avenue yeah and you can see it takes a jog there at the request of the health Foundation it got bigger while we were doing the study too and um I I think it's appropriate to to to Really point out that the city has been involved for a long time in this District probably the largest landowner uh certainly massive investments in infrastructure over the the years and uh you know what what the study suggests is that the city will be not responsible for everything that happens in the cultural District but that would be the enabling Factor um with signage with sidewalks uh with infrastructure and then encouraging the nonprofits private investment and other developments so with the artw walks and U some of the galleries that are a little further north and then the frankly H and the and the Performing Art Center just trying to understand how how maybe all of that ties together what not yeah yeah what what we've uh suggested

[2:07:32] is that the city conceive of all of it as the historic City Center with a distinctiveness between and within downtown and then the Cultural District on the on the South Side so it's both of those are part of the historic City Center yeah M do you want to um sorry to put this lower from the standpoint of your visiting Community or your your home community that will come to these places the distinction will not be made necessarily the north of the river and the South the what is it called across the river really is a historic designation but in terms of being able to use the amenities both by the locals and anyone who visits San Angelo I don't think that there will be that big of a distinction you have existing amenities you have existing um organizations and and destinations like Fort Concho and the museum and the pool um you know we talked about Oldtown then you've got your emerging which is the cultural district and you've got your North Concho River Project and you've also got the historic district studies and the pack as you just mentioned and then you've got your potential that we talked about which are the neighborhood associations some version of historic St Angelo which could be a physical entity or it could be the way that the entire area is perceived both across the river and on the north side of the river and then you've got the Nature Center you've got your our Junior League initiatives um and all kinds of wonderful things like Contempo and then there are things that are needed to create this Cultural District and create the perception of a sense of place and that's the unified wayfinding which is there's an incredible need for that right and specifically that's one of the reasons why I asked the question question though because the way finding they're it's going to not just be confined to that absolutely let me jump in and say that the the Great Discovery that we made in the study is that over 95% of what the Cultural District might do is already

[2:09:36] anticipated in your long-term Vision planning and indeed in your uh City Rules and Regulations so it in in the at the ground level it's not a separate thing it it should be able to fit right into what you're doing already thanks yeah I think if I can make one big point the wayfinding is critical and to already have that study done was a big help to us to be able to create that sense of place and to think about it as a cohesive amenity and as a cohesive driving force for this part of the city thank you m farmer in your report you mentioned uh a blighted area that brings down the district what is your recommendation as how to cure that now I I should point out that we're not making a recommendation of how you do that but um the last few pages of the report if you read through those carefully we laid out a road map for the way that the district can organize itself and then work with the city to uh solve some of those problems uh and and you know if if we thought this was just going to be filed on a shelf we would have bound it in leather for you uh but it's supposed to be living and working and you know that in fact we're meeting with the stakeholders this afternoon to talk about what would the next steps be for the community Howard we're going to we're going to expect like a fiveyear followup 10 year followup 20 year followup from you on this uh you'll get it I promise you uh I want to make one big point and this is one reason why I thought it was especially valuable to have our team come from outside uh all of you are very familiar when I showed those images we left out the fort but you know the fort is absolutely remarkable uh but the thing that our outside team and Doug Harman in particular because I think he would carry a lot of weight in his opinion with you uh as a former city manager and as head of the uh Fort Worth Convention and visitors bureau he was the one responsible for developing the concept

[2:11:39] of the Museum District in Fort Worth also the Stockyards district and downtown reinvestment and marketing them and the observation he had is I can't believe it you've got it all in one place we have our downtown our Museum District and the fort and related historic entities right there and there's virtually no other community that has that you know aggregate of wonderful assets but the fact is if you come to this town uh you might think that you're in a very unattractive area that there's nothing to see or do you'll come upon some of those assets such as the depot but most of what you see just doesn't give you the perception that it's something special or wonderful and all those things are at the doorstep when the rudat study was done they said you have all these great assets you can't even see them it cleared away a lot of the things that interfered with that so we're in an evolutionary process U I think councilwoman farmer your answer about the properties is obviously majority of them are owned by private individuals and we'd like to work with them and find ways to incentivize and even bring some ideas to their doorstep about what could happen One Vision we have by the way is an interesting one we'd like to find a way with perhaps a couple of those structures that could be used for something called skills preservation where you bring in people who have traditional skills that are disappearing such as saddle making boot making uh We've even talked to Howard College about the idea of developing vocational programs we did that at my museum in Philadelphia years ago boat building and people thought well why would anyone want to learn traditional boat building uh actually we turned out a number of multimillionaires who are now building fabulous yachts and so forth uh we have great Traditions here so we thought something like that might reinforce the historic character add to the attractiveness uh and if you've ever been to Kingsville and you see what the King Ranch has done they have this huge operation where they sell goods and materials and things that come off the

[2:13:41] ranch and and so it's ideas like that that we're uh working with and then the museum will continue with its own uh Dynamic efforts to show what can be done and and I think the thing I would say that underlies all this is the incredible asset that we have is Fort koncho and we don't want to take it for granted uh some people think we've done that you are never done doing a historic site like that and it's one of the most unique in America it's the second oldest major preservation effort in America after Williamsburg which was done by multi- multi-millionaires ours was done seed of the pants grassroot uh we've got to continue to invest in the fort I think it's like the Energizer of that entire area and that's uh we were glad to hear Fort Concho mentioned in your earlier discussion today too because that's how the city's been involved cap even small Capital Improvement projects incrementally building over the decades and it's not like someone's asking for $500 million to do something it's a it seems to be a natural part of your city Administration the park people uh it's really well done in our opinion the Ford is actually what St Angelo is mostly known for outside of the immediate area um the other thing that I wanted to stress is this is not the Cultural District is not a city project it's a project that has many many different feet in the water it's private investment it's neighborhood investment it's City investment but it it's a lot of energy that has to come up it has to be very organic for it to be successful and I think that is one of the things that this very large area has going for it there's a lot of different opportunities to strengthen the Cultural District and to to strengthen it as part of both sides of the river okay Mr silvas MIM let me ask you did you narrate this no that was not my voice I just I couldn't place it but you uh whoever did they they made an

[2:15:43] interesting point and and of course this area is near and dear to my heart you know it's SMD 3 and but it a point was made and I want to ask you or art what would you do to expand but the Hispanic History or lack of representation what what ideas are out there or are there any what what we suggested in the report is to create um a concept which might be an entity it might actually be an institution uh we just called it history San Angelo to begin and it would inclusive it would be broad it would cover all the time periods all the people and uh and making use of the strengths of the existing institutions but also adding the capability uh to go back in time and to reconstruct the other things that went on here so that would be the the chief venue that we would see as an opportunity for you and let me just add this before but I'm all about the frontier soldiers and the Buffalo Soldier I love history but when you have you know like it was mentioned that the population here is almost 50% Hispanic I feel like we're being left out of the the big picture so you know anything to entice anything to build that would I think would be a benefit to all of us and and I can speak to that um given my cultural background and cultural heritage I frequently have found myself on committees and planning um sessions where it's like how do we do this and one of the things that I've learned over the course of my career and my inv involvement in these projects is not to separate out different cultural groups to tell the complete story The the way to have everyone feel that they're participating and represented is to have them represented from the very beginning of the story and not layered in or added in it should be part of the initial interpretive uh plan it should be part of the plan for the overall District it's not that it was Buffalo Soldiers or Latinos or German settlers or who Irish settlers or anyone else it's tell the story Al together everyone has a stake

[2:17:46] in this and to to un ify the community I think the story has to be told Al together the other challenge that that exists in this community like all communities is that many of the nonprofits who would do this work are seriously underc capitalized um lack long-term plans and that's another area where there needs to be encouragement is for the organizational development that can take those tasks on I think one of the key tangible ideas that is percolating is how can we converge some of the interests that already exist the fort has incredible collections but they're not seen by anyone uh the barrows museum has astonishing collections that would uh are just unbelievable it's like a mini Smithsonian but also uh councilman Silas I wanted to particularly emphasize the art museum we have come into a collection that is incredible it's uh Spanish Colonial and Mexican religious art predominantly it's one of the finest collections in this nation even though we're a very small Museum and we were able recently to uh you know purchase some of the great masterpieces now that's about Mexico and Spain but it's also about our culture and an aspect of our culture that we don't recognize and when I say our culture it's a shared culture the language the food uh the Customs uh and also Heritage that goes back before Jamestown was founded Mexico City was already one of the great cultural capitals of the world people don't know that they don't have that own understanding of their Heritage and and appreciate it so we want to see how we can make our collections converge and also very deliberately our board is uh very culturally diverse our staff is more than 50% Hispanic and our exhibitions and the artists that we BR into brought into the community are at least a third uh reflecting uh Hispanic culture so that's an important thing and I think we're looking exactly as Mimi said a way to converge all these things into uh the other thing is we have a

[2:19:49] story in this community that is dazzling but it's Untold uh if you grow up in this town you might think you know I'm just a kid from this little town out in the middle of nowhere you start looking at the people who've achieved and created in this community it's amazing it's Way Beyond I think the the proportion of our size but no one knows that and we've got to really get that out there because we want to inspire our youth about they came from someplace very unique and very important and reinforce that idea than you okay um my I would say kudos to to the plan I think that it speaks a lot of s Angelo and and really who we are and and some of the history of what we have and the great places and you're you're exactly right I mean the Ford is a I mean it it's a gym it is truly a gym and and that's that's our centerpiece for uh where we need to be going in the future and doing more of expanding upon that and what Howard has at there and it's just it's it needs to build from that and so I applaud that uh with that I will say that I would like to make a motion to adopt the uh the plan as presented second how second three seconds so so I don't know what my ears maybe it's was because I was listening to Mr hille but I heard Miss farmer so I'll start there and and I have a motion in a second to approve this as presented do I have any public in input on this item make short comment absolutely okay in St Angelo we reach within our past to Define our future and to set a course for accomplishment and and I noticed that you're also helping us to Define our vision and and I saw in your list of what we need is a unified Vision it was number one on your list and then came way finding well you're helping it's kind of a back and forth process in which everybody has to pitch in you guys are helping tremendously because you're defining our past to where we know where we came from and where we're going and we always seem to link back you see what I'm saying we link back to kind of

[2:21:52] figure out where we're going from here that's who we are in San Angelo and and and really in San Angelo another thing I found is that diversity is a Common Thread it's just a way of life uh the different types of people and that we have here and and and we need to we need to expand uh and and we have the Asian women are trying to put it into an Asian uh cultural center and and we need all that so there could be a German Hispanic they could go on WE app I appreciate what you guys have doing I'm sure we all do and and it's it looks very successful as far as and it needs to be published Howard I agree with you publish it or or there's there's a lot of people who won't be exposed because we all have to be exposed to who we are to figure out where we're going from here and everybody needs to be a part of that okay call for the vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed okay thank you all very much okay all right I am going to take us into executive session then and then uh bring us back and we'll start with item number 20 okay it is uh 12:16 I'll take us into executive session we'll come back and start with item number 20 and let me read some of the language uh taking us into executive session we are entering executive session under provision of the government code Title 5 open government ethics subtitle a open government chapter 551 open meeting sub chapter D exceptions to the requirement that meetings be open section 551.071 to consult with an attorney and also on 551.071 to deliberate the purchase exchange lease or value of real property we are now in moving to Executive session folks I can call the meeting to order we're at 1:14 and moving back into General Session and item number 20 is public comments for and against annexation of certain property are you just looking for public comments just public comment on this one okay we're following the schedule on the

[2:23:55] comments uh just on these annexation projects and this is the second project that she showed us and today's date is for public comment on that item so correct this will be the second of the two public comment periods that we need to have and then we'll be bringing back to you on February 5th at your next meeting an ordinance to introduce to start the annexation process of this property um of the two that we've talked about this is the 8.99 5 acre section immediately adjacent to the Prestonwood Edition extending just north of Mills Pass Drive is shown on the attached slot any questions I can answer what have you sir have you heard any feedback from we've not on neither on this or the other annexation item we've not had any respons and the letters of notification went out on these yes and me uh just remember in this case this is a little different from our zoning cases and that the notification process is a little different with an annexation of the size the only notifications that go out are to utility companies um the property owner who initiated it so it should come as no surprise um and that's really the extent of the notification so it is handled in a different manner okay open this up to public comment at this time okay Miss fa I believe you cleared a hurdle okay thank you let's move on to item number 21 this is the first public hearing and consideration of an ordinance annexing property within St Angelo's existing City Limits and relating matters this is the first of the two annexations we started with a process on a couple months ago we'll refresh your memory on that but again to refresh your memory on where this site is this is a 20 acre tract it is located at just outside the city limits in Far Southwest St Angelo uh it is further down Sherwood Way and it is located at a Southward projection of Appaloosa Trail which is

[2:25:57] shown here with my pointer and it is the section of property that is immediately adjacent to the apartment complex which is currently under development and nearing completion in this area to remind you of the steps that we've taken in accordance with state law we did bring you a a petition from the property owners on this particular tract asking for annexation into the city limits that started on December 4th we did as required have two public comment sessions the First on December 18th the second on January 8th and as of today we are bringing you an ordinance that was in your background packets along with the report that briefly summarizes some of the issues in this area and if all goes well we will finalize this ordinance upon second reading at your next meeting on February 5th uh won't belabor some of the points that were made in the background report but in that report we do talk a little bit about the um sort of approach to annexation that's outlined for us in our comprehensive plan adopted in 2009 by this body we do talk about briefly that annexation should be used in a very purposeful sort of way and so there are some excerpts from that plan that we outlined for you that give us some specific Direction uh one of those principles is largely to look at areas where we can reasonably expect uh immediate or very quick development in that area uh looking at areas that are obviously in small enough pieces that we don't take on and encumber the city with large amounts of Capital Improvements for that area to develop uh luckily in this particular area all of the infrastructures in place I'll speak about that here in just a moment also we talk about looking at areas that are vacant so as to Annex those before they develop and we essentially might inherit through annexation problematic land use issues this property is vacant so again that is not an issue that we have to worry about in this particular area lastly we go through and talk about the notification process that we alluded to just a moment ago as well as

[2:28:00] reminding you about why this particular area is important to the city uh I mentioned Appaloosa Trail and the extension of that earlier we've had some discussion about this but to refresh your memory this is an excerpt from the city's thoroughfare plan Appaloosa Trail is shown here in a light blue and this shows the plan designation of that Appaloosa Trail to extend to connect to Oak Grove Boulevard and then eventually to Loop 306 uh as you can see in this particular segment of the community right now Southland Boulevard is really the only lateral um accessibility Into the Heart of this area so this is an opportunity to continue a particularly important connection for the city the notifications that we sent out as I mentioned earlier those are required to be sent to utility companies we did so were also required to notify the volunteer fire department that handles this area at the time uh Tom Green County and saisd we received no responses from those bodies we're not required to but we did take on the uh added step of sending notification to a variety of City departments that might have some say about the services that could be provided in this area or the needs of that area so we outlin those specifically in your background report but just to mention a few we did work with the police department the fire Department um our water utilities division Department rather uh the parks department Etc we' received no responses um and or concerns I should me mention from those groups we also tried to summarize for you what the main effect of this annexation would be we have to think about costs for the city such as maintenance costs infrastructure improvements and the like fortunately this area is already provided with infrastructure improvements when developed this 20 acres will be required to continue the extension of Appaloosa Trail um the streets in the area are of a good condition we do have a water and sewer Network in this area so it appears that there's no Capital Improvements that would be deemed necessary at this time or in the immediate future so essentially the uh main effect that you

[2:30:04] would have in annexing this property today and lastly on February 5th would be the maintenance of the infrastructure in the area and the services extended to that area no direct cost of this time that we can find if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer those for you Mr silus AJ go to the very beginning where it shows the the map that shows the lanch tell me where the adjacent apartment complex is being built this is probably the easier slide to see this is the 20 acre section this is a survey of the property here is that extension of Appaloosa Trail that's already in place that would continue through the property and the apartment complex is actually located here um on the smaller piece that is around three acres gotcha thank you m Miss farmer is the apartment complex currently in the city limits or it is currently in the city limits do we have an open burn band going at this time no no okay burn B is neither in the county nor in the city I believe at this time okay motion to approve second okay further questions uh public input mayor I was going to on public in you might get those folks to start moving to the front if you know okay thanks for the coaching there all right call for the vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed okay let's move on then to the next item this is item number 22 first public hearing and introduction of an ordinance amend amending the 2012 2013 budget for new projects and complete projects and grants good afternoon um Steve mafew with the budget office I'm going to briefly touch on each one of these amendments there are four amendments um within this item uh if you have any questions you can stop me at any time the First Amendment comes from our no

[2:32:07] Department Steve is it okay with you if we Kill the Messenger sure okay all right feel free all right um I can answer I can attempt to answer any questions uh again this is a routine carryover that did not make it on our November 20th routine carryovers um essentially what this is is we budget for what we know is coming in and then once the reimbursements are approved by the state then we go ahead and fix that number accordingly okay um for the Second Amendment uh this pertains to the cono River project that we have this is two different grants as well as a reimbursement from the ucra um again these grants were approved previously by Council we're just going in and fixing uh amending the budget according for those grants okay uh the third item is a it's a bulletproof vest partnership grant that we receive uh annually um again it's formality we're going in and now admitting the budget because we have received those funds the last item uh this is for it's Communications um fund what this is is this is the contract that was previously approved for the website redesign um I believe Mr Wilson went in and negotiated um to eliminate the annual rate increase he negotiated to go ahead and pay upfront costs um so we're going ahead and adjusting the fund balance taking the monies that were earmarked for this we're adjusting the budget taking that money out of the fund balance for that project okay are there questions on any of the four items is there a motion to approve this motion to approve is presented item 22 second okay got to re explain re explain the website please hang on just a moment I do have a motion in a second so that's in play okay now we're going to do further further questions and uh and there's a question on item number four about uh capturing some upfront expenses as opposed to paying for an increase every

[2:34:11] year is the way you described it we need further explanation on that is that what I'm hearing no oh we'll say it no I'm looking at the at this amount 67,000 I thought we had a 40,000 approved 6 or eight months ago and then you said we could do it for just a few thousand more so we approved 43 and now it's up to 675 right there's an additional $30,000 from what council previously approved and how that came about is you may recall on December the 18th when I was here last and you approved that I was asked if I could negotiate down the annual increase for for our hosting and subscription Services which we had already negotiated from 5% to 3% I got that eliminated on the condition that we pay that full five-year contract UPF front so by paying the full cost of the contract up front we are eliminating the 3% increase year-over-year well then that's my mistake because I understood that we were approving 43,000 period from 40 we were adding a little bit so that we could get these benefits and it would be 43,000 period outside I didn't know there was another 24,000 being added to that well again this is the council's choice and so the choice is either we can pay this on a year-to-year basis and incur a 3% rate increase year-over-year or we can pay the entire contract UPF front and eliminate the increase altogether and did you do the math uh no sir I'm afraid I didn't but it would be 3% per year starting at $6,000 year-over-year so you know you're talking in the neighborhood of you're better at math than I am right but four years right so you're talking about talking five this would be a 5year contract uh four increases yes sir over 30,000 four increases well it if you sit there and do the math if the first one's six okay and it's you he paid 24,000 extra 43 to 67 is what they said so the math on it is going to be slight savings

[2:36:13] by paying 67 but he paid he paid a chunk of the 3% increases UPF front saved some money by Say by paying it up front and when you look at time value of money also basically the interest we'll be earning holding on to that money is about 1 and a half% maybe that's right% yeah that's right and and so the 3% without compounding 3% of 6,000 I think is $180 so $180 A Year Without compounding yeah and uh you know if we kept that money money and if we could earn 1.2% over that time period if we invested with that Horizon in mind we might could do that uh we might earn half of that so there is a net saving it's not a tremendous amount but it is it is uh a better option a net saving Michael throw a compound right in there just hypothetical what 180 a year times what well the way that compounding would work is the first year you'd pay the 6,000 the second year you'd pay 6,180 the next year you'd pay 3% on top of 6180 which would it'd be way over 24,000 that's why it wouldn't be way over it would be some over that's why I said he saved some money 150 bucks okay 1,50 bucks Mr silvas yes there's your math that's why I was asking if you did the math thank you for doing the math for me, he he saved about $1,050 by negotiating to pay up front as opposed to paying 3% increases over time that we would have paid if we had that's correct stretch and again the reason that we did this is because the council asked us if we could negotiate that 3% down further right plus interest that we could occur so you went from the 3% to down to zero but then paid up front you paid that 24,000 extra up front that's correct correct prepaid Insurance well yeah okay you right I just understood it was 43,000

[2:38:17] period I didn't understand it was 43 plus and I asked that question I asked what is the total amount of this contract and I was told 43,000 Mr Morrison I think you're confusing what the cost of the redesign of the website is this is not related to the redesign of the website this is Rel related to the annual cost of the hosting of the website plus the subscription services that the council previously approved okay well how did you DOD Dodge all of that huh and why are you standing to the side just Wai for are you expecting somebody else to come up or hey if we do something to him do you send a bigger guy next time what is the deal on it's hard it's getting hard to recruit them bigger than this so okay all right all right I do have an ordance I do have a motion in a second that we accept this as presented Is there further public input let me call for this vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed okay item number 23 consideration of approving a naming rights proposal for the Senate we did table it thank you all for your help item number 24 I have I require a lot discussion of number 24 discussion of residential customers water consumption information this is a presentation by our assistant city manager Chief Financial Officer Michael B good afternoon good afternoon May and Council we presented some information last time uh related to residential water usage um for usage during the month of November uh we got a request to come back for and present usage amounts for August and so the presentation you're

[2:40:19] going to see is going to hopefully look very familiar uh same format but you will see that uh there are more customers in those higher usage ranges I think we had uh six or eight in that 81 to 100,000g usage in November and here in August we have 33 of them and and that is uh I think very intuitive you would expect during those hotter months with greater Demand on um plants that irrigation that that there would be more irrigation utilization you can still see that however that the bulk of this pie is occupied by 20,000 gallons or less so uh still a uh I I think especially for August a picture where people are conscious of their water usage and uh for the overwhelming majority of folks this talks about consumption in these relative levels so in this month in August 69% of the water utilized by residential customers was utilized by customers using 0 to 20,000 gallons if we go to the extreme for customers above 100,000 gallons in usage they represented 1% of the water usage so while these numbers represent a a large amount of water usage you can see that uh on an individual basis you can see that as far as our customer base goes in the month of August it represented only 1.2% of the total usage by residential customers um and so we do think of that as as high usage and extreme usage but

[2:42:23] um it uh it's good to see that that is not a widespread practice and that's almost but said another way I mean if you told if you told those people you can use no water you would still use 98.8% of the water that you used in August that's exactly right if you could completely cut those customers off that would would only affect uh the total usage by 1.2% that's and you're looking at that's to 2,976 th000 no that's two great question 2.9 Million gallons Godly one of the things we thought about it's it's easy to think about this when we're financially oriented when we're talking about trying to pay bills pay for contracts it's much more difficult than conservation oriented time or in a drought but these customers at the bottom of the page are our most lucrative customers they pay a higher cost per thousand gallons than these people down here recall that our rate structure starts with lower amounts and as you use greater amounts of water you pay a greater uh rate per thousand and so Mary has worked up for me a user at 24,000 gallons would pay an estimated $955 for their water charge for somebody at 65,000 Gall she's made this math hard for me uh which would be roughly two and a half times that number a customer would pay $607 that's 2.33% group l 61 to 80,000 at what drought level is this current drought level one 24,000 she's computed is 955 65,000 is

[2:44:27] 360 um 17 so for 2 and half times the usage you have over three and a half times the dollars almost four times in the current level we're in yes is that where that's what you said yes and it gets worse is it but so we'll keep on going I'm sorry 100 no I'm talking about 100,000 gallons what what what am I paying oh you don't have we I asked her to compute one example to illustrate the point that these users these high-end users pay a pay a higher amount per thousand and from a financial standpoint there are lucrative customers there are customers which are lucrative to us uh that's a difficult thing to think about in a drought but when you're talking about a financial picture you want customers who pay those High rates but it you're right it is a balance between collecting the revenues and having a product to sell but again if I'm using 100,000 gallons what what's the dollar what's sech charge over my usage you know we're at a and I lose track of numbers but what well I mean you have to go back and show you on a different presentation where the different numbers kick in in in drought level one he's saying he didn't do that today he they he gave you two examples 20 20 something, and 60 something th000 to show you that if you use three times as much water 20 something th000 paid you paid $95 60 something, you paid 360 so he was trying to show you that you you don't pay three times as much or you know you use three times as much water but you pay four and a half times as much money but he didn't give you any other examples he didn't go further I can only imagine when a 100,000 gallon user pays well that last thousand that they're using that last strata in this example is $10.52 per thousand uh for example the first 2,000 that you buy you pay $232 per thousand so that

[2:46:31] first, is $232 by the time you've used a hundred of them and it actually kicks in much lower uh you're paying five times that amount nearly $10 versus $2 right and so thousand it's from a financial picture we like to see people using in those ranges from a conservation picture it's it's a different it's a different answer and it's right and it's a complicated world because of evaporation a lot of I mean at some point you can't save yourself to Prosperity because the water goes away anyway so I mean it or you got to you know you got to there's some balance in all of this you you could say no one can use water and then it just sit in the liks and go away so and so like if I wasn't looking over here I'd know that I need to recognize someone over here miss farmer I need some help here and somebody remind me I'm recalling back this summer when we were struggling with when rates kick in at different drought levels and I was under the impression that um the next tier level of per thousand gallon expense did not kick in until we all agreed on 10,000 gallons that it it doesn't kick in at 2,000 at 3,000 at 4,000 it was it was 10,000 gallons if they exceeded 10,000 that's when it kicked into the drought level range good question it the base rates do change at those early levels but those drought levels kick in at higher levels so you are remembering correctly that at higher levels those drought stages begin to have an impact but for just uh regular usage for example the first 2,000 are $22.32 each the next three are $346 a piece see that's what I'm not understanding is I was under the understanding that it

[2:48:32] stayed at that same rate up to the 10,000 when we're in drought stage and then after the 10,000 gallons it kicks in at the higher rate um no the our water rates are are basically Progressive just like our beautiful tax code that we have you know as you start to use more I mean you're the rates go up from and I had that somewhere but it goes from 0 to 3,000 I believe and then 3,000 to 6,000 7,000 then Etc but the rates so incrementally go up so what you're saying is what we do on the drought levels starts starts at 10,000 but it adds to already Progressive corre they're two different systems merge but the first one's right but the first one's Progressive anyway right right second you pay more you and then you each other right so you got to see Mary's formula what she showed me it's pretty darn complicated and she keeps up with it because because you got to merge them together and she has to put that into the coding on the bill and you get it on your bill it's very complicated because we didn't merge them together we didn't start the points I got you we could have done maybe 9,000 or something it would have been in the same point but it's not that way I got you and and Johnny asked how much of that was search charged and that's what I'm looking for is eventually the bill shows how much was search charged so that the customer knows what we got them on on the drought levels see if you have that I'm looking Mr silus uh you asked for the August information I want to make sure that you kind of gotten the picture that you wanted yeah I I did get a picture uh you know it's kind of alarming either way I mean you've got 25,000 customers using 91% of you know the usage and then you have 22 residential folks using over a 100,000 gallons a month is that over a 100 yes sir over 100 but I think in uh November

[2:50:36] I think there were none over a 100 you remember none over a 100 in November well there's probably not going to be any in November December January February well we do get them that show up that way uh but they tend to be leaks you know somebody will have a 100,000 gallon Bill and their normal usage is far below that what happens is they come in and make a claim for a leak because they've had a pipe break or or just a league or something but um um we're not seeing routine where we didn't see in for November routine type usage above 100 are are you able to distinguish like these 22 folks or even the 33 are these are we talking about large properties do you know does Mary no or we didn't look into that uh as part of this exercise I think we can probably look internally at those addresses and and make some determination but um there is a privacy line there at some point we would reach and would not want to cross but we didn't even go that way we thought we'd see what you thought about the usage and go from there there it was awesome to see that thank you all right thank you not asking for Action nope just a discussion item okay at this time then I'm going to move us into followup and administrative issues and uh item number 25 the the only thing was uh whether or not someone wanted to ask for an agenda item in a future executive session uh there was nothing acted on that requires action in the open session so and then 26 is announcements I made the announcements of the I made the announcements of the uh of the U kind of railroad oriented stuff Mr Valen way has made good progress on that and the housing oriented deal and you've made some progress and you're

[2:52:37] moving forward on that so I think that's taking care of itself and uh and so at this time it's a consideration of future agenda items I know earlier Mr Morrison asked that we consider Mr vardaman and I have been asked by a group of people in in that group that we uh consider another gentleman uh for appointment and so I think we'll we do need to take that on at the next at the next Council uh meeting and well it shouldn't the topic I mean well the topic should be whether we assign or not amen yeah no no I'm sorry I didn't mean I didn't mean yeah I said I had a person he had a person and then and then the topic of whether you want to do anything okay okay and whether or not you want to do anything I mean we're a 100 days from an election but we're also getting some guidance guidance on do we have to call one within 90 days uh a special election or is there a way for us to figure out how how to let this just be part of the normal election so so we've got a little bit of work that we're going to need need some help from staffon okay but so by the time we have another council meeting we should be able to know what we can and can't do on that election issue and know what we want to do or not as it relates to a six to nothing vote on a unanimous vote to place someone in that position lot of okay until why don't we put this on the agenda for discussion to see if we're even interested in filling the position and but also the education right what what does the what does it require and all that let's put it on for discussion and then we'll know the next meeting what we want to do that's a great idea okay because you saw today we couldn't sneeze in in you know in in fear of having a or not having a quorum so I'd hate to to be in that predicament all the time cuz you know one of us would easily get ill or something else comes up and then you guys your hands are tied

[2:54:41] you can't sneeze so be interesting I you know I know that you you operated with a six uh member Council for some time when I was running uh for mayor so I've watched it uh I know and I know that it can function and and there are some some Mr service that would say that we'd be better off if we couldn't function so anyway okay uh what other future agenda items mayor I do have um we talked at the last meeting as far as the strategic planning workshop for the 19 18 of February that's that's out of the question we'll actually be out of town on the POR to Plains um item so we're looking at then the final week of February if we could set aside a full day within that week um and even we went into the following Tuesday that would be February the 26th that would be a possibility for uh for you uh I can have Becky coordinated with all of you as far as the date or time that uh would be best for all of you the council day right no the the 19th is a council day okay 26 is the m right 26th would be an extra meeting it'll be an extra meeting date but I I do need the the full day so so you're saying start it on the 19th or no no we'll be out of town on the 19th with P PL got it so do it on the 26 on the 26th if I can had a full day that would be wonderful 26th good good we're good okay the 26th and we'll start at the regular time we we would to city council 9:00 about the now uh pors the plains um I know but will we lose enough people that we need to cancel that meeting completely Charlotte will be um Miss farmer will be out of town also um other than that I don't believe I think everybody else should be in town on the 19th is that correct okay so as long as all five we have five we'll be okay so we would have a normal meetings on uh on like the 4th and 19th or whatever the fifth and the 19th and then and then a workshop 26 correct 26 okay

[2:56:46] thank you thank you mayor thank you the uh Sean from the cont cono Valley Transit District has informed me that the terms are coming up for the city's appointees to that board those appointees are all council members is the reason I bring that up and uh uh I believe that uh Mr Alexander Mr silvus and Mr Adams have been our appointees uh and with those terms expiring and with it for the transit board yes sir okay and with being council members I wanted to give you guys the heads up so you could be thinking about it and of course we'll be following up with the the city clerk to make sure we jump through those Hoops properly I think they're they would like I think the email they sent requested those names by February 9th which would mean at the next meeting we'll need to make those decisions if we choose to comply okay okay other items I have one that I'm just going to throw throw out there throw up there I have been it's been brought to my attention that the sale of K2 is running rampant in our community and I don't know whether we have our hands tied it kind of sounds like we do uh state law I guess supersedes our local law everything's okay so I don't I'm just throwing that out there I know there's some citizens concerned that that is going well my my understanding of it is that we I mean we passed as wide a net ordinance as we could but that the issue that gets us in trouble according to what I understand is when they change a compound whether or not our ordinate still exactly still covers it or not we can't discuss this but I certainly uh did communicate uh to one and all that the state has has determined in 2011 they determined it was a controlled substance and they put it on a drug

[2:58:50] schedule it is now classified as a Class B misdemeanor at the lower level on up to felony and state felonies I really kind we have an ordinance so walk us through whether or not it needs to be a future agenda item to look at the ordinance I guess or is the state law already superseding and we move on I mean I think that's the discussion the the position uh that I would take if if I was requested at a future agenda to talk about the viability of an ordinance that's now preempted because the sale of that drug or purchase possession is now um how about we add a future to discuss that thoroughly and possibly include Chief in that too so perfect great okay what else all right Fred Adams has resigned and he was the other person on the housing committee for uh looking at the Klein Shell Oil boom I'm on that committee so I don't have a partner that's that's part of it we probably should have put somebody else on that and then the second thing is uh this is this next meeting is the meeting we need to be talking about do we move the South Pole water because if you look at the evaporation schedule and when to move it you want to have it moved by June when you're in the peak of Summer and we're and we're losing uh many thousands of acre feet of water we waited too long last year I told people we wouldn't make that mistake again so we need to get on it and discuss it at least okay so Mr Dixon can start boning up on that issue and and we should talk about that soon I agree with you completely so that should be a future agenda item for sure that we're talking about when when would we want to take water from the south pool to the north pool at Twin views okay and what as far as uh pumping like we did last year and so great what the other issue uh is it Miss farmer and who's on who's

[3:00:54] working on the railroad issue those two the railroad issue though seems to be fairly slow Andro actually issue yeah U we'll discuss that um I did U kind of brief you on what I discovered actually out of um a predial and um I need to brief you also so okay the housing issue then was going to be um um Mr Alexander and Mr Adams and that is uh dealing with the and you've got movement on that too with the realtor Association and the apartment association I'm meeting with the apartment association this week actually so we have a the Builders Association and also the Association of Realtors and now the apartment association coming up this weekend okay I'll I'll join you on that okay okay I do have one I just thought about and I'm reminded every time I come to the meeting but maybe Rick or I I put a bug in Carl's ear but can we look at or what can we do to get them a new Marquee or LED sign up front are are we looking into it uh our our sign out here in front of the convention center the old one the old sign replace that are we it it's something that actually I think the Civic events board has discussed and there's various options one there are some retaining dollars from when we cons we renovated this building dealing with the floor but there's also a discussion that will be coming to you all in the future about how to utilize Hot Dollars uh that are coming in so that's a broader discussion so I would say that that may actually enter into those discussions as a whole but that discussion is much bigger than just that so okay motion to adjourn than okay motion I think it was Dwayne call those all in all those in favor please say I I okay any opposed sorry got

[3:02:59] you

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=sj8s94nI76c